The Long ConversationA timeline of world philosophy

Philosopher

Dai Zhen

1724–1777

Also known as Tai Chen, Dai Dongyuan

Qing scholar who argued, against Zhu Xi, that pattern lies in everyday things and that ethics begins from fulfilling people's wants and feelings, not suppressing them.

The flourishing of dao and virtue is simply for none of people’s wants to go unsatisfied and none of their feelings to go unfulfilled.

Evidential Commentary on the Meaning of Terms in the Mencius, section 30, translation as quoted by Frank Y. C. Chong and Chris Fraser

Dai Zhen came from a poor family in Anhui and had little formal teaching in his youth, studying the classics largely on his own. At seventeen, by his own account, he resolved to understand the Dao of the ancient sages through exact study of the words of the classics. He became one of the leading scholars of “evidential learning”, with work in philology, phonology, mathematics, astronomy and geography, and was an editor of the Qianlong Emperor’s great imperial library. He failed the highest civil service examination five times, and died in 1777 at the age of 55.

His philosophy was little appreciated in his lifetime, when evidential scholars dismissed philosophy as “empty talk”. In his Evidential Commentary on the Meaning of Terms in the Mencius, he criticised the schools of both Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming for misunderstanding the classics, and followed Zhang Zai in giving priority to qi. Rediscovered by Chinese intellectuals in the early twentieth century, he is now generally seen as the foremost moral philosopher and metaphysician of the mid-Qing period.

Key ideas

Pattern lies in things
The Dao is the continuous flow and transformation of qi. Pattern (li) is not a separate, abstract entity joined to qi but the regular order of concrete things and everyday life, found even in “eating and drinking” and discovered by careful investigation.
Wants and feelings are not the enemy
Many Song and Ming Confucians treated desires as obstacles to moral growth. Dai argued that without wants and feelings we could not understand others’ well-being at all; fulfilling them is part of what pattern is.
Measure others’ feelings by your own
Before acting on others, ask: “If others did this to me, could I accept it?” Because basic wants and feelings are much the same in everyone, using our own feelings to measure theirs reveals the patterns we should follow.
The self-so and the imperative
Norms (the “imperative”) are discovered by fully understanding what comes naturally (the “self-so”), and following them brings our nature to completion. Indulging our wants unchecked does not fulfil our nature but loses it.
Evidence and the classics
The Dao of the sages can only be grasped through the classics, and the classics only through exact knowledge of their words, institutions and things. Many of his predecessors’ errors, Dai argued, came from misreading the texts in a Buddhist or Daoist light.
Tradition
Chinese
Region
Qing dynasty China

Influences

Influenced by

Dai Zhen1724–1777

Influenced by

Dai Zhen1724–1777

Where these links come from
  • Dai Zhen drew on Mencius. Source: Frank Y. C. Chong and Chris Fraser, Dai Zhen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Dai Zhen drew on Zhang Zai. Source: Kirill Thompson, Zhu Xi, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Dai Zhen argued against Zhu Xi. Source: Frank Y. C. Chong and Chris Fraser, Dai Zhen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  • Dai Zhen argued against Wang Yangming. Source: Frank Y. C. Chong and Chris Fraser, Dai Zhen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Key works

  • Evidential Commentary on the Meaning of Terms in the Mencius (Mengzi ziyi shuzheng)
  • On the Origin of Goodness (Yuan shan), 1766

Sources

  1. Frank Y. C. Chong and Chris Fraser, Dai Zhen, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  2. Kirill Thompson, Zhu Xi, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
  3. Bryan Van Norden, Wang Yangming, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy