Dai Zhen Neo Critical Study

Dai Zhen was a thinker with sympathy and consciousness of equality. When he saw that the rationalism of Cheng and Zhu led to a miserable social reality in which people killed by law were still sympathized but killed by rationalism weren't sympathized, he stood up bravely, and criticized rationalism of Cheng and Zhu intensely.Dai Zhen's critiques to the rationalism were comprehensive. The essay analyzes subjective qualification of Dai Zhen's critiques to the rationalism, namely, his spirit of doubting and criticizing authorities in the first part. In the second part, it shows the objective conditions of Dai Zhen's critiques to the rationalism, namely, the historical background. This part mainly reveals the reason of Dai Zhen's critiques to rationalism of Cheng and Zhu. The third part analyzes comprehensively the contents of Dai Zhen's critiques to rationalism. It includes "three debates" and "four critiques". The last part is the end of the essay. On the basis of former "critiques", it tries to describeDai Zhen's ideal blueprint------the political society of "satisfying people'sneeds". This part mainly explains how to reconstruct newly humanitarian ethical order.Dai Zhen's critiques to rationalism of Cheng and Zhu were of great importance of Enlightment. It paved the way for the following thinkers to continue their critiques to Neo-confucian school of the Song and Ming Dynasties.