Posted 2016/11/1
Mo Tzu, originally named Mo Di, a noted philosopher during the early Warring States Period. Mo Tzu, meaning Master Mo, is an honorific title. The school of philosophy he established is called Mohism and his thoughts and main theories are collected and preserved in The Mohist Canons.
Born in a carpentry family, Mo had been long influenced by his father and got familiar with the skill of carpentry. While learning the classics of Confucianism, he gradually got tired of the Confucian canons, regarding them as uptight, egotistical, pretentious upper class, and characterized by a mindless devotion to empty rituals. Finally he gave up Confucianism and formed a school of his own, namely, the Mohism. Gaining a growing number of followers and giving lectures all round, Mo Tzu established his school against Confucians in ideas of rituals and class stratification. He spoke for the lower classes of society, opposed wars, demanded to diminish expenditures for rites and burials, and make use of a universal love. He committed himself fully to the nation and determined to save people from sufferings and wars. The most well known story is that on hearing that the Emperor of the State of Chu intended to attack the State of Song, he went to Chu and by simulating the coming war, he convinced the Emperor that the war of aggression would eventually lead to nowhere.
As the founder of the Mohist School in the Pre-Qin period, Mo Tzu took an eminent position and contributed great efforts in the history of Chinese philosophy. Besides ,He also laid foundations for the development of maths, physics and mechanics in ancient China. And due to his great compassion for the grass-root class, he was revered as "Saint of the General Populace".
The Mohist Canons, the crucial historical material for Mohist study, embodies the original ideas of Mo Tzu on politics, military, philosophy, ethnics, logic and science. The book is divided into two parts, one records the words and deeds of Mo Tzu and expatiates his thoughts, which is the reflection of the early Mohist ideas including his experience in military defence, and the other part mainly expounds the epistemology and logic issues and contents on natural science, such as math, physics, and mechanic manufacturing, which is the reflection of the late Mohist ideas, generally called "Mohist Debate" or "Mohist Canons". The Mohist Canons established the system of ancient Chinese logic, and the simple materialism ideas of cosmology within have exerted a profound influence on later generations. The book also records the principle of camera obscura and the principle of differential equation, which are discoveries found earlier than his western counterpart.
