Dài Dōngyuán jí 戴東原集
The Collected Works of Dài Dōng-yuán (Dài Zhèn) by 戴震 (撰) and 段玉裁 (撰年譜覆校札記)
About the work
The collected works of 戴震 Dài Zhèn (1724–1777, zì Shènxiū 慎修, hào Dōngyuán 東原, native of Xiūníng 休寧, Huīzhōu 徽州) — the most consequential single mid-Qiánlóng intellectual figure, founder of the Huī 徽 school of kǎozhèng evidential research, and author of philosophical works that constitute the most radical eighteenth-century critique of Sòng lǐxué metaphysics. The SBCK reproduces the canonical 12-juan recension established by 段玉裁 Duàn Yùcái (1735–1815), Dài’s most senior surviving disciple, together with Duàn’s Niánpǔ 年譜 (chronological biography) and fùjiào zhájì 覆挍札記 (collation-notes). The contents combine Dài’s philosophical, philological, mathematical, astronomical, and geographical writings: notably the Mèngzǐ zì yì shū zhèng 孟子字義疏證 (which Dài himself ranked as the most important of his works), the Shū Bāo Shènyán zhuàn hòu 書包慎言傳後 (on hydraulics), the Yǔ shì yàn shénfǔ shū 與是仲明論學書 (on learning), and the Lì shàn yǎn shuō 立善言說 series. Duàn’s recension is the basis of all later editions and the principal vehicle through which Dài’s mature philosophical position has been transmitted.
Prefaces
The front matter carries Duàn Yùcái’s signed preface (Rénzǐ liùyuè dìzǐ Jīntán Duàn Yùcái jǐn xù 壬子六月弟子金壇段玉裁謹序, sixth month of rénzǐ = 1792, Qiánlóng 57), followed by an elaborate fùjiào zhájì 覆挍札記 documenting the textual variants juan by juan. The preface is among the most important programmatic statements of Qiánlóng kǎozhèng doctrine. Duàn states that Dài died in Qiánlóng dīngyǒu 乾隆丁酉 (1777) aged 55; that within thirty years of Dài having begun teaching gǔ xué 古學 (ancient learning), even shùfà shòu shū zhī tóngzǐ 束髮受書之童子 (boys who have just put up their hair to take up a book) all knew of “Master Dōngyuán.” Duàn famously reports Dài’s view: yǒu yìlǐ zhī xué, yǒu wénzhāng zhī xué, yǒu kǎohé zhī xué 有義理之學、有文章之學、有考覈之學 — there is a learning of moral metaphysics, a learning of literary composition, and a learning of evidential investigation, and “moral metaphysics is the source of literary composition and evidential investigation,” yet conversely “no moral metaphysics has ever been attained except through evidential investigation.” Duàn quotes Dài’s striking simile: liùshū jiǔshù děng shì rú jiàofū rán, suǒ yǐ yú jiàozhōngrén yě 六書九數等事如轎夫然，所以舁轎中人也 — “the Six Classes of Script and the Nine Computations and the like are like sedan-bearers: their job is to carry the person in the sedan.” Duàn also reports Dài’s own self-evaluation: pú shēngpíng zhùshù zhī dà yǐ Mèngzǐ zìyì shūzhèng wéi dìyī, suǒ yǐ zhèng rénxīn yě 僕生平著述之大，以《孟子字義疏證》爲第一，所以正人心也 — “the greatest of my life’s writings is the Mèngzǐ zì yì shū zhèng, for it is the means of rectifying men’s minds.” Duàn explains his editorial scheme: existing collected editions had only 10 juan; he supplemented from manuscripts in the hands of Zàngshì Zàidōng 臧氏在東 and Gùshì Zǐshù 顧氏子述, raising the total to 12 juan, arranged not by genre as in standard wénjí but yì lèi fēncì qí xiānhòu 以意類分次其先後 (ordered topically by intention), to make Dài’s learning (not his prose-craft) accessible to the reader.
Abstract
The Dài Dōngyuán jí is the documentary anchor of mid-Qing intellectual history. Dài Zhèn’s career divides into three phases: (1) his Huīzhōu youth and apprenticeship under 江永 Jiāng Yǒng (1681–1762) at Wùyuán 婺源, during which he absorbed Jiāng’s mathematics, ritual-classics, and phonology; (2) his Yángzhōu and Běijīng years from 1755, hosted variously by the Mǎ 馬 brothers, 紀昀 Jì Yún, and 錢大昕 Qián Dàxīn, in which he produced the bulk of his mathematical, geographical, and philological monographs; and (3) his late Běijīng years on the Sìkù quán shū editorial board (1773–1777), during which he composed the Mèngzǐ zì yì shū zhèng and died of overwork. The 12-juan recension organized by Duàn Yùcái covers all three phases: philological essays (six-script analysis, Ěr yǎ commentary, Shī jīng readings), mathematical-astronomical pieces (the Gōugǔ gē commentary, the Yáo diǎn astronomical reconstruction, the Tiān wén lüè notes), water-classics work (Dài’s celebrated reconstruction of 酈道元 Lì Dàoyuán’s Shuǐjīng zhù — the Sìkù version of which Dài himself edited and which generated the first major late-Qing plagiarism controversy regarding 趙一清 Zhào Yīqīng’s parallel work), and the philosophical writings.
