Talk:Mohism

Untitled
I don't know much about Mohists, but in "The Open Empire - A history of China to 1600" by Valerie Hansen, "jian ai" is expressly explained to be "impartial caring" often mistranslated as "universal love" (chap 2). Impartial caring is not the same as loving without qualification, it means that that one had to consider others' well-being when acting, not just one's family's well being (in contrast to Confucianism). Since this seems very different compared to the current article on Universal Love, I think that it would be appropriate to remove the link until the matter is cleared up.


 * Mohism was the closest of China's philosophic schools to western religious traditions with its belief in a single spirit of the heavens, a strict moral code, and universal love.

That's not obvious at all. I don't know of many Western religious tradition that uses universal love in the same way that Mohists do.

Roadrunner.


 * Seconded! These one-sentence/paragraph/essay east-west comparisons really don't make sense to me ...
 * --prat


 * What may make sense is to say that Jesuits, when discovering Chinese thought, did like much mohism and found many links to their own religious beliefs. (But they made the same links with many other masters...) gbog 17:33, 2 Dec 2003 (UTC)

It seems that the link to agape is provided without noting the difference between the two - the Mohists suggest that universal love is an impulse, whereas Christianity seems to suggest that agape is a choice. User:Anon

Mohist's scientific theory
From this referenc article:
 * 2400 years ago, the Chinese Mohist philosophers collected their writings in a book called the Mo Ching. Mohism disappeared, but we can still read this in the Mo Ching:


 * The cessation of motion is due to the opposing force ... If there is no opposing force ... the motion will never stop. This is true as surely as an ox is not a horse.
 * Here's a perfectly clear a statement of Newton's first law of motion, 2100 years before Newton's Principia. The Principia was part of a scientific revolution, while the statement in the Mo Ching is largely forgotten.

What is the second Law?
"He also believed in the 2nd law and was in conflict with the ancients." Can someone please clarify this statement. Thanks. lk 10:59, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

Modern Moist?
"Period uprisings in Chinese history, such as the Taiping rebellion and the overthrow of the last emperor in 1911, were carried out by these Mohist secret societies." I find this hard to believe. Is there a citation for this seemingly outrageous claim? lk (talk) 09:29, 27 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'm removing the claim. Please do not reintroduce without proper citations. lk (talk) 05:19, 4 May 2008 (UTC)

it's terribly written.
seriously. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.176.27.25 (talk) 00:55, 20 November 2008 (UTC)

yeah — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:8:B080:474:610C:198A:6D0A:4844 (talk) 23:42, 5 June 2015 (UTC)

Gongsun Long
He is not a mohist, but of "Ming" ("name") school. In fact mohists had criticized him in several articles of "Mozi" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.24.50.37 (talk) 05:09, 21 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you; see School of Names (名家; Míng jiā; ming = "names") for corroborating updates. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 18:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

pinyin or Chinese characters wanted
I think the article would be enriched by the identification of the pinyin and Chinese characters which correspond to the sections. For example, my small reading has identified fa ('method', according to Needham vol 2, but 'law' according to the legalists, who came after the mohists), li (duty), yi (morality), ren (benevolence), and ai (love) as seminal concepts which are already listed in SEP. And qi, which is not specifically mohist is also essential for understanding some of the scientific underpinnings of China. --Ancheta Wis (talk) 18:16, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

topic order
Should impartiality and caring and go first, or meritocracy? I personally would put impartiality first, as I believe it to be more central to his philosophy. But I have not read the entire Mozi.FourLights (talk) 11:57, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

New book
The Philosophy of the Mozi: The First Consequentialists by Chris Fraser, 2016, Columbia University Press. Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 18:15, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * That's great! Have you read it? —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 19:30, 24 October 2016 (UTC)
 * I have not -- just the Chronicle of Higher Education new book listing, sorry! Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 03:02, 26 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Don't be! I'm glad for the heads-up. —Justin ( koavf ) ❤T☮C☺M☯ 03:07, 26 October 2016 (UTC)

Completely inaccurate
The section "The administrative thought of Mohism was absorbed by Chinese Legalism and its books were later merged into the Taoist canon, all but disappearing as an independent school of thought." is simply completely wrong. We need an expert in Ancient Chinese Philosophy to rewrite this article. Stidmatt (talk) 15:18, 21 June 2018 (UTC)


 * Removed offending statement.2A00:23C6:1104:6100:C050:6CEE:DA0D:1DE5 (talk)

Apparently wrong and unsourced
The following text cites a non-existent reference and is contrary to what I understand of Mohist teaching, which was decisively in favor of defense as a means of thwarting offensive warfare. I removed it, and recommend that it be reinstated only if solid documentation supports it. ("sfn|Turnbull|2002|p=40" did not lead to an actual citation.)


 * “They were renowned in the smaller states (and the enemies of the larger states) for the inventions of siege machinery to scale or destroy walls. These included traction trebuchet catapults, eight-foot-high ballistas, a wheeled siege ramp with grappling hooks known as the Cloud Bridge (the protractable, folded ramp slinging forward by means of a counterweight with rope and pulley), and wheeled 'hook-carts' used to latch large iron hooks onto the tops of walls to pull them down.”

2A00:23C6:1104:6100:C050:6CEE:DA0D:1DE5 (talk) 22:51, 28 July 2018 (UTC)