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Discording Enlightenments on China: Pierre Bayle’s Skepticism vs Johan Jacob Brucker’s Exoticism

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Ambrogio S.

Dialogue and Universalism

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2021

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issue 3

157-177

EN

It is usually acknowledged that the core contribution of the Enlightenment is primarily twofold: the first being the introduction of reason and science as judgmental principles, and the second being the belief in the future progress of humankind as a shared destiny for humanity. This ‘modern’ reason—an exclusively human prerogative among creatures—could be applied to create a better society from the political, civil, educational, scientific, and religious points of view. What is usually less known is that for most of the Enlightenment thinkers, this philosophical and cultural step was the prerogative of European or Western-educated thinkers, which implied a gradual exclusion of extra-European civilizations from human progress as a natural phenomenon. Thus, with the exception of a few French libertines, the creation of a better society was due to reason and critical thinking absent in other civilizations, who could, at most, inherit this ‘rational power’ from Western education. This exclusion, which is usually attributed to the violence of the colonialist period, is already implied in the arguments of several Enlightenment thinkers. Our investigation will follow three steps: an exposition of the three Western historical paradigms in which Eastern civilizations were inserted between the 17th and 18th century; a comparison between the attitude toward China and Buddhism of two very distant philosophers of the Enlightenment—i.e. Pierre Bayle (1647– 1706) and Johann Jacob Brucker (1696–1770)—and a brief reflection on the Enlightenment from an ‘external/exotic’ point of view that will suggest the necessity of a ‘new skeptical Enlightenment’ for inducing actual intercultural dialogue.

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In Search for the Exotic: Colin Thubron and William Dalrymple’s Journeys to the Eastern Fount of Christianity

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Kowalczyk-Piaseczna M.

Przegląd Humanistyczny

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2015

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vol. 59(2 (449))

33-43

EN

Odwołując się do Saidowskiego rozumienia praktyk orientalizacyjnych jako realizacji potrzeb kolonizacji Wschodu, niniejszy artykuł ma za zadanie zaprezentować obecność owych praktyk w postkolonialnej literaturze podróżniczej. Analiza dwóch tekstów autorstwa brytyjskich podróżników opisujących swoją podróż w rejony Bliskiego Wschodu: Williama Dalrymple’a From the Holy Mountain i Colina Thubrona Mirror to Damascus, ma za zadanie przedstawić sposób, w jaki przekonanie o egzotyce wchodnich obszarów, głęboko zakorzenione w kulturze europejskiej, prowokuje rozczarowania eurocentrycznym sposobem klasyfikacji tego obszaru oraz potrzebę poszerzenia znaczenia egzotyki o element europejskiej tożsamości.

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Imagology and Exoticism in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters

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Majid Y. B.

Human and Social Studies

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2013

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vol. 2

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issue 3

113-123

EN

This article aims at highlighting the specificities of Gaston Bachelard’s «La poétique de la rêverie» (The Poetics of Reverie), seen as the pivot of Motesquieu’s imaginary creation in Persian Letters. The Same and the Other are two essential terms when trying to find the place imagology plays in an intercultural approach where France and Persia are associated with an enchanted exoticism. Criteria such as space, taste, the marvellous and verisimilitude will be examined in order to analyse the images vehiculated by the perceived society (France) and by the perceiving one (Persia) and to evaluate Montesquieu’s genius for social irony.

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1 Dialogue and Universalism

1 Human and Social Studies

1 Przegląd Humanistyczny

1 Ambrogio S.

1 Kowalczyk-Piaseczna M.

1 Majid Y. B.

1 2021

1 2015

1 2013

Discording Enlightenments on China: Pierre Bayle’s Skepticism vs Johan Jacob Brucker’s Exoticism

In Search for the Exotic: Colin Thubron and William Dalrymple’s Journeys to the Eastern Fount of Christianity

Imagology and Exoticism in Montesquieu’s Persian Letters