Nicholas Adams: European Philosophical Fantasies of China
Lecture I:
Topic: Bayle: Compulsion and Conscience
Speaker: Nicholas Adams Department of Theology and ReligionUniversity of Birmingham
Host: Benoît Vermander魏明德
Time: September 10th, 2025 @15:30
Venue: Room 2301 West Main Building, Guanghua Building
Lecture II
Topic: Leibniz: Harmony and Analogy
Speaker: Nicholas Adams Department of Theology and ReligionUniversity of Birmingham
Host: Kang Qian钱康
Time: September 12th, 2025 @15:30
Venue: Room 2301 West Main Building, Guanghua Building
Lecture III
Topic: Voltaire: Custom and Comparison
Speaker: Nicholas Adams Department of Theology and ReligionUniversity of Birmingham
Host: Zhejuan Yu郁喆隽
Time: September 15th, 2025 @15:30
Venue: Room 2501 West Main Building, Guanghua Building
Lecture IV
Topic: Herder: Character and Creativity
Speaker: Nicholas Adams Department of Theology and ReligionUniversity of Birmingham
Host: Yifan Song宋一帆
Time: September 17th, 2025 @15:30
Venue: Room 2501 West Main Building, Guanghua Building
Lecture V
Topic: Hegel: Religion and Ethics
Speaker: Nicholas Adams Department of Theology and ReligionUniversity of Birmingham
Host: Shuangli Zhang张双利
Time: September 19th, 2025 @15:30
Venue: Room 2501 West Main Building, Guanghua Building
Lecture VI:
Topic: European Fantasies: Culture and Change
Speaker: Nicholas Adams Department of Theology and ReligionUniversity of Birmingham
Host: Alexander Garton-Eisenacher
Time: September 22th, @15:30
Venue: Room 2501 West Main Building, Guanghua Building
Lecture abstract:
These lectures explore the birth of the philosophy of religion.
The texts investigated here, by five European philosophers, display fascinatingly contrasting attempts to think about China. They deal with questions of difference, comparison, and development. They consider a series of themes which, in the later tradition of philosophy of religion, become quite sharp oppositions: politics and religion, science and religion, faith and reason. In these texts between 1685 and 1825, however, these contrasts are not drawn so definitely: to study them is to witness the genesis of such oppositions, and indeed the genesis of the philosophy of religion itself.
It is striking to see what themes are of limited interest: the problem of evil, the credibility of miracles, the existence of God. They are the preoccupying topics of the later philosophy of religion. Here they rarely appear. Of much greater interest are the following themes: violence, compatibility (in relation to difference), freedom, creativity.
The purpose of these lectures is to address the following:
What questions are the philosophers asking?
What are their guiding categories?
What problems in the (European) world stimulate their inquiries?
