Gábor Gángó and Yue Dan receive tandem fellowship from the Gerda Henkel Foundation

This project integrates the perspectives of “European/Local” and “Chinese/Global” into the study of ethical crises in the early modern period and takes Leibniz as the ideal nexus between these two perspectives. Through the fundamental philosophical issue of the grounding of ethics in reason versus will, Dan and Gángó have organically integrated the research questions (1) “Leibniz’s criticism of Pufendorf” and (2) “Leibniz’s Defense of Chinese natural theology”. Gábor Gángó, as an expert in Leibniz’s political thought and philosophy, as well as in Leibniz’s engagement with Eastern Europe, will provide the critical theoretical framework required to ground Yue Dan’s arguments.

The proposal promises well‑grounded research results in two areas of fundamental importance within Leibniz’s broadly conceived political thought. As a further potential, projecting the same set of research questions onto two distinct cultural contexts, and the ensuing cultural and intellectual “frequency interferences,” may generate stimuli and synergies whose character and impact remain open at the present stage of inquiry.

Dan and Gángó explain: “We look forward to the opportunity that, through collaborative work in the inspiring intellectual atmosphere of the Forschungszentrum Gotha, drawing on the centre’s expertise in intellectual, cultural, and knowledge history, and by exploiting the rich source materials of the Forschungsbibliothek Gotha – one of the largest German libraries of the early modern period – and the Universitätsbibliothek Erfurt, these potentials may be actualised in the form of scholarly results that significantly advance the state of research and open vistas for novel approaches.”