Translating Renaissance Science to Late Ming China: Alfonso Vagnone's Kongji Gezhi 空際格致 (Investigation into Phenomena in the Atmosphere, c. 1633)

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URI: http://hdl.handle.net/10900/178242
http://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:bsz:21-dspace-1782421
http://dx.doi.org/10.15496/publikation-119566
Dokumentart: PhDThesis
Date: 2026-04-13
Language: English
Faculty: 5 Philosophische Fakultät
Department: Asien- und Orientwissenschaften
Advisor: Vogel, Hans Ulrich (Prof. Dr.)
Day of Oral Examination: 2025-01-20
DDC Classifikation: 000 - Computer science, information and general works
090 - Manuscripts and rare books
100 - Philosophy
230 - Christianity and Christian theology
400 - Language and Linguistics
490 - Other languages
520 - Astronomy and allied sciences
800 - Literature and rhetoric
890 - Literatures of other languages
950 - History of Asia; Far East
Other Keywords:
History of Science
Society of Jesus
Alfonso Vagnone (c. 1568-1640)
Matteo Ricci (1552-1610)
空際格致 (Investigation into Phenomena in the Atmosphere)
坤輿萬國全圖 (Complete Geographical Map of Ten Thousand Countries)
乾坤體義 (On the Structure of the Heaven and Earth)
Francesco Furtado (1589-1653)
寰有詮 (Explanation on the Great Being)
Early Globalization
History of Reception
Chinese Classics
Chinese Cosmology
Nanjing Incident (1616-1619)
De Sphaera Literature
Conimbricenses
Ratio Studiorum
Aristotle's Natural Philosophy
De physica
De caelo
De generatione et corruptione
De meteorologica
Xiong Mingyu
Fang Yizhi
Jie Xuan
Wang Honghan
Han Yun
Han Lin
License: http://tobias-lib.uni-tuebingen.de/doku/lic_ohne_pod.php?la=de http://tobias-lib.uni-tuebingen.de/doku/lic_ohne_pod.php?la=en
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Abstract:

This dissertation examines the transmission of Aristotelian natural philosophy to China through the works of Jesuit missionaries in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Focusing on the Kongji gezhi 空際格致 (Investigation into Phenomena in the Atmosphere, c. 1633), written by the Jesuit missionary Alfonso Vagnone, the thesis explores how Renaissance science and natural philosophy were adapted to Chinese intellectual traditions. Vagnone’s translation of Aristotle’s cosmology, particularly the four-element theory and the Aristotelian-Ptolemaic geocentric worldview, offers a compelling example of this cultural and intellectual exchange. The research of this PhD highlights the complexities of translating Western scientific concepts into Chinese thought, showing how these ideas were not simply imported but recontextualized during a crucial period of early globalization. The doctoral thesis is part of the international project “Translating Western Science, Technology and Medicine to Late Ming China: Convergences and Divergences in the Light of the Kunyu gezhi 坤輿格致 (Investigations of the Earth’s Interior; 1640) and the Taixi shuifa 泰西水法 (Hydromethods of the Great West; 1612)” at the University of Tübingen.

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