Dai Zhen

Dai Zhen

▪ Chinese philosopher
Wade-Giles romanization  Tai Chen , courtesy name (zi)  Dongyuan  or  (Wade-Giles) Tung-yüan 
born Jan. 19, 1724, Xiuning, Anhui province, China
died July 1, 1777, Beijing

      Chinese empirical philosopher, considered by many to have been the greatest thinker of the Qing period (1644–1911/12).

      Born to poor parents, Dai educated himself by reading borrowed books. Although he passed his preliminary civil service examinations, he never passed the highly stylized jinshi exam, which would have given him the power and prestige of official office. Because of his reputation as a scholar, the emperor invited him in 1773 to become a court compiler in the Imperial Manuscript Library. In this position Dai was able to come into contact with many rare and otherwise inaccessible books. When Dai failed the civil service exam for the sixth time, in 1775, the emperor finally made him a jinshi by special decree, and Dai became a member of the Imperial Academy. Altogether he wrote, edited, and collated about 50 works, dealing mainly with mathematics, philology, ancient geography, and the Confucian Classics.

      The Qing dynasty witnessed a revolution in philosophy in which the abstract metaphysical speculation of the Song (Song dynasty) and Ming were rejected for a more concrete, disciplined kind of evidential learning called Hanxue. Dai attacked the dualism of the Song thinkers, who he believed had been misled by Buddhist and Daoist influences. The Song philosophers held that human beings have a lower, more physical nature ( qi) that is responsible for the passions and a more spiritual nature ( li) that sets a limit on the material nature. Against this dualism Dai posited a monistic system. He argued that li is the immanent structure in all things, even desires. Knowledge of li does not suddenly appear during meditation, as some of the Song philosophers believed. It is found only after an arduous search, using precise methods, whether in literary, historical, philological, or philosophic investigation.

      Dai utilized these careful investigative methods in his own research. In mathematics, he wrote a short discourse on the logarithmic theories of the English mathematician John Napier (Napier, John) and edited a collection of seven ancient mathematical works, the last of which is his own collation. In philology, he wrote several books, including a classification of ancient pronunciation. In addition he collated the classic of the 6th century, Shuijingzhu (“Commentary on the Classic of Waterways”), a study of 137 waterways in ancient China.

      Because the Song philosophy had the patronage of the bureaucracy, Dai's contributions were largely ignored in the years after his death. But because his stress on the need for close empirical investigation resembles the “scientific” and pragmatic approach of Western philosophy, his ideas began to be studied again in the 20th century. In 1924 the bicentennial of Dai's birth was celebrated in Beijing, and in 1936 the Chinese scholarly world paid tribute to him with the publication of a complete and authoritative edition of his works, Dai Dongyuan xiansheng quanji (“Collected Writings of Mr. Dai Dongyuan”).

Additional Reading
Wing-tsit Chan, A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy (1963, reissued 1973); Mansfield Freeman, “The Philosophy of Tai Tung-yüan,” Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 64:50–71 (1933); Zhongying Cheng, Tai Chen's Yuan shan (1969).Roger T. Ames

* * *


Universalium. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Поможем решить контрольную работу

Look at other dictionaries:

  • DAI ZHEN — [TAI TCHEN] (1724 1777) Une des plus fortes têtes du XVIIIe siècle chinois qui en compta tant, Dai Zhen, alias Dai Dongyuan, participa au grand mouvement de réforme du confucianisme qui s’attaquait au «néo confucianisme» de l’école de Zhu Xi,… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Dai Zhen —   [ dʒɛn], Tai Chen [ dʒɛn], chinesischer Wissenschaftler und Philosoph, * Xiuning (Provinz Anhui) 19. 1. 1724, ✝ Peking 1. 7. 1777; verfasste bahnbrechende Werke zur Mathematik und Astronomie, v. a. aber zur Phonetik, Etymologie und Textkritik,… …   Universal-Lexikon

  • Dai Zhen — This is a Chinese name; the family name is Dai. Dai Zhen Dai Zhen (Chinese: 戴震; pinyin: Dài Zhèn; Wade–Giles: Tai Chen, January 19, 1724 July 1, 1777) was a notable Chinese scholar of the Qing Dynasty from Xiuning, Anhui. A versatile sch …   Wikipedia

  • Dai Zong — Water Margin character Nickname Magic Traveller (神行太保) Rank 20th, Speed Star (天速星) of the 36 Heavenly Spirits Scouting chief of Liangshan Origin Chief warden of the Jiangzhou (present day Jiangxi) prison …   Wikipedia

  • Dai Chuanzeng — (or Dai Chuan ceng, 1921 1990, Simplified Chinese: 戴传曾), was a prominent Chinese nuclear physicist who did fundamental contributions to PR. China s nuclear research and industry. Contents 1 Life 2 Merits 3 References …   Wikipedia

  • Dai Bingguo — This is a Chinese name; the family name is Dai. Dai Bingguo 戴秉国 State Councilor of the People s Republic of China Incumbent …   Wikipedia

  • Dai Longbang — This is a Chinese name; the family name is Dai. Part of the series on Chinese martial arts List of Chinese martial arts Terms Kung fu (功夫) Wushu (武術) Qigong (氣功) …   Wikipedia

  • Wu Dai — Späte Liang Dynastie (gelb) und Nachbarkönigreiche, 923 n. Chr. Die Zeit der Fünf Dynastien und Zehn Reiche (chin. 五代十國 / 五代十国, wǔ dài shí guó) (907 960) war eine Zeit des politischen Umsturzes in China, nach dem Ende der Tang Dynastie bis zur… …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • CHINE (L’Empire du Milieu) - Littérature — Les origines de la littérature chinoise sont à peu près contemporaines de celles des deux autres littératures dont se nourrit encore la tradition du monde civilisé: celle de l’Inde et celle de l’Europe. Ici comme là, ces origines remontent à un… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • List of Chinese writers — Contents 1 Chronological list 1.1 Antiquity and Qin Dynasty 1.2 Han Dynasty and following 1.3 Tang Dynasty and following …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”