ABSTRACT
TAI CHEN (1723-1777): A noted modern Chinese Confucian scholar, Tai Chen (or Tai Tung-yüan) was known as Great-Master-of-Investigations-Based-onEvidence. He made contributions to the theory of astronomy, mathematics, phonet-ics, and textual criticism. Principle, he held, was the order in things, not, as the Sung and Ming Neo-Confucianists seemed to imply, an abstract, transcendental, metaphysical reality.
