Locke And China:a Critical Study Of John Locke’s"Notes On China"

As the most important thinker of British Empiricism, John Locke has long been taken to be unrelated with China by scholars both at home and abroad. As a result, a key part has been missing from Locke studies as well as the research on Sino-West cultural communications in the17th century, namely Locke’s knowledge of China. This dissertation focuses on Locke’s "Notes on China"-a manuscript on China in the "Lovelace Collection" of the papers of John Locke in the Bodleian Library. By sorting, presenting and analyzing its contextualization, content and structure, pre-perception and information source, I endeavoured to provide a complete and accurate presentation of this brand-new material and do a systematic analysis of Locke’s view on China in the context of Sino-West cultural communications. As a philological study, this dissertation does not include the relationship between Locke’s "Notes on China" and his philosophy or the influence of "Notes on China" on the Western thought. There are altogether seven chapters categorized into four parts:Part one (Chapter One) introduces the contextualization from the aspects of "Chinese Rites Controversy","the Enlightenment" and the European "Sino-craze" or "chinoiserie". Part two (Chapter Two&Three) presents Locke’s "Notes on China" from the aspects of its collection, condition, transcription and translation, which is the core of this dissertation. Part three (Chapter Four&Five) studies the pre-perception of Locke’s "Notes on China", including Locke’s view of China in his letters and works. Part four (Chapter Six&Seven) tracks the information source of Locke’s "Notes on China", taking Locke’s library as the major information source of his knowledge of China and Historia Cultus Sinensium as the direct information source of his "Notes on China". Based on current materials, three preliminary conclusions are ventured:Firstly, the core of Locke’s knowledge of China is his view on Chinese religion "the sect of the Litterati, or Learned, keeping to the old religion of China, and the ruling party there, are all of them atheist." Locke first stated it in Book I Chapter IV§8of his Essay (4th edition) and later elaborated it in his "Notes on China". Secondly, Locke showed an interest on China quite early. He cited the Chinese customs in his unpublished works when he was in his twenties. However, Locke didn’t begin a serious study on China until his later years. From the year of1696, China began to appear frequently in his correspondence. Up to half of his library was published between1697-1704. The4th edition of his Essay where he first stated his view on the Chinese religion was published in1699. He wrote the "Notes on China" in or after1702. Thirdly, although the "Chinese Rites Controversy" is a major information source of Locke’s knowledge of China and his "Notes on China" is primarily based on Historia Cultus Sinensium, Locke has always been concentrating on the factual description of the Chinese religion and rites on which his conclusion is based. It seems that Locke has always been indifferent and alienated from the "Chinese Rites Controversy" itself. As an Anglican, Locke’s attitude to the controversy inside the Catholic Church is not surprising. The main innovative research work of this dissertation can be summarized as follows:(1) New perspective. As an important theme in the history of Western thought, Locke studies has covered almost everything in Locke’s life and thought except Locke’s view on China. In the realm of Sino-West cultural communications,"the European view on China in the Enlightenment","European’Sino-craze’in the18th century" and "Leibniz and China" have all been intensively studies, however, nobody has paid attention to "Locke and China". This dissertation is the first endeavour to study Locke’s view on China.(2) New material. On the one hand, never published before, Locke’s "Notes on China" is a brand-new material. On the other hand, there are no other versions of Historia Cultus Sinensium than the Latin version. This dissertation includes the English translation of the relevant parts of Historia Cultus Sinensium, which provides a new material for the research on "Chinese Rites Controvesy".(3) New method. Due to the characteristic of the subject, this dissertation chooses to follow the Western tradition of philology, focusing on bibliography, grammar, transcription, translation and interpretation of Locke’s "Notes on China" and sorting out the pre-perception and information source of Locke’s "Notes on China" in his library, works and correspondence. It’s the first time for a Chinese author to apply the western tradition of philology in comparative literature and sinology studies. So it is a new method in the realm of inter-cultural and inter-disciplinary studies.