Mozi - Greatest Chinese Philosopher?

...although Mengzi comes in at a close second in my opinion.

The School of Mohism was founded upon the doctrine of an ancient Chinese artisan known as Mozi (470 � 390 BCE, Latinized as Micius). Although his school of thought would not come to survive the harsh and revolutionary period of Legalist philosophical implementation during the oppressive Qin Dynasty (221 - 207 BC), Mohism was once the greatest rival of the contending schools of thought (opposed to Confucianism) during the Warring States Period (481 - 221 BC). Ironically some of its tenants surviving the infamous Burning of the Books in 213 BC by the order of the First Qin Emperor, Qin Shihuangdi, blended in with later Confucian written dogma in the subsequent Han Dynasty era. Two millenniums later, after the political revolution of 1911 to uphold the Republic of China (now limited to Taiwan), the revolutionaries saw Mozi�s writings as strikingly modern for his time, as the political leader Sun Yat-sen would use his �bo-ai� concept (which will be explained below) as a founding basis of Chinese democracy (although most of his ideas were based on Western concepts).

Mozi was born into a family of lowly artisans, but gradually climbed the ladder of social stratification to become a master craftsman, engineer, and artisan. He was the designer, inventor, and architect of many things ranging from mechanically-driven musical-chirping birds to wheel-driven siege ramps known as �Cloud Ladders�, which used protractible ramps or ladders to breach the ramparts of city walls. In the 5th century BC Mo Jing, there were also recorded uses of rotating arcuballistae, grappling hooks and rams for naval warships (Mozi, Chapter 49 describes how the Mohist Gongshu Ban aided the State of Chu in standardizing their grappling hooks and rams for sailed warships, thus aiding their victory over the State of Yue, which did not have these standards), and traction-trebuchet catapults by Mohist inventors and Mohist followers. Air-filled leather sacks used as blowing-and-suctioning bellows (used most often for aiding the smelting process in metallurgy) were described in the Mohist book known as the Mo Tzu as customarily being used in the 4th century BC for �toxic smokes made by burning balls of dried mustard and other plants in stoves, the smoke being directed by bellows against troops attacking cities, or blown into the openings of enemy sap tunnels,� (Needham, Science and Civilization in China: Volume 4 Part 2, page 138). This meant that the Mo Tzu documented one of the earliest uses of chemical warfare in human history.

The Mohists also wrote in the Mozi (Mo Jing) about the relation of force, acceleration, and mass dealing with weight and suspension. According to the 20th century sinologist Joseph Needham, he had revolutionary ideas about science, and much like Newton�s First Law of Motion, Mozi once wrote that, �The cessation of motion is due to the opposing force�if there is no opposing force�the motion will never stop. This is as true as that an ox is not a horse.� Mozi wrote of innovative new ideas in the field of optics and mechanics that were unheard of before his time. With optics, the Mohists wrote of shadows cast by objects by differently-fixed light sources, using combinations of plane mirrors to make experiments with multiple-reflection, using concave mirrors to display inverted reflection, convex mirrors, the concept of refraction (bending of light) in water, and using pinholes and camera obscura that weren�t thought by historians to be used until the Arab physicists of the early 11th century AD. The Mohists were well aware of reflected light of an object and its entry into the eye, thus they were much like the contemporary Epicurean minority of ancient Greece. In opposition to this was the Pythagorean (from the Ionian-Greek philosopher Pythagoras of Samos) idea that visual rays were emitted from the eye in linear fashion and by touching any object in its surrounding gave the mind the ability of sight. Optics in the early West continued with the Greek Empedocles who proposed double emission, rays from the object and the eye, while the philosopher Aristotle settled for some form of motion between the eye and the object. Ironically, the wrong assumption of light rays coming from the eyes (and not vice versa from the object) was not corrected until the brilliant work of a later Arab scientist known as Ibn al-Haitham (Alhazan, 965 � 1039 AD), whose theory thereafter prevailed. With mechanics, Mozi�s Mohist engineer disciples of the 3rd century BC were acquainted with most of the principles of equilibrium known to the contemporary Greek mathematician, physicist, philosopher, astronomer, inventor, and engineer known as Archimedes (287 � 212 BC) in the Hellenized world (Archimedes postulate no. 3, and Mozi presupposes 1 and 4, along with identical findings to Archimedes proposition 3). 

