Dao De And Ren Yi Li Zhi Xin In The Western Translations Of The Confucian Classics

The translation of Confucian classics is one of the most difficult points in the cultural exchange between China and the West.At the end of Ming Dynasty,the European missionaries(Jesuits)carefully studied the Confucian culture wrote several Sinology masterpieces in both Western languages(mainly Latin)and Chinese.This thesis is based on the Confucian Classics Translated by the Italian missionary Prospero Intorcetta who came to China in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty and seven concepts related to the basic structure of Chinese culture,the so called,Wuchang or Five Cardinal Virtues,Dao and De,to make a comparison study on Chinese and Western cultures.As we all know,"Wuchang" is the basic principle and norm of Chinese ethics.There is no doubt that he is also aware of this,so he keeps a rather cautious attitude towards the translation of this wide-ranging concept.Although his translation includes Latin correspondence to "Ren,Yi,Li,Zhi and Xin",in glossary of the four books by Thierry Meynard,we can see that many unique concepts of Confucianism do not have a fixed translation option,so we can see that Prospero Intorcetta and the other Jesuits were very cautious in their translation attitude.Ignigo Lopez de Loyola,the founder of Jesuits,regards Thomas Aquinas and his complete works of theology as the core of philosophy and theology of the Jesuits.Filippo mignini,an Italian Sinologist thinks that their "identity" of hermeneuticians had a great influence on the missionary activities of Jesuits at that time.This is because the Jesuits in China at the end of Ming Dynasty and the beginning of Qing Dynasty acted as the interpreters of European civilization Classics(including the Bible).The study of Chinese classics by Jesuits can not be separated from their exegesis of European classics.Matteo Ricci thinks that Chinese classics are indispensable to the study of Jesuits Wisdom is close to the European classical culture(ancient Roman and Greek Culture),so the translation of Yin duo Ze is full of western ethics and philosophy terms.This paper focuses on the seven traditional Chinese philosophical concepts of "Ren","Yi","Li","Zhi","Xin","Dao" and "de",and discusses the similarities and differences between these concepts and the western classical academic understanding by comparing them with the corresponding Latin terms in Prospero Intorcetta's translation,so as to think about some universal value demands and ethical identity of the human community.