Enlightened Missions: Jesuit Scientific Culture in Late Imperial China

过去二十年来，学术界对“耶稣会科学”现象的兴趣显著复苏。是什么吸引了当代的科学历史学家和社会学家去关注16世纪为拯救灵魂而建立的天主教会成员所从事的科学活动？由于其组织的复杂性，其学校和使命的全球广度和寿命，以及其历史记录的丰富性，耶稣会提供了一个重新思考社会价值观（特别是宗教信仰）与科学知识和实践之间相互作用的巨大潜力的案例研究。在这方面特别令人感兴趣的是耶稣会在中国帝国晚期（17 - 18世纪）的传教。它重要的科学成分被学者们广泛研究，他们对耶稣会对自然现象的专业知识如何与宗教皈依的目标联系在一起，以及科学知识和实践如何从近代早期的欧洲传播到帝国晚期的中国感兴趣。目前关于耶稣会科学的学术研究将耶稣会视为一个整体机构，它显然享有组织效率、凝聚力和意识形态纪律的水平，这是很少有科学团体拥有的。这种学术研究的方法论认为，公司“政策”对特定社会机构参与者自上而下的影响是理所当然的。然而，在帝制晚期的中国，耶稣会传教士并没有在中国传播一套统一的科学工作计划；在评价中国科学史时，他们也没有统一的声音。拟建项目为理解帝制晚期中国的法国耶稣会科学文化建立了一个新的分析框架，重点关注科学身份、科学写作体裁以及从欧洲视角撰写的非西方科学史等问题。耶稣会传教士站在近代早期欧洲与非欧洲世界接触的前沿，他们利用自己的科学专长吸引了许多听众，从帝国天文局的中国和满族同事，到执政的皇帝，再到耶稣会同伴，教会的上级，以及近代早期欧洲科学协会的成员(伦敦皇家学会，巴黎皇家科学院，以及圣彼得堡的帝国科学院)。在中国的耶稣会科学实践者相应地追求广泛的兴趣，从观察月食、地磁变化和木星掩星，到帝国赞助的天朝地图，以及欧洲学者对中国科学传统的一些最早的持续研究。耶稣会传教士处理这些问题的方式多样，有时不一致，只有在东西方之间这些中间人所占据的独特文化背景下进行评估时才有意义。该项目将对早期现代欧洲科学的历史学家如何理解耶稣会案例的重要性，以及早期现代欧洲的历史学家如何理解天主教学者文化在欧洲启蒙运动中所扮演的角色做出重大贡献。更广泛地说，该项目对中国帝制后期耶稣会事件的重新评估，为分析跨文化科学循环、科学活动的社会意义以及评估科学与宗教关系所涉及的复杂性提供了一个具有历史敏感性和教学有效性的方法模型。

The past two decades have witnessed a remarkable resurgence of scholarly interest in the phenomenon of "Jesuit science". What has attracted contemporary historians and sociologists of science to the scientific activities undertaken by the members of a Catholic religious order that was founded in the sixteenth century for the salvation of souls? Thanks to its organizational complexity, the global breadth and longevity of its schools and missions, and the richness of its historical record, the Society of Jesus presents a case study of great potential for rethinking the interplay between social values (especially religious beliefs), and scientific knowledge and practice. Of particular interest in this regard is the Jesuit mission in late imperial China (seventeenth-eighteenth centuries). Its significant scientific component has been studied extensively by scholars interested in how Jesuit expertise with natural phenomena became bound up with goals of religious conversion, and in how scientific knowledge and practice were transmitted from early modern Europe to late imperial China. Current scholarship on Jesuit science treats the Society of Jesus as a monolithic institution, which apparently enjoyed a level of organizational efficiency, cohesion, and ideological discipline that few, if any, scientific communities possess. The methodology underlying this scholarship takes for granted the top-down influence of corporate "policies" on participants in specific social institutions. Yet Jesuit missionaries in late imperial China did not propagate a homogenous program of scientific work in China; nor did they speak with a unified voice in evaluating the history of Chinese science. The proposed project establishes a new analytical framework for understanding the culture of French Jesuit science in late imperial China, one focused on issues of scientific identity, genres of scientific writing, and histories of non-Western science written from European perspectives. Perched precariously on the frontlines of the early modern European encounter with the non-European world, Jesuit missionaries made use of their scientific expertise to appeal to many audiences, from Chinese and Manchu colleagues in the imperial Bureau of Astronomy, and to the ruling emperor, to fellow Jesuits, ecclesiastical superiors, and members of early modern European scientific societies (the Royal Society of London, the Paris Academie Royale des Sciences, and the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg). Jesuit scientific practitioners in China pursued a correspondingly wide range of interests, from observations of lunar eclipses, magnetic variation, and Jupiter's occultations of its moons, to an imperially-sponsored map of the Celestial Empire and some of the earliest sustained studies of the Chinese scientific tradition by European scholars. The varied and sometimes inconsistent ways in which Jesuit missionaries approached these topics only make sense when evaluated in light of the unique cultural context occupied by these brokers between East and West. The project will contribute significantly to how historians of early modern European science understand the import of the Jesuit case, as well as to how historians of early modern Europe understand the role played by Catholic savant culture in the European Enlightenment. More broadly, the project's reevaluation of the Jesuit episode in late imperial China provides a model for a historically sensitive and pedagogically effective approach to analyzing cross-cultural scientific circulation, the social significance of scientific activity, and the complexities involved in appraising the relationship between science and religion.