Title: Thinking History Review of Dai Dongyuan's Notion of "Community" and "Desire"
Abstract: The main theme of this paper is to clarify the notion of desire within the context of Dai Zhen's thought by examining the cultural meaning of yinshi (food and drink) and nannu (having sex) as two main factors in the Confucian rituals of the pre-Qin period. I am not intending to argue physical satisfaction of eating and sexual intercourse as the ultimate goal of Confucianism. Human needs food and drinks to survive, yet food and drinks are also treated as holy sacrifices. A man and a woman can have sex anytime in any places, but the holiness of marriage and family value can only be guaranteed by the complicated rites and by interpreting marriage as a humanistic symbol of the fusion of yin (negative) and yang (positive) of the universe. The distance in between rituals and physical satisfaction may not be obvious, but the difference is huge. Through the clarification of the intellectual meaning of desire, we can understand the consciousness of community of the pre-Qin Confucian philosophers and how Dai Zhen inherits and develops their thought through the study of ancient rituals.
Publication Year: 2008
Publication Date: 2008-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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