Han Learning / kaozheng evidential scholarship
A tradition no longer extant within Confucianism. The disagreements in the sources are shown rather than settled.
Han Learning / kaozheng evidential scholarship is recorded within Confucianism and is no longer extant. Also written 漢學, Hanxue, 考證, evidential research movement.
Origin
Founder named in the sources: Dai Zhen among the leading figures. No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. No founding date in my sources. Began with the evidential scholarship (kaozheng) movement of the late Ming and dominated Qing classical studies, defining itself against 'Song Learning' (Neo-Confucianism). Its practitioners held that Song and Ming metaphysics had absorbed Buddhist and Daoist material and betrayed the teaching of Confucius, and pursued philology, textual criticism and historical evidence instead. Dai Zhen criticised Neo-Confucian introspection and the Neo-Confucian drive to eliminate desire.
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Citation
English
The language and the date you read it belong in the citation: this corpus is multilingual and articles are revised after publication.
John Shaqi. “Han Learning / kaozheng evidential scholarship.” English version. 11 August 2026. https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-han-learning-kaozheng-evidential-scholarship.
@misc{johnshaqi-sect-han-learning-kaozheng-evidential-scholarship-en,
author = {John Shaqi},
title = {Han Learning / kaozheng evidential scholarship},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {English version},
url = {https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-han-learning-kaozheng-evidential-scholarship},
note = {Accessed n.d.}
}The word count is counted from this edition. The minute estimate uses 238 words a minute, the silent reading rate for English non-fiction reported by Brysbaert (2019). The Urdu, Hindi and Roman Urdu editions carry a word count and no estimate, because no comparable rate has been published for those scripts.