With these innovative new thoughts and ideas, Mozi earned a huge following that rivaled Confucianism in China once several different rulers or various states sought out his direct aid in building siege weapons and siege machinery to defend their holdings. His �disciples� were mostly technicians and craftspeople, studying both his technical works and his canon of philosophical teaching. He was a great critic of Kong Fuzi�s teachings being too elitist and noble-centric, since Kong Fuzi was of the gentry-class, and Mozi was born as a common artisan. Mozi stressed practical and utilitarian philosophy, writing often of his disdain for whimsical Confucian-based rituals in situations of filial piety and other social contracts he saw as largely superficial and insincere compared to true and sincere human acts. He believed a state�s emphasis on raising the military to higher status than civil importance was a grave mistake, and that warfare was mainly a waste of a state�s energy in comparison to cultivating sophistication in thought, society, and culture. His philosophy aligned with many of the smaller, weaker states, and it was because of this that his philosophical teachings were nearly wiped out and obliterated from the pages of history. Although he designed brilliant fortifications and siege weapons/machinery, Mozi was a pacifist at heart, dissuading the rulers he worked with to engage in warfare. In the chapter �Gongshu� in his book, the Mozi, he was said to have walked for ten days to reach the State of Chu in order to halt their attack on the State of Song. At Chu�s capital, he was determined to prove to their chief military strategist, Gongshu Ban, that he was wrong in his pressing the King of Chu to attack Song. While playing war games, Mozi was able to overturn each one of Gongshu�s strategies in facing an attack with Song. Gongshu was enraged by this, calling for the execution of Mozi. However, Mozi said it was futile, pressing to the King of Chu that his disciples had already trained the soldiers of Song in the methods of Mohist fortification and art of war, thus the king called off the war against the state of Song.
 
The philosophy of Mohism taught that emphasizing self-reflection and authenticity in life was much more important than obedience to ritual that the Confucian philosophy preached would bring society into order. Mozi stressed that human beings learned about the world mostly through times of hardship and adversity (�Embracing Scholars,� in the Mozi). He wrote that by reflecting on one�s own successes and failures in life, one then attains true self-knowledge rather than mere conformity with ritual guidelines (�Refining-Self,� in the Mozi). Mozi also taught that a true gentleman led a life of asceticism and self-restraint, not material and spiritual extravagance. Although Mozi admired the ancients like Confucius did, he pointed out that what was innovative for a past time had the potential, if used in the present, to retard and hinder the current society�s development and advancement (�Against Confucianism Part 3,� in the Mozi). Mozi was not a proponent of fate, but rather taught that people could change the course of a predetermined destiny, directing their own lives by applying their senses to observe the world carefully, judging objects and events by their causes, their function, and their historical basis (�Against Fate, Part 3� in the Mozi).

Much like the Western utilitarian philosophy proposed by Jeremy Bentham in the 18th century, Mozi believed that people�s actions should follow the course of contributing the greatest good to the greatest amount of people. With this in mind, Mozi was not a proponent of offensive warfare, expensive funerals, and even music and dancing, all of which he saw as serving no useful purpose. The Daoist philosopher Zhuangzi would later criticize Mozi for his denouncement of music and dancing as being whimsical and useless, but would dually criticize Confucius for emphasizing its importance too strongly, since in times of war excessive ritual of music and dancing would seem frivolous to the immediate needs of survival and war effort. Unlike the Confucian philosophy�s statement that it was natural for humans to care about different sets of people in different degrees, Mozi stressed the concept of bo-ai (�impartial caring� or �universal love�), challenging the Confucian-based family and clan structure. Mozi believed that all people were born equal and thus should treat each other equally. Other philosophers found this idea to be absurd, since it would mean they would have to treat a stranger in the same manner as one�s parents and family. Mozi argued against this, saying the best way to be filial to one�s parents was to be filial to the parents of others. With this idea, Mozi was following the logic of benevolence and malevolence since it followed that one�s parents will be treated by others as one treats the parents of others. Mozi was also a believer in the power of ghosts and spirits, but in a pragmatic way, believing that heaven (Tian) should be respected due to its punishments upon living men. Unlike the Daoist belief in a heaven (Tian) that was amoral by its mystical nature, Mozi believed that it was moral, a benevolent force that sustained life, rewarded good, and punished evil regardless of one�s status, much like the idea of God in the Christian faith. With this idea of heaven, Mozi stressed his ideal form of meritocracy in government based on one�s proficient performance and talent rather than social background. A Chinese system of governance driven by merit would live on, however, as Confucianism during the Han period (202 BCE � 220 AD) would adopt it as one of its own core principles. These later Civil Service and Imperial Exams to draft various government officials would test the latter�s strengths in merit and raw talent rather than providing them privilege and authority for noble or aristocratic birth.

That's it for the great Mozi, but if anyone else wants to contribute then feel free to do so! Also, you may support any argument of your own that he is not the greatest of the Warring States Chinese philosophers. Feel free also to talk about Chinese philosophy in general.

Eric

Is it me who dreamed of becoming a butterfly, or is it the butterfly which dreamed of becoming me?