Abstract
This chapter describes the rich logical contributions of Mohism. Early Mohism does not yet consider logic as an object of independent study, but already uses a lot of explicit arguments and implicit logical reasonings. Later Mohism, on the other hand, is mostly devoted to a conscious discussion of genuine logical notions. The present chapter analyzes in modern terms the Mohist notions of “names,” “standards,” “criteria” and gives some interpretations of the key notion of “lei” (equivalence class or class or sort or…) and of the problem of compound names. It explains in what sense the Later Mohists had already a theory of propositions and of their semantics, a theory of reasonings, how they had anticipated notions such as a priori, necessary and sufficient conditions, quantifiers, paradoxes, and the like. Besides discussing logical notions, their texts were remarkably organized and written in quite precise technical terms, making them the foremost contributors of pre-Qin philosophers to the study of logic.
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Notes
- 1.
The most frequent arguments are arguments by comparison, appeal to the examples and “counter-examples” (the Sage Kings vs the wicked Kings), arguments of generalization, exhaustion of cases, chains of “implications” or ordering relations, argument “a fortiori,” use of direct parallel structures or opposite parallel structures (see Lucas 2013), positive consequentialist argument (“If you do X, you will have good consequences; hence you should do X.”), negative consequentialist argument (“If you do X, you will have bad consequences; hence you should abstain from doing X.”), reciprocity of relations.
- 2.
References and translations given in this part of the article are from Mei (1929).
- 3.
All quotations and translations of the Mohist dialectical chapters are borrowed from Graham (1978) and follow his notations, without mention of the pages where they appear.
- 4.
- 5.
See Graham (1978:140): “The particle combination 也者 is equivalent to ‘unquote’, implying that what is under discussion is the meaning of the preceding word or phrase. In Names and Objects, it marks technical terms introduced for definition.” For example, NO11 defines pi 「辟」 by the sentence “「辟」也者, 舉也物而以明之” which Graham translates by “‘Illustrating’ is referring to other things in order to clarify one’s case”. Notice the use of 「…」in Chinese and the use of simple quotation marks ‘…’ in English. It is well known that quotation marks are a recent invention and an expression like yezhe was presumably welcome to play a similar role in the original text.
- 6.
There is an abundant list of books and articles written in English or in Chinese on Mozi’s thought and more specially, on the Mohist Canons. The interested reader will find already selected bibliographies in Fraser (2013, 2014) (works in English) and in [Sturgeon] (works in Chinese and in English). We mention here only the works cited in the article.
References
There is an abundant list of books and articles written in English or in Chinese on Mozi’s thought and more specially, on the Mohist Canons. The interested reader will find already selected bibliographies in Fraser (2013, 2014) (works in English) and in [Sturgeon] (works in Chinese and in English). We mention here only the works cited in the article.
Carnap, Rudolf. 1932. “Überwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache.” Erkenntnis 2: 219–41. Trans. by Pap A. 1959 as “The Elimination of Metaphysics Through the Logical Analysis of Language.” In A.J. Ayer, ed., Logical Positivism. Glencoe: The Free Press.
Defoort, Carine, and Nicolas Standaert, eds. 2013. The Mozi as an Evolving Text: Different Voices in Early Chinese Thought. Leiden/Boston: Brill.
Fung, Yiu-Ming. 2012. “A Logical Perspective on Parallelism in Later Moism”.Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39.3: 333–350.
Fraser, Chris. 2013. “Mohist Canons.” In Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2013 edition). URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/mohist-canons/.
Fraser, Chris. 2014. “Mohism.” In Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2014 edition). URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2014/entries/mohism/.
Graham A.C. 1978. Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science. Hong Kong/London: Chinese University Press/School of Oriental and African Studies.
Knoblock, John. 1994. Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works. Volume III, Books 17–32. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Liu, Fenrong, and Jialong Zhang. 2010. “New Perspectives on Moist Logic”. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 27.4: 605–621.
Liu, Fenrong, Jeremy Seligman, and Johan Van Benthem. 2011. “Models of Reasoning in Ancient China”. Studies in Logic 4.3: 57–81.
Lucas, Thierry. 2011. “Basic Concepts of Mohist Logic.” Studies in Logic 4.3: 82–108.
Lucas, Thierry. 2012a. “Definitions in the Upper Part of the Moist Canons”. Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39.3: 386–403.
Lucas, Thierry. 2012b. “Why White Horses Are Not Horses and Other Chinese Puzzles...” Logique et Analyse 218: 185–203.
Lucas, Thierry. 2013. “Parallelism in the Early Moist Texts.” Frontiers of Philosophy in China 8.2: 289–308.
Lucas, Thierry. 2018. “Limits of Logic in Moism.” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 45.3–4: 233–251.
McNamara, Paul. 2014. “Deontic Logic.” In Edward N. Zalta, ed., The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 edition). URL: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/logic-deontic/.
Mei Y. P. 1929. The Ethical and Political Works of Mo-tse. London: Arthur Probsthain; translation quoted according to [Sturgeon].
Ryle, Gilbert. 1949. The Concept of Mind. London and New York: Hutchinson’s University Library.
[Sturgeon] http://ctext.org/mohism/.
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Lucas, T. (2020). Logical Thought in Mohism and Later Mohism. In: Fung, Ym. (eds) Dao Companion to Chinese Philosophy of Logic. Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy, vol 12. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29033-7_15
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