Snapshot C: Characters and the Order of the Universe, Grammatical Form as the Expression of the Mind

Abstract

Dai Zhen is a major representative of the highly productive and influential school of Chinese philology usually identified by its main methodology as that of kăozhèngxué 考證學 or Evidential Analysis, which reached its peak in the late 18th to early nineteenth century (Elman 1984). In an age of increasing specialization by Chinese scholars in either philosophical or philological enquiry, Dai remained committedly a generalist, producing commentaries on the classics and treatises on phonology and mathematics as well as purely philosophical works. For Dai, the Confucian classics still formed the basis of all knowledge and social order, and “the purpose of evidential studies was to reconstruct the meanings and principles including the ethics and metaphysics of the Confucian canon’s ancient authors” (Tiwald 2009: Section 1.).