Dài’s mature philosophical position, set out in the Yuán shàn 原善 and the Mèngzǐ zì yì shū zhèng (both in the Jí), holds that lǐ 理 (“principle”) is not a metaphysical entity standing above the empirical world but rather qíng 情 (emotion-state) and yù 欲 (desire) in their proper proportion and harmony — a position that explicitly inverts the 朱熹 Zhū Xī Tàijí tú shuō metaphysics and accuses the Sòng tradition of yǐ lǐ shā rén 以理殺人 (“killing men with principle”). This argument made Dài a hero to twentieth-century reformers (Liáng Qǐchāo, Hú Shì, Qián Mù) but during his lifetime it was sufficiently controversial that Duàn Yùcái’s 1792 preface had to defend it explicitly.
Composition window: c. 1745 (Dài’s earliest dated writings, in his early twenties) through 1777 (his death). The 1792 Duàn imprint is the earliest authoritative recension. The Sìkù commissioners — under whom Dài himself had worked — did not include his collected works in the biéjí on the political grounds that Dài’s philosophical writings were too controversial; the Sìkù tíyào catalog has separate notices only for his mathematical and water-classics works. The SBCK reproduces the 1792 Duàn recension and is the standard pre-modern witness.
Translations and research
Yü Ying-shih 余英時, Lùn Dài Zhèn yǔ Zhāng Xué-chéng 論戴震與章學誠 (Hong Kong: Lung Men, 1976; 2nd ed. 1996) — the foundational modern reinterpretation of Dài and his rival Zhāng Xué-chéng.
Benjamin A. Elman, From Philosophy to Philology: Intellectual and Social Aspects of Change in Late Imperial China (Harvard, 1984; 2nd ed. 2001) — situates Dài in the Yáng-zhōu kǎo-zhèng movement.
Justin Tiwald, Tai Chen on Moral Knowledge and Moral Cultivation (PhD diss., Stanford, 2006), and “Dai Zhen’s Defense of Self-Interest,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 38.3 (2011): 391–407 — the principal English-language philosophical analyses.
John W. Ewell, Jr., Re-Inventing the Way: Dai Zhen’s “Evidential Commentary on the Meanings of Terms in Mencius” (1777) (PhD diss., Berkeley, 1990) — full English translation of the Mèngzǐ zì yì shū zhèng.
Ann-Ping Chin and Mansfield Freeman, Tai Chen on Mencius: Explorations in Words and Meaning (Yale, 1990) — English translation with introduction.
Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §66 on Qīng kǎo-zhèng, with Dài at the center.
ECCP 695–700 (Hummel and Fang Chao-ying).
Hú Shì 胡適, Dài Dōng-yuán de zhé-xué 戴東原的哲學 (1925) — the foundational Republican-era restoration of Dài as a “scientific” thinker.
Other points of interest
The fùjiào zhájì — running over fifty pages in the SBCK — is itself an important scholarly document: it shows Duàn Yùcái applying to his teacher’s prose the same rigorous textual-collation technique Duàn was simultaneously deploying in his Shuō wén jiě zì zhù on Xǔ Shèn. Many of the variants concern Dài’s idiosyncratic graphic preferences (using huì 覈 for hé 核, fǎ 灋 for fǎ 法, yú 歟 for yú 與, shí 寔 for shí 實, etc.), preserving traces of Dài’s working drafts.
The plagiarism dispute over Dài’s Shuǐjīng zhù edition — the charge that Dài silently took over 趙一清 Zhào Yīqīng’s prior work for the Sìkù version — has been a recurring topic in Qīng historiography from 魏源 Wèi Yuán onward. The Jí contains Dài’s own essays on the Shuǐjīng zhù, but the case has never been definitively closed; modern scholarship (Hú Shì, Yü Ying-shih) tends to defend Dài, but Tān Qíxiāng 譚其驤 and others have revived the charge. The SBCK Jí is the documentary basis for both sides.
Links
- Wikidata Q541869 (Dai Zhen)
- ECCP 695–700 (Hummel and Fang Chao-ying)
- Wilkinson 2018, §66.4 (Qīng kǎozhèng)
- CBDB id 65933 (1723–1777)