• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.103-114
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• 2020

In 1607, Matteo Ricci and Xu Guangqi translated Euclid's 《Elements》 and published 《Jihe yuanben, 幾何原本》. Though 《Elements》 consists of 13 volumes (or 15 volumes according to its editions), they translated only the first 6 volumes on the plane geometry. Why did they do so? This paper discusses about the three questions which naturally arise: What might be the motive of the translation of the 《Elements》? What method did they adopt for the translation? And why did they translate the 6 volumes, especially, the first 6 volumes, not completing the whole?

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.36
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• pp.117-152
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• 2020

In Daesoon Thought, Matteo Ricci is regarded highly as a Jongjang, 'religious leader,' (of Christianity). This paper deals with the life and philosophical/theological thought of Matteo Ricci as homo-religiosus from the perspective of phenomenology of religion. Examining his historical background and biographical sketch, I will analyze Ricci's understanding of God, humanity, and salvation and re-evaluate his relationship with Daesoon Thought. Matteo Ricci, born in Italy, became a Jesuit missionary to China and transmitted various products of western civilization. Accepting the pro-cultural approach of Jesuit mission, he applied it to Chinese culture and language by learning the Chinese language and regarding Chinese people as his friends. This was a sympathetic way to transmit Western religion and culture while on Chinese soil. He suggested eight reasons to look towards the future of China with optimism and taught Chinese people his Christian message through his indirect means of understanding and persuasion. In China, Jesuit missionaries called the Christian God 'Tianzhu (Cheonju in Sino-Korean),' meaning Lord of Heaven. Ricci identified the Confucian notion of 'Shangdi (Sangje in Sino-Korean),' meaning Supreme Emperor (or God) with Tianzhu. While translating Confucian scriptures, he found the common ground between Confucianism and Christianity to be the monotheism of ancient Confucianism. He criticized the concepts of God in Buddhism and Daoism, and justified the Christian doctrine of God by way of a Confucian understanding of deity. Ricci's understanding of humanity was based on his Christian faith in creation, and he criticized the Buddhist concept of transmigration. He proposed Christian ethics and doctrine of salvation by using discourse on the afterlife and in particular, the concepts of heaven and hell. Concerning the relationship between Daesoon Thought and Ricci, the following aspects should be examined: 1.) Ricci's contribution to the cultural exchanges between East and West, 2.) his peaceful approach to his mission based on dialogue and persuasion, 3.) the various activities conducted by Ricci as a Christian leader, and 4.) his belief in miraculous healings. His influence on Korea will likewise be explored. Ricci's ultimate aim was to communicate with Asian people and unify East and West under a singular worldview by emphasizing the similarities between the Christian and Confucian concepts of God.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.55-72
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• 2018

Matteo Ricci and Xu Gwangqi translated the first six Books of Euclid's Elements and published it with the title Jihe Yuanben, or Giha Wonbon in Korean in 1607. It was brought into Joseon as a part of Tianxue Chuhan in the late 17th century. Recognizing that Jihe Yuanben deals with universal statements under deductive reasoning, Jo Tae-gu completed his Juseo Gwan-gyeon to associate the traditional mathematics and the deductive inferences in Jihe Yuanben. Since Jo served as a minister of Hojo and head of Gwansang-gam, Jo had a comprehensive understanding of Song-Yuan mathematics, and hence he could successfully achieve his objective, although it is the first treatise of Jihe Yuanben in Joseon. We also show that he extended the results of Jihe Yuanben with his algebraic and geometric reasoning.

• 중국학논총
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• no.63
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• pp.251-273
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• 2019

China in the sixteenth century was exposed to various problems, and the surrounding nations were growing as potential threats by building up their powers and forming an unstable political state by losing control of civilization in politics, economy, knowledge, ideas and ideas. Especially, Mateo Ricci's knowledge and ideas were enough to attract the Chinese knowledge society. However, the influx of Western astronomy and world maps was not only a substitute for the notion of heaven and earth of Chinese tradition, but it destroyed all the knowledge and ideology of China, the foundation of political power and knowledge power. It transformed China in the center of the world into China in some parts of the world. It also brought about a great change in the civilization map of culture and savagery. As a result, the relationship between 'center and periphery', 'civilization and barbarians' could not be established, and the title of Chinese as a unique and exclusive civilization could no longer be maintained.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.32 no.5
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• pp.233-240
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• 2019

In the history of Chinese mathematics, Xu Guang-qi (徐光啓) is a person who translated and published Western mathematics in China and used it to reconstruct Chinese calendrical system. In this paper, we explored his thoughts on the background of his accomplishments and the circumstances under which such thoughts were made.

• Journal for History of Mathematics
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.311-320
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• 2015

In 1613 the official-scholar LI Zhi-zao (李之藻) of the Ming Dynasty, in collaboration with the Italian Jesuit Matteo RICCI (利瑪竇), compiled the treatise Tongwen Suanzhi (同文算指). This is the first book which transmitted into China in a systematic and comprehensive way the art of written calculation that had been in common practice in Europe since the sixteenth century. This paper tries to see what pedagogical lessons can be gleaned from the book, in particular on the basic operations in arithmetic and related applications in various types of problems which form the content of modern day mathematics in elementary school education.

