Dai Zhen

Dai Zhen (1724–1777), courtesy name Shenxiu, art name Dongyuan, was a Chinese philosopher of the Qing dynasty. Hailing from Xiuning, Anhui, Dai was a versatile scholar who made great contributions to mathematics, geography, phonology, and philosophy. His philosophical and philological critiques of Neo-Confucianism continue to be influential. In 1733, Dai was recruited by scholar Ji Yun to be one of the editors of the official encyclopedia and collection of books, Siku Quanshu. Dai's philosophical contributions included those to the Han Learning school of Evidential Learning (Evidentialism) which criticized the Song Learning school of Neo-Confucianism. In particular, two criticisms that Dai made were: First, Neo-Confucianism focused too much on introspective self-examination whereas truth was to be found in investigation of the external world. Second, he criticized the Neo-Confucian drive to eliminate human desire as an obstacle to rational investigation. Dai argued that human desire was a good and integral part of the human experience, and that eliminating human desire from philosophy had the bad effect of making it difficult to understand and control one's emotions as well as making it impossible to establish empathy with others.