Research On Daizhen’s Desire Theory

Since the Confucian Orthodoxy was proposed by Han Yu in the late Tang Dynasty,it has become the dogma of scholars to respect themselves and has been against thetraditional ruling systems. During the transition from Ming Dynasty to Qing Dynasty,the minorities became the rulers in the China Central Plain. In order to suppress Hannationality’ thought that there was an essential difference between Han and otherminorities, the rulers in Qing dynasty carried out a series of policies to appeasenational conflicts, for example, they executed rigorous high-handed cultural policy,united people who were from Ming Dynasty and who refused to admit Qing rulers andgave special consideration to the Confucianism. The Emperor Kang Xi was a man ofindustry, who valued both the traditional ruling methods and Confucian orthodoxy, andwho applied the Neo-Confucianism from Song Dynasty to Confucian Classics. TheEmperor Qian Long inherited his ancestors’ wish and carried out a more rigorouscultural policy. At the same time, he only took in Zhu Xi’s theories of ethics, removedthe speculative philosophy and introduced the useful theories of practice to thetextology, prohibiting the liberation of human nature.Dai Dongyuan was from Huizhou mansion in Xiuning country. Influenced by Zhu Xi’s theories since he was young,he sympathized and agreed that common people deserved their natural desirds. He tookon the responsibility to explore forefathers’ theories of Confucian orthodoxy, andformed his own theory about the law of nature and human desires, which was contraryto that of Zhu Xi. Specifically, Dai Zhen’s academic career can be classified into threestages: The first stage was from his birth to the time before he traveled to YangZhou.His understanding of Confucian orthodoxy in this period was that it existed in the sixConfucian Classics. While his theory about law of nature and human desires wasbasing on the empiricism with the help of cosmology constituted by Yin and Yang aswell as Five Elements, and of the natural theory of human nature derived fromcosmology. The second phase is from his travelling to Yangzhou to the accomplishment of three volumes of Yuanshan. This period had not a large time span,however, this period belonged to the one in which Daizhen’s thoughts were uncertainand changeable. He hasn’t created many works of philosophical thoughts, amongwhich Yuanshan was the most representative. The accomplishment of Yuanshanindicated the preliminary shaping of Desire Theory, which made a good foundation ofthe enrichment of his thought system. At that time, his had a further understanding ofDao. In the opinion of him, Dao was continuous and dimly supposed to have theopposite intention of Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism. During this period, hisphilosophical thought was not so mature, even though it was known that Cheng-ZhuNeo-Confucianism was such consciousness causing asceticism and social constraints.However, Daizhen hasn’t explicitly come up with the slogan against Cheng-ZhuNeo-Confucianism. The third phrase is the complication of Original goodness toMencius Hermeneutics. The doctrine of this phrase means “everything have its ownchanging regulations and developing all the time, this is doctrine, obtainedachievement on study and help the people to realize their natural desire.”From thecontent, his comprehension about” changing all the time is doctrine” was not differentfrom the previous phrase in essence. However, to the subject or undertakers of doctrine,Dai Zhen not only revealed the profound connotation of doctrine clearly, but alsopointed out that scholars should not only under stand this doctrine,but also should bethe doers of it. With the requirement of the sense of mission and the sense ofresponsibility, Dai Zhen came out and opposed the slogan of” preserve the naturalregulatons,and restrain human desire” since the Song dynasty in public, and hecriticized the Neo-Confucianism from the theory source thoroughly,found the newNeo-Confucianism system which acknowledge the rightful place of desire.