Xianzhe Hui

This article explores the significance of engaging in intercultural reversals of perspectives by reconstructing Voltaire's reflections on the relationship between China and Europe. It highlights the ensuing ethics of universal religious tolerance in this civilizational comparison. Voltaire employed China as a heuristic model primarily to criticize the intolerance and fanaticism of French Catholics. He also used the methodology of intercultural reversals of perspectives to articulate his arguments for universal religious toleration. This paper's focus on the philosophical reception of China reveals the emergence of what we call “intercultural self‐critique” and an important conception of religious toleration during the European Enlightenment.

This article reconstructs the influence of Jesuit missionary writings focusing on China on the emergence of a distinctive conception of toleration. The article highlights the often neglected contributions of Pierre Bayle. After a brief reconstruction of key elements of the Sino‐European encounter, such as the Kangxi Emperor's edict of toleration, the paper describes how Bayle's interpretation of the China Mission contributed to a critique of religious persecution in France and enabled him to develop a defense of a rationalist approach to toleration. The article demonstrates that Bayle's knowledge of China and his methodology of intercultural changes in perspective contributed to the development of an original conception of reciprocal toleration.