Leibniz and China: A Commerce of Light (review)

In his Leibniz and China, Franklin Perkins undertakes two main tasks. The first is historical: to illuminate Leibniz's nearly lifelong interest in China within the context of early modern Europe as well as within Leibniz's own moral, scientific, and religious concerns. The second task is philosophical: to show that Leibniz's interest is not accidental—that his "openness to China is not an accident of his experience or personality but flows naturally from his philosophy" (xi). Specifically, Perkins aims to show that, unlike the philosophies of some of his prominent predecessors and contemporaries (viz., Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke), Leibniz's metaphysics and epistemology promote cultural exchange, pluralism, and comparative philosophy.

In the book's opening chapter, "Europe encounters the world," Perkins does an admirable job of setting the historical stage. His judicious treatment of the history of Europeans and the Jesuit mission in China constitutes an excellent resource for ascertaining Leibniz's relationship with the Far East. In the third chapter, "Exchange with China," he carefully records and exposits the philosopher's extensive correspondence with missionaries and Sinologists as well as his study of classical Chinese texts in translation. This many-sided approach contributed, as the author notes, to making Leibniz one of the leading scholars of Chinese thought in the modern period.

Against this well-researched cultural and biographical background Perkins sets out to prove there is a tight link between Leibniz's metaphysics and epistemology, on the one hand, and the importance of cultural exchange, pluralism, and comparative philosophy, on the other. Leibniz's famous eclecticism, Perkins maintains, is not solely responsible for his interest in China. Elements embedded in his metaphysics and epistemology make such a study essential to the advancement of knowledge. These are the prominent role of diversity in Leibniz's conception of the best possible world and the inherent limitations on the perspectives of monads, limitations due to language, cultural institutions, embodiment, and the difficulty in applying abstract ideas to concrete particulars.

Perkins gives an intricate argument for what he takes to be the implications of Leibniz's views of metaphysical diversity and monadic perspective. Yet, even were we to suppose the premises of his argument to be acceptable, it is not clear Leibniz's philosophy enjoys the exceptional status Perkins attributes to it. It is not just that there remains some question whether Leibniz's metaphysics and epistemology differ from others' in relevant ways in connection with cultural exchange, pluralism, and comparative philosophy, but also whether, with respect to these things, the views of Descartes, Spinoza, and Locke are any less (or any more) capable than Leibniz's of underwriting their importance. It is not made clear why or in what sense an innatist theory of ideas, for instance, poses a threat to their importance. Perkins says, "The challenge then is to show how innate ideas and necessary truths remain central to Leibniz's method while keeping him open to cultural exchange and the need to consult other perspectives" (74). In the end, the multicultural openness of Leibniz's theory is contrasted with the closed indifference of Descartes's and Spinoza's innatist theories. This I find puzzling. Acceptance of a rationalist or, alternatively, an empiricist theory of knowledge does not, it seems, bring with it a commitment one way or another regarding the wisdom of foreigners. Skepticism is another story. But part of the book's central claim concerns the superior openness of Leibniz's theory compared to others that share the idea of the accessibility of at least some knowledge. This merits a more in-depth and fine-grained discussion than Perkins delivers.

At one point Perkins remarks, "Spinoza's intent is not to show that religion is universal but to show that it is accessible to each of us without revelation or religious institutions. The claim that all peoples are equally gifted in reason, virtue, and blessedness is not meant to direct us toward a comparative study of other cultures, but rather...