India and China within Perennial Philosophy. A Central Theme of Philosophical Historiography between the 17th and 18th Centuries

Abstract

The paper deals with both historiography and intercultural philosophy, trying to offer a detailed account of the long European interpretation of other civilizations, namely India and China, from the Renaissance neo-platonic thinkers to the late Enlightenment. Neo-platonism provided the most influential historiogaphic model for at least two centuries - “perennial philosophy.” According to this model, all philosophies and philosophers – of the world and of all times – were part of an ancient lineage of wisdom, that went back to God or at least the patriarchs. India and China were inserted within this historiographic model not without several hermeneutic and chronological problems. The life of this model covered all centuries I investigated, undergoing continuous new interpretations and drastic changes also caused by these two civilizations. The real crisis of this model may be found in Heumann and Brücker, representatives of the anti-Wolfian German Philosophy. However, I claim that, even if harshly criticized, the perennial philosophy model survived in new ways through the 19th century.