Aristotelian Works in Seventeenth-century China

Abstract

Between 1623 and 1640, Jesuits in China published nine Aristotelian works in the domains of logics, natural philosophy and ethics. Some forty years later, under the Qing dynasty, Ferdinand Verbiest integrated those previous works into a unified and comprehensive philosophical handbook, which he presented to the Kangxi emperor. We shall present here the philosophical background of this translation project, analyze the main features of those Aristotelian works and reflect on their degree of compatibility with Chinese culture.