Speaker: Joachim Kurtz
Time: 5 pm CET, 25 January and 8 February
Joachim Kurtz is a professor of Intellectual History and Chinese at the University of Heidelberg. Prior to joining the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies, he worked as an associate professor of Chinese at Emory University and a research group director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. He has studied at Hamburg, Beijing, Berlin, Shanghai, Göttingen, and Erlangen and held visiting positions at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, the Institute for History and Philology at Academia Sinica in Taibei, and the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing. He is a member of the Academia Europaea and a corresponding member of the Academy of Science in Hamburg. His research focuses on cultural and scientific exchanges between China, Japan, and Europe, with special emphasis on logic, philosophy, political theory, translation studies, and the history of the book. Publications include The Discovery of Chinese Logic (2011) and eight edited volumes, e.g., New Terms for New Ideas (2001); Standards of Validity in Late Imperial China (2020); and Wissensorte in China [Sites of Knowledge in China] (2023).
Lecture 1. Rethinking the Discovery of Chinese Logic.
Today, “Chinese logic” is routinely portrayed as one of the world’s “three great logical traditions” alongside “Greek” and “Indian logic.” Yet, until 1898, Chinese and foreign scholars agreed that China had never known, needed, or desired a field of study similar in scope and purpose to a science of reasoning. What made this drastic shift of opinion possible and how did the new view gain global credibility? How can we best reconstruct this process and what can we learn from it about the difficulties of writing non-Eurocentric histories of non-European science and thought?
Lecture 2. Toward a History of Chinese Cultures of Reasoning.
As an infinitely rich and varied textual record attests, argumentation, persuasion, and contention were ubiquitous practices throughout Chinese history. Yet, in stark contrast to the abundance of such practices, theories outlining criteria for making valid arguments were few and far between. How then were assessments reached as to which arguments were more powerful than others, what kinds of knowledge claims were more credible, and which uses of evidence were more convincing? To answer these questions, we need to recover the distinct cultures of reasoning in which argumentative practices were embedded. In my lecture I will sketch possible ways to approach this daunting task.