Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is well structured and provides a good analysis of French scholarship dealing with Daoism, highlighting how this developed from a naif interpretation to a more scientific and in depth approach. Although anticipating the chronological range proposed by the author (and, strictly speaking, not authored by French writers), I would suggest to add some brief considerations about the Jesuit literature, which blamed Daoism essentially as a superstition (see e.g. Kircher, China Illustrata) or provided a mode detailed explanation, discussing alchemic practices (as in Couplet's Confucius Sinarum Philosophus) . 

Author Response

Comment: The article is well structured and provides a good analysis of French scholarship dealing with Daoism, highlighting how this developed from a naif interpretation to a more scientific and in depth approach. Although anticipating the chronological range proposed by the author (and, strictly speaking, not authored by French writers), I would suggest to add some brief considerations about the Jesuit literature, which blamed Daoism essentially as a superstition (see e.g. Kircher, China Illustrata) or provided a mode detailed explanation, discussing alchemic practices (as in Couplet's Confucius Sinarum Philosophus) . 

Response: We thank the reviewer for this suggestion. Indeed, as noted, early European Jesuit sources often framed Taoism as a form of superstition or focused on its more esoteric practices. For instance, Athanasius Kircher’s China Illustrata (p. 184) criticizes the Oreomantes and Geoloves—mountain and earth diviners—for their idolatrous practices, emphasizing their reliance on local geography rather than textual authority, and portraying their prophecies as fraudulent and pervasive throughout China. Similarly, in Confucius Sinarum Philosophus (Couplet, 1687), Taoist ideas are presented alongside accounts of alchemical and magical practices attributed to figures such as Li-Lao-Kiun. These texts describe both his philosophical precepts and the subsequent propagation of alchemical and magical practices among his disciples, illustrating the complex intersection of ethical, cosmological, and ritual elements in early Taoist traditions.

We have incorporated brief references to these Jesuit sources in the revised manuscript, highlighting that early European engagement with Taoism involved both moral-philosophical interpretation and attention to ritual, magical, and alchemical practices, which helps contextualize the evolution of French scholarship from these initial perceptions toward a more philologically rigorous and historically contextualized understanding of Taoist texts.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is an exemplary chronological study of the transformations which Western views of Asian religious or philosophical traditions have undergone from the earliest encounters onwards. Also wonderful that Wieger features, who indeed is often neglected in the study of China's traditional creeds and practices. 

My advice for a larger study (monograph): 1) include more references to secondary literature – e.g. by Witek, who you cite in the bibliography;  and 2) use 繁體字 full-form characters, at least in pre-contemporary contexts.   

Author Response

Comment: This is an exemplary chronological study of the transformations which Western views of Asian religious or philosophical traditions have undergone from the earliest encounters onwards. Also wonderful that Wieger features, who indeed is often neglected in the study of China's traditional creeds and practices. My advice for a larger study (monograph): 1) include more references to secondary literature – e.g. by Witek, who you cite in the bibliography; and 2) use 繁體字 full-form characters, at least in pre-contemporary contexts.

Response: We sincerely thank the reviewer for the insightful suggestions. In response, we have incorporated additional secondary literature throughout the manuscript, particularly highlighting scholarship that contextualizes early European engagement with Chinese religious and philosophical traditions. Notably, we now include discussions of missionary accounts, such as Matteo Ricci’s engagement with Confucian literati, which framed Taoism and Buddhism as rival traditions and cast Taoism as idolatrous superstition (LaRochelle, 2016).

We have also emphasized the transformative work of Rémusat in reconstructing Taoist cosmology and treating the Daodejing as a text of abstract reasoning rather than mere superstition. This approach directly influenced contemporary philosophy, as evidenced in Hegel’s Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Weltgeschichte, where he acknowledged that Taoism articulated fundamental metaphysical categories while framing Confucianism as formalistic state morality (Dyck, 2005). Furthermore, we discuss how French sinologists creatively critiqued the Jesuit legacy, expanding the study of the Daodejing from theological readings to a rigorous scholarly and philosophical framework. We also now include Kapranov (2020) to reflect the continued scholarly debate on the foreign origins of Laozi’s philosophical ideas, including Pauthier’s influential Indian-origin hypothesis.

In line with the reviewer’s suggestion, all Chinese characters in pre-contemporary contexts have been revised to 繁體字. These revisions collectively strengthen the historical and scholarly context of our discussion and better reflect the nuanced reception and interpretation of Taoism in Western intellectual traditions.