Yan Yuan (Qing dynasty)

In thisChinese name,thefamily nameisYan.

Yan Yuan(Chinese:Nhan nguyên;pinyin:Yán Yuán;Wade–Giles:Yen Yuan;1635 - 1704),courtesy nameYizhiorHunran,art nameXizhai(Chinese:Tập trai;pinyin:Xízhāi;Wade–Giles:Hsi-chai) was a Chinese classicist, essayist, and philosopher. He founded the practical school ofConfucianismto contrast with the more etherealNeo-Confucianismthat had been popular inChinafor the previous six centuries. Like theHan learningscholars, he rejected the abstract metaphysics of the Neo-Confucians. However, he considered Han learning as too obsessed with philology and textual criticism and not enough emphasis on pragmatism. His school promoted theSix Arts.

Yan Yuan's portrait

He was born on April 27, 1635, in the Zhili province (now calledHebei) in China and spent his youth in poverty, after his father was taken into theQingarmy and never returned. He died on September 30, 1704, in the same province.

The ideas of Yan Yuan were developed by his disciple Li Gongzh: Lý cung(Yan-Li school).

Yan's intellectual heritage was addressed byWu Hanin the 20th century. Wu elaborated on the Yan's concept of the relation between history and the present.

See also

• Silhak

References

• ArticlefromEncyclopædia Britannica

Bibliography

• Chan, Wing-tsit (trans.), 1963,A Source Book in Chinese Philosophy,Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Hummel, Arthur W. Sr.,ed. (1943)."Yen Yüan".Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period.United States Government Printing Office.
• https://repository.arizona.edu/handle/10150/288286?show=fullGerald E. Bragg