Enlightened Missions: Jesuit Scientific Culture in Late Imperial China

在过去的二十年里，学术界对“耶稣会科学”这一现象的兴趣显著复苏。是什么吸引了当代历史学家和科学社会学家对16世纪为拯救灵魂而建立的天主教宗教秩序成员所从事的科学活动？由于其组织的复杂性、其学校和传教的全球性广度和持久性以及其丰富的历史记录，耶稣会提供了一个极具潜力的案例研究，可以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的相互作用。在这方面特别令人感兴趣的是帝国晚期中国(17-18世纪)的耶稣会传教。它的重要科学组成部分得到了学者们的广泛研究，他们对耶稣会对自然现象的专门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早期的现代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将耶稣会视为一个铁板一块的机构，它显然享有很少的科学界拥有的组织效率、凝聚力和意识形态纪律。这种学术研究的方法论理所当然地认为，企业“政策”对特定社会机构参与者的影响是自上而下的。然而，晚期帝制中国的耶稣会传教士并没有在中国身上宣传同质化的科学工作纲领，他们也没有在评价中国科学史方面发出统一的声音。拟议的项目为理解帝国晚期中国时期的法国耶稣会科学文化建立了一个新的分析框架，该框架侧重于从欧洲角度撰写的科学身份、科学著作体裁和非西方科学史等问题。在早期现代欧洲与非欧洲世界的接触中，耶稣会传教士岌岌可危地站在前线，利用他们的科学专业知识吸引许多受众，从帝国天文局的中国和满族同事，到统治天皇，到耶稣会士同僚，教会上级，以及早期现代欧洲科学学会的成员(伦敦皇家学会、巴黎皇家科学院和圣彼得堡的帝国科学院)。中国的耶稣会科学实践者从事着相应广泛的兴趣，从观测月食、磁场变化和木星对其卫星的掩星活动，到帝国赞助的天国地图和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话题的方式多种多样，有时甚至不一致，只有在考虑到这些中间人在东西方之间占据的独特文化背景下进行评估时，才有意义。该项目将对研究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，以及早期现代欧洲历史学家如何理解天主教学者文化在欧洲启蒙运动中所起的作用做出重大贡献。更广泛地说，该项目对中国晚期耶稣会事件的重新评估，为分析跨文化科学传播、科学活动的社会意义以及评估科学与宗教之间的关系所涉及的复杂性提供了一个具有历史敏感性和教育有效性的方法的模型。

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.