However, his desire to move beyond a mere hermeneutics of Chinese spiritual systems (Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism) to the idea of cross-cultural exchange in the areas where one civilisation was ahead of the other (according to Leibniz the Chinese were ahead in practical philosophy, while the Europeans had much to offer China in the speculative sciences), deserves recognition to this day: he was the first representative of the classical school of European philosophy to knowingly reject Eurocentrism. Leibniz’s emphasis on discerning and understanding the similarities and differences in the comparative interpretation of Western and Eastern philosophy was therefore entirely appropriate, if only because the roots of cross-civilisational strife often dig down into areas of misunderstood and distorted ideals.
In other words, the complex broader contexts which cultures use to create their identity and which the European cultural tradition refers to as philosophy. The history of trans-cultural relations contains people’s basic attitudes to the world and to humanity, to Nature and society, to order and hierarchies, to values and wisdom, and to knowledge. Leibniz was able to read books about China which dealt predominantly with geography and trade, and which also made some comparisons with regards to possible Christianisation ( Kircher, 1667), but the subject of philosophy had yet to be touched upon. The difference lay precisely in his transferring the focal point of knowledge to philosophy. In this sense he saw China as the “Europe of the Orient” and as such susceptible to investigation using the same tools of natural philosophy with which Leibniz was familiar from European scholarship. His historical contribution lies in his presentation of Europe and China as two distinct ways of contemplating the world, both fully comparable and resulting in types of societies at the same high institutional, economic, technological, political and moral level. Leibniz was not the one to discover China, as far as Western culture was concerned. One voice that could be heard when modern contact began between the European West (here we must include the Tsardom of Russia) and China was that of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), whose work is considered the beginning of a rational interpretation of Chinese philosophy, religion and knowledge generally (e.g. And rightly so, because such sentiments brought these critics outside the established order, where the recognition and understanding of others was suppressed by the pressures of conquest, control and baptism. Even today the Occident insists on supremacy and to be the deciding voice in intercultural relations, and for the education of others it offers only brute force (economic, political) and powerful (military) methods, applying them thoughtlessly and without hesitation.Ĭalls for the Occident to learn from others therefore did not happen often. If such a standard were to be applied, European or Western culture in general would seem childlike the history of the Occident is one of cultural arrogance, of a culture that imposed the notion of its superiority and sovereignty over all other cultures. The ability to learn, that is to allow other cultures or civilisations to influence one’s thinking, may be considered one of the hallmarks of cultural development. The first require a great deal of self-importance, as well as an even larger dose of arrogance, while cultures with the capacity to learn from others need only the mature self-confidence necessary to comprehend their own limitations and shortcomings, and to prevent their foundations from being undermined. Cultures may be divided into those with the characteristic propensity to preach to others and those which are able to learn from others.
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