Figurist Heavenly Studies among French Jesuits in the Early Modern Period

Abstract

This study aims to develop a reciprocal worldview based on a dialogue between civilizations and the empathetic knowledge network of communication and solidarity between the East and West. It investigates French Jesuit missionaries’ perceptions and knowledge system of the Confucian Orient in the early modern period (the 16th–18th centuries). It establishes a positive image of East Asia and highlights the coexistence of different civilizations along the East-West communication continuum while dispelling negative impressions of East Asia and the closed East-West relationship created by modern Orientalism. It recognizes the issues of prior comparative cultural research and proposes an alternative discussion of Figurism (heavenly studies) (tianxue, 天學) in early modern French Jesuits’ studies of East Asia from the perspective of comparative cultural imagology. In short, focusing on Chinese Figurism, it reveals a positive cultural image of the Confucian civilization, universal biblical self-identification, the Hermetic revelation of truth, and the knowledge system of cultural identification.