Simon Kow - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Simon Kow

The European Legacy, Feb 1, 2011

... For example, see Vincent Cronin, The Wise Man from the West: Matteo Ricci and His Mission to ... more ... For example, see Vincent Cronin, The Wise Man from the West: Matteo Ricci and His Mission to China (New York: EP Dutton, 1955); Jonathan Spence, The Memory Palace of Matteo Ricci (New York: Penguin, 1983); and Liam Brockey, Journey to the East: The Jesuit Mission to ...

Canadian journal of history, Jun 1, 2015

Medieval and Early Modern Political Theology, 2017

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2018

i.e. the Triple Concordance system(San tong li 三統曆), as well as discussing the ways in which this... more i.e. the Triple Concordance system(San tong li 三統曆), as well as discussing the ways in which this system played its part in supporting Wang Mang’s 王莽 new dynasty when it seized power. Chapter  discusses Huan Tan’s桓譚 personal concerns and views of astronomy, especially on measures and forms of the heaven, and his arguments about astronomy with his friend and colleague Yang Xiong 揚雄 who thought differently. In Chapters  and , the author moves from the private to the official: a long series of archived documents enables us to see how experts argued for their point of view, often through the preparation of written documents or public confrontations in the presence of large numbers of colleagues and peers. The list of experts that the author discussed includes Bian Xin編䜣, Li Fan李梵, Jia Kui賈逵, Huo Rong霍融, Zhang Heng 張衡, Lang Yi 朗顗, Xiang Kai 襄楷, Cai Yong 蔡邕, and so on. In Chapter , the author recounts the work of Liu Hong 劉洪 who created the Uranic Manifestation system (Qian xiang li乾象曆) which was the first system to give a complete account of the main irregularities of lunar motion. This book ends with a brief epilogue in Chapter , which surveys the following centuries to detecting persistent remnants of the ancient Chinese astronomical tradition up to the present day. This is a history of astronomy in a single volume, however, it is different from general chronological works on this subject. It provides clear clues to the development of mathematical astronomy during the Qin and Han dynasties by focusing on the activity of the individual human beings who observed the heavens, recorded what they saw and made calculations to analyze and eventually make predictions about the motions of the celestial bodies. These individual human beings included the emperors, professional astronomers, officials in the government and those who held no official rank but showed themselves capable of expounding about the heavens at an expert level. It is these individuals, their observations, their calculations and their words which provide the narrative thread that runs through this work. By telling the stories of these individual human beings, this book gives clear explanations of the development of technical practice in observation, instrumentation and calculation, and the steady accumulation of data over many years. This book gives us access to an ancient tradition that appears to be effectively independent of those more familiar to historians writing in western languages. It is a tradition that has commonly been given little attention in the history of astronomy as recounted by such historians. I believe that this book is useful and interesting to historians of science worldwide, and to general historians of China, as well as to those with more specialist interests in the history of astronomy, or the history of science in China. In fact, the author has indeed written as far as possible with the needs of a broad and disparate readership in mind. In order to meet the needs of different readers, he has frequently given the main points of a technical discussion in the main text, while putting the detailed calculations in a box that can be ignored by those not interested in it. This formatting is consistent throughout the book. <tangquan@nwu.edu.cn>

Canadian Journal of History, 2009

Malebranche can be explained as a desire to understand that moment The Malebranche Moment whe... more Malebranche can be explained as a desire to understand that moment The Malebranche Moment when a Christian philosopher expressed such scorn for Scholastic philosophy in his attempt to defend the necessity of the Christian God for the preservation of western culture. Along ...

Philosophy in Review, Apr 30, 2013

A Companion to Enlightenment Historiography, 2013

The European Legacy, 2014

Abstract This article addresses questions concerning Enlightenment universalism and cultural dive... more Abstract This article addresses questions concerning Enlightenment universalism and cultural diversity by focusing on the views of China held by Pierre Bayle and the Baron de Montesquieu. In contrast to the characterizations of Enlightenment thought as insufficiently attentive to cultural diversity and as providing pretexts for imposing European values on non-European cultures, recent scholarship has sought to uncouple Enlightenment thought from imperialism and colonialism. An examination of the perspectives, positive and negative, of Bayle and Montesquieu on China suggests that Enlightenment thinkers attempted to reconcile ethical universalism and cultural diversity, but also shows the limitations of such attempts. Thus, while dismissals of Enlightenment thought as universalistic and even imperialistic fail to consider Bayle’s and Montesquieu’s subtle engagements with Chinese culture, their accounts of China arguably fall short of being robust cross-cultural or anti-colonial perspectives.

The European Legacy, 2005

International Journal of Maritime History, 2002

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 2021

This article discusses debates about the normative implications of nominalism by considering sign... more This article discusses debates about the normative implications of nominalism by considering significant Enlightenment assessments of China's society and politics.