Mohism

This volume explores East Asian intellectual traditions and their influence on contemporary discussions of the ethics of war and peace. Through cross-cultural comparison and dialogue between East and West, this work charts a new trajectory in the development of applied ethics. A sequel to the volume Chinese Just War Ethics, it expands the range of the earlier work and includes attention to Japan and other Eastern and Western traditions for contrastive reflection and engages with the full range of Chinese intellectual (...) traditions for comparative analysis. The book scrutinizes pioneering works such as the Mengzi, the Han Feizi, and the Seven Military Classics, investigating their influence in subsequent times. It also engages with new texts and thinkers such as the Four Books of the Yellow Emperor, Zeng Guofan, Chiang Kai-shek, and Mao Zedong, along with examining recent writings of the scholars of the People's Liberation Army. The final section of the book identifies and discusses some emerging issues in the comparative study of military ethics, just war and peace that derive from the preceding sections. The volume editors then offer some concluding remarks at the end of the book. This book will be of much interest to students of the ethics of war and peace, just war theory, military ethics, Asian studies and International Relations in general. (shrink)

An accessible introduction to the ethical theory of the Mohists.

本文通过对德国著名汉学家、翻译家卫礼贤的最后一部哲学论著《中国哲学导 论》(1929)的翻译和研究,整理归纳了卫礼贤对中国哲学的核心词“道”的五种不同译法, 深入剖析了他如何用“一词多译”的方法,对中国哲学史上不同文本、不同哲学家、不同时代 及不同思想维度中的“道”进行诠释。同时,本文以术语学(Terminologie)为研究方法,聚焦 于卫礼贤用来翻译“道”的几个德语哲学术语,并对这些词汇进行溯源。以此为切入点, 本文 分析了卫礼贤作为对中国哲学与德国哲学均有深刻理解的汉学家,有意识地从跨文化比较哲学 的角度出发,将“道”转换为德国哲学中与之相匹配的哲学概念,并将其介绍给德国思想界的 路径。重新审视卫礼贤对“道”的“一词多译”,在加强当今中外文化互鉴和中文著作外译方面 具有积极且重要的作用。[This contribution is based on the translation and study of the book Chinesische Philosophie: Eine Einführung (Chinese Philosophy: An Introduction, 1929). It is the last philosophy-related work by the famous German sinologist and translator Richard Wilhelm. The article provides a compilation, summary, and in-depth analysis concerning Wilhelm's handling of the translation of "Dao", the "Urwort" (Heidegger) of Chinese philosophy. The study provides insight into how Wilhelm has used a poly-perspective method to (...) interpret the word “Dao" by using five different translation terms in relation to divergent texts, various philosophers, and different periods in the history of Chinese philosophy. Some of the German philosophical terms that were applied in these translations are investigated by tracing their etymological origins and general semantics. Richard Wilhelm was a sinologist with a deep understanding of both Chinese and German philosophical traditions. He deliberately imparted the different philosophical meanings of "Dao" in a way that was compatible with the context of the contemporary German intellectual community. In parts, he presented this semantic field from the perspective of transcultural philosophy. We believe that a re-examination of Richard Wilhelm's variational approaches to translate the term "Dao" can provide important methodological inspirations for the translation of complex Chinese texts as well as concerning the improvement of mutual cultural understanding between Chinese and other cultures.]. (shrink)

van Els, Paul. "Chinese filosofie" (Chinese Philosophy). In: Woordenboek filosofie, edited by Harry Willemsen and Peter de Wind, 90–91. Antwerpen & Apeldoorn: Garant, 2015.

van Els, Paul. "Drie pleidooien tegen oorlog" (Three Pleas Against War). In Tien stellingen tegen Confucius: Het pleidooi van de Chinese wijsgeer Mozi, edited by Carine Defoort and Nicolas Standaert, 106–133. Kapellen: Uitgeverij Pelckmans, 2009.

Translated, with a philosophical introduction.

Explores proper timing and the arts of rulership in the work that inspired China's first emperor.

