Dai Zhen
Talk of a higher principle has been used to crush ordinary desires – but true morality is the right ordering of the feelings and needs everyone has.
Placement
Philologist of the Qing “evidential learning”: Neo-Confucian “principle” has been used to suppress human desires – true principle is the fitting order within feelings and desires.
Key ideas
- Principle in desires
- Evidential research (kaozheng)
- Critique of Neo-Confucian li
Influence
Influenced by 1
Mengzi (Mencius)
influenced by
Dai Zhen’s Evidential Study of the Meaning of Terms in the Mencius (1777) recovered Mencius’ terms philologically to show that principle lies within feelings and desires. Dai Zhen, Mengzi ziyi shuzheng (1777), tr. A. Chin & M. Freeman, Tai Chen on Mencius (1990)
Evidence: AI draft
Mengzi (Mencius) › c. 372–289 BCE
Influenced 1
Hu Shih
influenced
In The Philosophy of Dai Zhen (1927) Hu Shih presented Dai Zhen’s evidential method and his defence of human desires as a native forerunner of scientific thinking. Hu Shi, Dai Dongyuan de zhexue (1927); A. Chin & M. Freeman, Tai Chen on Mencius (1990)
Evidence: AI draft
Hu Shih › 1891–1962
Criticism
Criticizes 2
Cheng Yi
criticised
Dai Zhen charged that the Cheng–Zhu principle (li), set apart from human desires, had let the powerful put people to death in the name of principle (Mengzi ziyi shuzheng, 1777). Dai Zhen, Mengzi ziyi shuzheng (1777), tr. A. Chin & M. Freeman, Tai Chen on Mencius, 1990
Evidence: AI draft
Cheng Yi › 1033–1107
Zhu Xi
criticised
Dai Zhen rejected Zhu Xi’s principle as something bestowed by Heaven and residing in the mind: principle is the order within things and desires, found by study (1777). Dai Zhen, Mengzi ziyi shuzheng (1777), tr. A. Chin & M. Freeman, Tai Chen on Mencius, 1990
Evidence: AI draft
Zhu Xi › 1130–1200
Works
Through the exact meaning of key terms in Mencius, Dai Zhen argues that Neo-Confucian “principle” is a Buddhist-tinged import that oppresses human feeling.
Position
Dai Zhen was the leading philosopher of Qing evidential research (kaozheng), which sought the meaning of the classics through exact philology. From the original meaning of key terms in Mencius he argued that Cheng–Zhu Neo-Confucianism had imported a Buddhist and Daoist notion of principle as a thing received from Heaven and lodged in the mind. True principle is the unerring pattern within feelings and desires, found by putting oneself in others’ place. Turned against desire, principle lets the strong condemn the weak: those who die by law are pitied, he wrote, but who pities those who die by principle? His ethics was revived by Liang Qichao and Hu Shih.
Life & context
Dai Zhen was born in 1724 in Xiuning (Anhui), the son of a cloth merchant, and studied with the scholar Jiang Yong. From the 1750s he was famous in Beijing for work on phonology, mathematics, astronomy and geography, though he repeatedly failed the highest examination. He worked on the imperial Complete Library of the Four Treasuries from 1773 and died in Beijing in 1777.
Further main works
- On the Origin of Goodness (Yuan shan, 1760s)
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