Editing Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (section)

==Sinophology==
[[File:Diagram of I Ching hexagrams owned by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, 1701.jpg|thumb|right|A diagram of ''[[I Ching]]'' hexagrams sent to Leibniz from [[Joachim Bouvet]]. The Arabic numerals were added by Leibniz.<ref>Perkins (2004), 117</ref>]]
Leibniz was perhaps the first major European intellectual to take a close interest in Chinese civilization, which he knew by corresponding with, and reading other works by, [[Jesuit China missions|European Christian missionaries]] posted in China. He apparently read ''[[Philippe Couplet|Confucius Sinarum Philosophus]]'' in the first year of its publication.<ref name="Mungello">{{cite journal |last1=Mungello|first1=David E. |year= 1971|title=Leibniz's Interpretation of Neo-Confucianism|journal=Philosophy East and West|volume=21|issue=1|pages=3–22 |doi=10.2307/1397760|jstor=1397760 }}</ref> He came to the conclusion that Europeans could learn much from the [[Confucianism|Confucian]] ethical tradition. He mulled over the possibility that the [[Chinese characters]] were an unwitting form of his [[Characteristica universalis|universal characteristic]]. He noted how the ''[[I Ching]]'' hexagrams correspond to the [[binary number]]s from 000000 to 111111, and concluded that this mapping was evidence of major Chinese accomplishments in the sort of philosophical mathematics he admired.<ref>On Leibniz, the ''I Ching'', and binary numbers, see Aiton (1985: 245–248). Leibniz's writings on Chinese civilization are collected and translated in Cook and Rosemont (1994), and discussed in Perkins (2004).</ref> Leibniz communicated his ideas of the binary system representing Christianity to the Emperor of China, hoping it would convert him.<ref name="Springer, Cham"/> Leibniz was one of the western philosophers of the time who attempted to accommodate Confucian ideas to prevailing European beliefs.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Cook|first1=Daniel|title=Leibniz, China, and the Problem of Pagan Wisdom|journal=Philosophy East and West|volume=65|issue=3|pages=936–947|doi=10.1353/pew.2015.0074|year=2015|s2cid=170208696}}</ref>

Leibniz's attraction to [[Chinese philosophy]] originates from his perception that Chinese philosophy was similar to his own.<ref name="Mungello"/> The historian E.R. Hughes suggests that Leibniz's ideas of "simple substance" and "[[pre-established harmony]]" were directly influenced by Confucianism, pointing to the fact that they were conceived during the period when he was reading ''Confucius Sinarum Philosophus''.<ref name="Mungello"/>