• Journal of the Daesoon Academy of Sciences
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• v.20
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• pp.67-94
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• 2009

Kang Jeung-san whose real name is Kang Il-soon was a Korean born thinker who thought himself as Shangti(上帝). It is told that he made a Great Tour(大巡) upon this world. His thought was affected by Asian traditional philosophy such as Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism. He founded a religious body, called Jeung-san-Gyo which could be formed a syncretism of East Asian traditional thoughts. We have to survey Asian traditional thoughts in order to understand Kang Jeung-san's religious thinking. According to the Great Tour Scripture(大巡典經), he have read Confucian moral books, holy Sutra of Buddha and the books of Daoism. In the field of Confucianism, he stressed upon the Book of Changes (Zou-yi; 周易). And for Buddhism, he showed great concern on a monk, Jin-mook(震黙) who lived 15th century in Chosun Dynasty. Jeung-san Shangti followed Daoistic way when he performed religious ritual. In case of performance, he was compared as a great Shaman who wanted to save the world. And the most typical ritual was called public business of Heaven and Earth(天地公事). He showed a great scale while he was touring the world in space. The most important thing, however, is to overcome the localization which seems still prevailing doctrine of the Jeung-san thought. For this, the followers of Jeung-san-Gyo should study world philosophy and accept the modernity so as to broaden Jeung-san thought to the rest of the world.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.400-412
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• 2022

The Accommodational missionary method adopted by the Jesuit missionaries who came to China in the late Ming and early Qing dynasty is called the Accommodation and Naturalization and is based on the Poetry. The terms they borrowed were 'Di(Emperor Above)' and 'Tian(The heaven)', the key terms of Confucianism. Although 'Di' was a new transcendent concept, its status was downgraded in the political upheaval, and 'Tian' was rather elevated. However, both of these concepts gradually transformed into philosophical concepts that directly affect real life. The two terms borrowed to express the priesthood could not contain the uniqueness of Christianity, and Christianity was interpreted as an extension line of Confucianism thinking, reduced to an adjunct of Confucianism, and was not indigenous to the depth of ideology. A rational philosophical inquiry could not have played a full role in guiding the Chinese into the true Christian 'faith' unless it is paired with the great teachings of revelation. It is necessary to analyze these results soberly to find problems and to try various studies to explore ways to open up new horizon for Christian missionary work.

• Journal of Astronomy and Space Sciences
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.237-266
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• 2009

In 1631 A.D. Jeong Duwon, an ambassador of the Joseon dynasty was sent to the Ming dynasty. There he met $Jo\tilde{a}o$ Rodrigues, a Jesuit missionary, in Dengzhou of Shandong peninsula. The missionary gave the ambassador a number of results of latest European innovations. A detailed description on this event was written in 'Jeong's official report regarding a message from an European country'(西洋國奇別狀啓), which is an important literature work to understand the event. Since the document was written in classical Chinese, we make a comprehensive translation to Korean with detailed notes. According to the report, the items that Rodrigues presented include four books written in Chinese that describe European discoveries about the world, a report on the tribute of new cannons manufactured by Portuguese in Macao, a telescope, a flintlock, a Foliot-type mechanical clock, a world atlas drawn by Matteo Ricci, an astronomical planisphere, and a sun-dial. We discuss the meaning of each item in the Korean history of science and technology. In particular, Jeong's introduction is an important event in the history of Korean astronomy, because the telescope he brought was the first one to be introduced in Korean history. Even though king Injo and his associates of the Joseon dynasty were well aware of the value as military armaments of new technologies such as telescopes, cannons, and flintlocks, they were not able to quickly adopt such technologies to defend against the military threat of Jurchen. We revisit the reason in view of the general history of science and technology of east-Asian countries in the 17th century.

• The Journal of Korean Philosophical History
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• no.30
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• pp.191-225
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• 2010

This paper is the outcome of attempting to approach for reading the Analects of Confucius through the polysemy of Chinese character and indecidability of articles. For this purpose at first, I explained which this Chinese character can be applied for 'philosophy language'. In the 16th century Matteo Ricci had tried to find out the possibility of ideographic script as standing for a universal language. On the other hand, Hegel and Heidegger strictly insisted on the Chinese character is inappropriate for expressing the logic thought of the human being. The reason was as next; firstly, this character had not the preposition and articles, and secondly the only one word could not indicates the bisemy including the meaning of opposition, lastly this language system expresses and communicates only with the change of word order without inflection. But With some scholar like Cassirer, Saussure and Derrida we can confirm the possibility which will discover the Chinese character for using the logic and reasoning language of from different view. Because in the language system of this Chinese character the connection of words in contexts is more important other than meaning as the individual word, in comparison to the language of the West. The Chinese character hides the original meaning until being what kind of event and thing relationship watch inside with different letters. So to speak, the Chinese character is called as 'language of indecidability'. For these points, even though The Chinese character lacks of preposition, articles, and inflection speech etc. the letter systematic, this language system can play a role for expressing as the philosophic language which manages with the complicated problems of the human being.