This book represents the first critical edition and scholarly annotated translation of a pioneering report on the predicament of cross-cultural understanding at the dawn of globalization, titled "A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun" ("Resposta breve sobre as Controversias do Xamty, Tien Xin, Lim hoen"), which was written in China by the Sicilian Jesuit missionary Niccolo Longobardo (1565-1654) in the 1620s and profoundly influenced Enlightenment understandings of Asian philosophy. The book restores the focus on Longobardo's own intellectual concerns, while also reproducing and analyzing all the Chinese-language annotations on the previously unpublished Portuguese and Latin manuscripts. Moreover, it meticulously modernizes all romanizations with standard Hanyu pinyin and identifies, on the basis of archival research, most of Longobardo's Chinese interlocutors, thus providing new insights into how the Jesuits networked with Chinese scholars in the late Ming. In this way, it opens up this seminal text to Sinologists and global historians exploring Europe's first intellectual exchanges with China. In addition, the book presents four introductory essays, written by the editors and two prominent scholars on the Jesuit China mission. These essays comprehensively reconstruct the historical and intellectual context of Longobardo's report, stressing that it cannot be viewed purely as a product of Sino-European cultural exchange, but also as an outgrowth of both exegetic debates within Europe and of European experiences across Asia, especially in Japan. Hence this critical edition will greatly contribute to a more globalized view of the Jesuit China mission.

This book represents the first critical edition and scholarly annotated translation of a pioneering report on the predicament of cross-cultural understanding at the dawn of globalization, titled "A Brief Response on the Controversies over Shangdi, Tianshen and Linghun" ("Resposta breve sobre as Controversias do Xamty, Tien Xin, Lim hoen"), which was written in China by the Sicilian Jesuit missionary Niccolo Longobardo (1565-1654) in the 1620s and profoundly influenced Enlightenment understandings of Asian philosophy. The book restores the focus on Longobardo's own intellectual concerns, while also reproducing and analyzing all the Chinese-language annotations on the previously unpublished Portuguese and Latin manuscripts. Moreover, it meticulously modernizes all romanizations with standard Hanyu pinyin and identifies, on the basis of archival research, most of Longobardo's Chinese interlocutors, thus providing new insights into how the Jesuits networked with Chinese scholars in the late Ming. In this way, it opens up this seminal text to Sinologists and global historians exploring Europe's first intellectual exchanges with China. In addition, the book presents four introductory essays, written by the editors and two prominent scholars on the Jesuit China mission. These essays comprehensively reconstruct the historical and intellectual context of Longobardo's report, stressing that it cannot be viewed purely as a product of Sino-European cultural exchange, but also as an outgrowth of both exegetic debates within Europe and of European experiences across Asia, especially in Japan. Hence this critical edition will greatly contribute to a more globalized view of the Jesuit China mission.

This book provides an analysis of the complex philosophy of Liang Shuming. This twentieth-century thinker opened up a number of paths that were to become central components of modern Chinese philosophy. For the first time, experts are brought together to analyze the complexity of his philosophy, which continues to exert a considerable influence today. This edited volume covers Liang's multifaceted thought as informed by his many identities as a Buddhist, a Confucian, a Bergsonian, a rural reformer, and a philosopher. The volume will appeal to students, scholars, and general-interest readers.

Fifty years after his death, the thought of the French scientist and Jesuit Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) continues to inspire new ways of understanding humanity's future. Trained as a paleontologist and philosopher, Teilhard was an innovative synthesizer of science and religion, developing an idea of evolution as an unfolding of material and mental worlds into an integrated, holistic universe at what he called the Omega Point. His books, such as the best-selling The Phenomenon of Man, have influenced generations of ecologists, environmentalists, planners, and others concerned with the fate of the earth. This book brings together original essays by leading experts who reflect on Teilhard's legacy for today's globalized world. They explore such topics as: the idea of God and the person; quantum reality and Teilhard's vision; spiritual resources for the future; politics and economics; and a charter for co-evolution.