The Making of “Taoïsme” in 18th–19th Century French Scholarship

This study examines how eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French scholarship constructed the concept of “Taoïsme” and shaped the modern understanding of Daoism. Early European representations, influenced by missionaries and Enlightenment thinkers, emphasized Confucian rationalism while portraying Taoist thought as mystical or superstitious. In the nineteenth century, the rise in philological methods and historical contextualization allowed Taoist texts to be studied systematically, leading to clearer distinctions between philosophical Daojia and religious Daojiao. By the early twentieth century, ethnographic and textual approaches further grounded the study of Taoism in historical and cultural reality. The shift from Taoism to Daoism reflects both a terminological refinement and a broader epistemological transformation toward more rigorous, context-sensitive, and historically informed scholarship.