The Lüshi chunqiu was written for and inspired the king who united the warring state to become China's first emperor in 221 BCE. This book explicates the concept of "proper timing," proposing that it helps bring unity to the diverse eclectic content of the text. The book analyzes the roles of human nature, the justification for the existence of the state, and the significance of personal, historical and cosmic timing. An organic instrumental position emerges from the diverse theories contained in (...) the Lüshi chunqiu. The conclusion looks at ways to apply the Lüshi chunqiu’s philosophy to contemporary issues of time and timing, human nature, political order and constitutions, social and environmental ethics. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:On the Epistemology of the Senses in Early Chinese ThoughtXinyan JiangOn the Epistemology of the Senses in Early Chinese Thought. By Jane Geaney. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. Pp. vii + 267. Paper $20.00.On the Epistemology of the Senses in Early Chinese Thought by Jane Geaney is a most valuable and original work on Chinese philosophical views of the senses [End Page 489] in the Warring States (...) period (ca. fifth to third centuries B.C.). It may well be the first systematic study of this topic in the English-speaking world. For this reason alone, it is worthy of attention from all who study Chinese philosophy.The book includes a wide range of discussions of the positions presented in classical Chinese philosophical texts such as the Lunyu, the Mozi, the Mengzi, the Laozi (Daodejing), the Zhuangzi, and especially the Xunzi. Based on these texts, the author argues that there are some shared views on the senses among early Chinese philosophers and that these Chinese views are significantly different from those in Western philosophy. What best distinguishes early Chinese theories of the senses from Western ones is their view of sense discrimination.Sense discrimination is the subject of this book, which carefully examines early Chinese views on the individual senses, especially hearing and seeing, and their relation to the "heartmind" (xin). Geaney uses the term "sense discrimination" to mean something other than "sense perception" or "sensation." By "sense" Geaney refers to "things like hearing, seeing and other specialized forms of interaction between the inside and outside of human beings" (p. 175); by "sensation" she means one's direct and private awareness of sense data (p. 31); and by "sense perception" she refers to the interpretation of sense data (p. 32). Sense discrimination might be something that lies between sensation and perception since it neither represents sense data as directly as sensation does nor interprets sense data as much as perception does. It seems that by "sense discrimination" Geaney refers to the distinguishing function of the senses. For Geaney, sense discrimination is "the general operations characteristic of each of the senses" (p. 175). In other words, a typical operation of a sense always involves discrimination although it does not involve inference. For instance, to sense a color is to discern it "in terms of a background of other colors and the preferences associated with that form of discrimination" (p. 35). Since sense discrimination is a non-inferential activity and does not involve the employment of a concept, it is still a function of the senses but not a function of reason.For Geaney, knowledge associated with sense discrimination in early Chinese thought is different from sensation and perception as understood in Western philosophy, but has some resemblance to aspect perception in the Wittgensteinian sense. Aspect perception is the perception of particular aspects of the objects that are perceived. For example, "seeing x as a rabbit" or "seeing x as a duck" is an aspect perception (p. 33). It seems to Geaney that in Western philosophy, at least in so-called representative realism, the function of sensation is to represent sense data, and the function of perception is to interpret sense data. Sense data in themselves are content-neutral and uninterpreted. The knowledge gained from sensation involves uninterpreted raw data only and is therefore infallible, while knowledge from perception is based on the interpretation of raw data and is therefore not error-free. Aspect perception does not involve inference but does involve interpretation. Therefore, it is fallible as well (pp. 31-32). Geaney argues that in Warring States Chinese thought there was not a notion of sense data that are uninterpreted raw material. Hence, Warring States Chinese philosophers did not [End Page 490] have the concepts of sensation and perception as understood in Western traditions (p. 33).According to Geaney, although the distinction between things "as they seem to us" and things "as they are in themselves" was not a philosophical problem, and skepticism was not a real issue in early Chinese thought, it was not the case that early Chinese philosophers simply held a naive realist position that our senses always tell us what things... (shrink)

Conventional wisdom has it that the concept of individualism was absent in early China. In this uncommon study of the self and human agency in ancient China, Erica Fox Brindley provides an important corrective to this view and persuasively argues that an idea of individualism can be applied to the study of early Chinese thought and politics with intriguing results. She introduces the development of ideological and religious beliefs that link universal, cosmic authority to the individual in ways that may (...) be referred to as individualistic and illustrates how these evolved alongside and potentially helped contribute to larger sociopolitical changes of the time, such as the centralization of political authority and the growth in the social mobility of the educated elite class. Starting with the writings of the early Mohists (fourth century BCE), Brindley analyzes many of the major works through the early second century BCE by Laozi, Mencius, Zhuangzi, Xunzi, and Han Feizi, as well as anonymous authors of both received and excavated texts. Changing notions of human agency affected prevailing attitudes toward the self as individual—in particular, the onset of ideals that stressed the power and authority of the individual, either as a conformist agent in relation to a larger whole or as an individualistic agent endowed with inalienable cosmic powers and authorities. She goes on to show how distinctly internal (individualistic), external (institutionalized), or mixed (syncretic) approaches to self-cultivation and state control emerged in response to such ideals. In her exploration of the nature of early Chinese individualism and the various theories for and against it, she reveals the ways in which authors innovatively adapted new theories on individual power to the needs of the burgeoning imperial state. -/- With clarity and force, Individualism in Early China illuminates the importance of the individual in Chinese culture. By focusing on what is unique about early Chinese thinking on this topic, it gives readers a means of understanding particular "Chinese" discussions of and respect for the self. (shrink)

