Circulation of knowledge between Europe and China in the 17th-18th centuries: The role of material objects, from gadgets to instruments

Abstract

In the multiform circulation of knowledge from Europe to China, also objects had a special role often ignored so far, as its materialization, carrying knowledge (as e.g. books are doing), visualizing (diagrams) or producing it (instruments), or being subject to practices and techniques. As such, the various forms of these objects rose -according to the social context in which they circulate in China- amazement or excitement (“voluptas”) and intellectual curiosity, or produced public profit (“usus”). In this first, tentative overview I start from a selection of 6 representative texts (lists), covering the period up to the first half of the 18th century included, which results in a typological scheme, and the subdivision over 7 classes. Among these, I focused especially on the instruments and other devices (tools, etc.), for their central role in the transmission of Western technology, in astronomy, hydraulics, ballistics, mechanics, even medicine. The most advanced European houses of production (Chapotot, ...