著者

辻 高広

出版者

桃山学院大学総合研究所

雑誌

桃山学院大学総合研究所紀要 = ST. ANDREW'S UNIVERSITY BULLETIN OF THE RESEARCH INSTITUTE (ISSN:1346048X)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.44, no.3, pp.75-93, 2019-03-14

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This paper examines differences between how the Kangxi Emperor and Verbiest perceivedearthquakes to investigate the acceptance of Western scientific knowledge in Ming and QingChina. Verbiest and other Jesuit missionaries, together with the Kangxi Emperor, explained thecauses as well as regional differences in magnitude and frequency of earthquakes with referenceto the concept of qi and its effect on soil. Past research has interpreted this in the context of theintroduction of advanced Western science and technology to Ming and Qing China, where scienceand technology had stagnated. By contrast, this paper presents a new perspective on the receptionof Western scientific knowledge in the early Qing period based on a detailed comparativeanalysis of both parties’ theories. The findings of my analysis are detailed as follows.In the work Kunyu tu shuo, Verbiest used the concept of qi as the Chinese translation of“pneuma” as discussed in Aristotelianism. Moreover, unlike his Jesuit predecessors, he did notwrite Kunyu tu shuo simply as a means of science-based proselytization, but rather organized anddeveloped earlier findings on the basis of his own scientific ideas, eliminating the missionary elementsseen in earlier works, and thereby produced Kunyu tu shuo as a purely scientific text.On the other hand, the Kangxi Emperor consistently explained the concept of qi from thestandpoint of the dual li-qi theory of Zhu Xi Neo-Confucianism; thus, while the term qi is similarlyused, it is not necessarily possible to place the two in a direct relationship of scholarly lineage.While Zhu Xi understood qi as what makes up the ground, the Kangxi Emperor convertedthe qi concept to mean what exists underground and shakes the ground. This scholarly understandingwent beyond the confines of traditional Chinese science, suggesting the influence ofWestern science on the Kangxi Emperor and especially that of Verbiest, his academic teacher.The Kangxi Emperor further pointed out the propagation of seismic waves toward the periphery,which is never referenced in even any of Verbiest’s works. This shows that the Kangxi Emperoracquired his own scientific attitude based on Western empiricism, which he applied and developed,resulting in the creation of his own unique seismology.