Dai Zhen:A Great Confucian With Naturalistic Tendency

Dai Zhen was a famous textual researcher and philosopher in the Qing Dynasty,and his philosophical masterpiece is Mengzi ziyi shuzheng.This thesis attempts to interpret Dai Zhen’s ideological system from a new perspective of naturalistic philosophy and ethics.By comparing the thoughts of Zhu Xi and Dai Zhen,we find that Dai Zhen’s theory has an obvious naturalistic tendency.The thesis systematically examines the representative viewpoints of "naturalistic" philosophy and ethics in different periods of western history,and then summarizes the core characteristics of"naturalistic" philosophy and ethics.The philosophical versions of "naturalism" are different,but they all tend to understand and explain the world with the concept of nature:in ontology,they often show the tendency of materialism(but not equal to materialism);oppose supernatural things;and think that the world is orderly or regular.Epistemology of naturalism is not necessarily associated with materialist ontology,holding that that the world is knowable;seeking definite knowledge;attaching importance to scientific methods;and opposing mysticism and transcendentalism."Naturalistic" ethics is also expressed in different forms,but it tends to build what should be on the basis of what it should be:most discourses take human nature as the fundamental basis of ethics;moral concepts are based on the concept of fact(nature),or it is the same as the concept of nature;moral judgment can be tested by the method of experience;modern"naturalistic" ethicists all emphasize the role of "reason”in some degreesBased on this,we can find that Dai Zhen’s thought has a typical naturalistic tendency:in philosophy,he strictly advocates Qi monism and rejects transcendental entity;his epistemological thought has rationalist tendency and opposes mysticism and transcendentalism.In the aspect of ethics,on the basis of the physiological theory of human nature,he advocates the establishment of a "natural society" in which everyone’s desires can be satisfied under the guidance of "Zhi(智)"(reason).By comparison,except that Dai Zhen is not much different from the traditional Chinese Qi monism in ontology and similar to the western view of organic nature during the Renaissance in the 15th-16th century,his rationalist epistemology and naturalistic ethics contain many modern ideological factors,which are particularly similar to Spinoza’s naturalistic thoughts of the western philosopher in the 17th century.Therefore,this thesis advocates that Dai Zhen should be regarded as a Confucian with naturalistic tendency in China in the 18th century.and that this naturalistic ideological tendency is influenced by his scientific research to a certain extent.This kind of influence is especially reflected in his ethics:the society and the moral norms with "Ren(仁)"as the core are completely objective,the society is regarded as a natural object,and the moral standards are regarded as its immutable objective laws.All this reflects the change of Dai Zhen’s overall way of thinking.this change is the result of his long-term scientific research(including specific scientific research and objective textual research using scientific methods).