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Abhinav Pandey

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Dai Zhen

A figure from the books

#DaiZhen

Dai Zhen · 1724–1777

In the books · 1 chapter

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Who this is

“The son of a poor cloth-peddler, who failed the empire's highest examination six times, used the humblest tools in scholarship — dictionaries, rhymes, ancient pronunciations — to indict a six-hundred-year orthodoxy for cruelty, and to argue that desire, rightly ordered, is the Way.”
— The Great Philosophers, Ch. 156

The big idea, in the book's words:

“The orthodox philosophy of "heavenly principle versus human desire" rests on a misreading of the classics — provable character by character — and a "principle" set above human desires becomes a weapon for the strong to kill the weak.”
— The Great Philosophers, Ch. 156

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