The Pre-modern History of Mohism and the fate of Chinese Ancient “Logic”: from the Warring States until the beginning of the Period of Fragmentation

A história pré-moderna do Moísmo e o destino da “Lógica” chinesa antiga: do período dos Reinos Combatentes até o início do Período de Fragmentação

Resumo

This article focuses on the pre-modern Chinese intellectual response to the Mohists’ attempt at developing “Logic” as a field of inquiry, from the Warring States Period until the early Jin dynasty. As it refrains from discussing the merits of Chinese Ancient “Logic” per se, the argument shows that the mainstream thought remained concentrated on moral and political matters, delivering a consistently negative judgement of “Logic” on those grounds. In this sense, through the analysis of a number of authoritative testimonies on the early history of Chinese ideas, it becomes clear that Mohism (and the “School of the Names”) neither manage to carve out a field for their linguistic and dialectical practices, nor could resist becoming absorbed by other doctrines, as the result of social and political transformations. A prologue sets the broad methodological terms of the discussion, according to which Logic is not understood as a discipline, but as a culturally defined practices and discourses. A first section analyzes how the transmitted manuscript of the Mozi frames the debates about “Logical” content. The second focuses on the Warring States’ period reception, using Zhuangzi’s last chapter “All Under Heaven” as main authority, pondering that the Late Mohist “Logicians” are dismissed precisely because their methods. The third explicates how Han Empire looked down on “Logical” techniques for their own sake, showing how Confucianism’s advance legitimized a certain use of those techniques. The epilogue narrates how Mohism become extinct and how the discourse about “Logic” was appropriated as a tool of governance under the School of the Names.

Keywords: Mohism; School of the Names; ancient chinese “Logic”; bibliographical studies; chinese religious thought.