The _Mozi_ is a key philosophical work written by a major social and political thinker of the fifth century B.C.E. It is one of the few texts to survive the Warring States period and is crucial to understanding the origins of Chinese philosophy and two other foundational works, the _Mengzi_ and the _Xunzi_. Ian Johnston provides an English translation of the entire _Mozi_, as well as the first bilingual edition in any European language to be published in the West. His (...) careful translation reasserts the significance of the text's central doctrines, and his annotations and contextual explanations add vivid historical and interpretive dimensions. Part 1 of the _Mozi_ is called the "Epitomes" and contains seven short essays on the elements of Mohist doctrine. Part 2, the "Core Doctrines," establishes the ten central tenets of Mo Zi's ethical, social, and political philosophy, while articulating his opposition to Confucianism. Part 3, the "Canons and Explanations," comprises observations on logic, language, disputation, ethics, science, and other matters, written particularly in defense of Mohism. Part 4, the "Dialogues," presents lively conversations between Master Mo and various disciples, philosophical opponents, and potential patrons. Part 5, the "Defense Chapters," details the principles and practices of defensive warfare, a subject on which Master Mo was an acknowledged authority. Now available to English-speaking readers of all backgrounds, the Mozi is a rich and varied text, and this bilingual edition provides an excellent tool for learning classical Chinese. (shrink)

The book Mozi , named after master Mo, was compiled in the course of the fifth-third centuries BCE. The seven studies included in the The Mozi as an Evolving Text analyse the Core Chapters, Dialogues, and Opening Chapters of the Mozi as an evolving text.

In all three versions of the “Jian’ai” 兼愛 Chapter in the Mozi 墨子, variations of a central argument may be found. This argument proceeds by advancing a diagnosis for what causes the various evils that beset the world, and it is on this basis that the Mohists propose jian’ai as the solution. The study examines this main argument in some detail, with the aim of improving both our understanding of the Mohist ethical doctrine and also our appreciation of their argumentative (...) practices. The study shows that distinct ethical injunctions of varying degrees of stringency can be derived from the argument, though they all embody an underlying notion of impartiality. This impartiality—while in many ways recognizably attractive to us—puts Mohist jian’ai in tension with certain notions regarding the ethical significance of special relations. In addition, the paper argues that the Mohists main argument for jian’ai contains a critical flaw. (shrink)

Any philosophical method that treats the analysis of the meaning of a sentence or expression in terms of a decomposition into a set of conceptually basic constituent parts must do some theoretical work to explain the puzzles of intensionality. This is because intensional phenomena appear to violate the principle of compositionality, and the assumption of compositionality is the principal justification for thinking that an analysis will reveal the real semantical import of a sentence or expression through a method of decomposition. (...) Accordingly, a natural strategy for dealing with intensionality is to argue that it is really just an isolable, aberrant class of linguistic phenomena that poses no general threat to the thesis that meaning is basically compositional. On the other hand, the later Mohists give us good reason to reject this view. What we learn from them is that there may be basic limitations in any analytical technique that presupposes that meaning is perspicuously represented only when it has been fully decomposed into its constituent parts. The purpose of this paper is to (a) explain why the Mohists found the issue of intensionality to be so important in their investigations of language, and (b) defend the view that Mohist insights reveal basic limitations in any technique of analysis that is uncritically applied with a decompositional approach in mind, as are those that are often pursued in the West in the context of more general epistemological and metaphysical programs. (shrink)

本书介绍曾子的身世背景、曾子的生平、曾子的著作、曾子的思想、曾子与《孝经》的关系、《孝经》的思想内容、《孝经》的影响、历代对曾子的推崇。.

本书是著者晚年耗费十年心血完成的一部巨著。它以晚清孙诒让《墨子闲诂》为底本,参考近百年学术界有关《墨子》校释的重要见解和发现,提出了许多新的见解。.

《墨子》是研究先秦墨家学派及其创始人墨翟思想的重要著作,内容主要记载墨翟的言论和政治活动,还有一部分为后期墨家著作。本书对其作了校注和标点。.

本志设家世与生平、著作, 墨子哲学和人文思想, 自然科学知识及实用工艺成就, 墨学流传、研究和影响, 遗存、纪念物诸篇.

成功大學中文系葉海煙教授、中山醫學大學蕭宏恩教授推薦 海峽兩岸最具權威性的墨學專家， 以現代的思考角度， 將墨學價值及主要意涵做全面性的探討。 墨子是孔孟之間的一個偉人，墨子的活動年代在西元前五世紀。而墨家的思想在先秦諸子百家中，可謂最富科學與人文精神，其知識論和倫理學更具有獨特建樹，是中國文化的寶貴財富。 本書擷取《墨子》精華內容，就其哲學、邏輯、科學與人文義蘊，用現代方法、創造性詮釋，展現墨學的生命活力。探索墨學的普世價值，作為現代人類價值觀的借鑑。結合當代人的情境面向與問題癥結，經由與西方哲學的對比 ，發掘墨家哲學的現代意義。結論從「古今轉型謀發展，中西合璧探真意，普世價值創福祉，現代意義展新機」的宏闊視野，探尋墨學研究未來發展的新契機。.

“Benefit to the world” and “Heaven’s intent” are not, as is often assumed, separate criteria for action in Mozi’s 墨子 ethics; they are the same in extension but not intension. When Mozi speaks in terms of “Heaven’s intent,” it is to highlight the criterion’s retrospective orientation and its scope; taking a cue from Heaven’s reactions to past deeds, agents specify the scope of “the world” by reference to the past performance of persons regarding benefit to the world. This diverges from (...) a principle that is often attributed to Mozi, of considering the benefit of all equally without regard for past performance. (shrink)