The Mozi as an Evolving Text: Different Voices in Early Chinese Thought

303 Pages·2013·2.311 MB·English

by  Carine Defoort, Nicolas Standaert

The Mozi as an Evolving Text
Studies in the
History of Chinese Texts
Edited by
Martin Kern, Princeton University
Robert E. Hegel, Washington University, St. Louis
Ding Xiang Warner, Cornell University
VoLUME 4
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/hct
The Mozi as an Evolving Text
Different Voices in Early Chinese Thought
Edited by
Carine Defoort and Nicolas Standaert
LEiDEN • boSToN
2013
Cover illustration: The Chinese text on the cover is from Tang Yaochen 唐堯臣 (16th century),
Mozi 墨子, Ming woodblock edition from 1553 repr. in Mozi daquan 墨子大全, eds. Ren Jiyu 任继愈
and Li Guangxing 李广星, beijing: beijing tushuguan chubanshe, 2004, vol. 3, 131.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Mozi as an evolving text : different voices in early Chinese thought / edited by Carine Defoort
and Nicolas Standaert.
  pages cm. — (Studies in the history of Chinese texts ; volume 4)
 includes bibliographical references and index.
 iSbN 978-90-04-23434-5 (hardback : alk. paper) — iSbN 978-90-04-24620-1 (e-book) 1. Mo, Di,
fl. 400 b.C. Mozi. i. Defoort, Carine, 1961– author, editor of compilation. ii. Standaert, N., author,
editor of compilation.
 b128.M8M627 2013
 181’.115—dc23
2013000783
This publication has been typeset in the multilingual “brill” typeface. With over 5,100 characters
covering Latin, iPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the
humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.com/brill-typeface.
iSSN 1877-9425
iSbN 978-90-04-23434-5 (hardback)
iSbN 978-90-04-24620-1 (e-book)
Copyright 2013 by Koninklijke brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
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Dedicated to Watanabe Takashi, Angus Graham, and Roman Malek,
inspiring Mozi scholars

CoNTENTS
introduction: Different Voices in the Mozi: Studies of an
Evolving Text  .............................................................................................. 1
Carine Defoort and Nicolas Standaert
1. Are the Three “Jian Ai” Chapters about Universal Love?  ............. 35
Carine Defoort
2. How to End Wars with Words: Three Argumentative Strategies
by Mozi and His Followers ..................................................................... 69
Paul van Els
3. Mozi 31: Explaining Ghosts, Again  ....................................................... 95
Roel Sterckx
4. Mozi’s Remaking of Ancient Authority  .............................................. 143
Miranda Brown
5. The Ethics of the Mohist Dialogues  .................................................... 175
Chris Fraser
6. From “Elevate the Worthy” to “intimacy with officers” in
the Mozi  ....................................................................................................... 205
Hui-chieh Loy
7. Heaven as a Standard  .............................................................................. 237
Nicolas Standaert
bibliography  ..................................................................................................... 271
References to the Mozi  .................................................................................. 281
Subject index  .................................................................................................... 287

IntroductIon: dIfferent VoIces In the Mozi:
studIes of an eVolVIng text
carine defoort and nicolas standaert
子墨子曰: 吾非與之並世同時, 親聞其聲, 見其色
也。以其所書於竹帛, 鏤於金石, 琢於槃盂, 傳遺
後世子孫者知之.
Master Mozi said: “since I was not alive when the
[sages] lived, I have not personally heard their voices
or seen their faces. It is because of what they wrote on
bamboo and silk, carved in metal and stone, engraved
on plates and bowls, and passed on to their descen-
dants, that I know it.”
Mozi 16: 28/29–29/1
Mo di 墨翟 (ca. 479–381 Bce) claims to know that the ancient sages were
caring and compassionate even though he has not personally heard their
voices or seen their faces. fortunately for him, their writings were pre-
served on bamboo and silk, metal and stone, or plates and bowls. so he
could use their authority to promote his own novel ideas among the ruling
elite of his day. he himself, however, was not so lucky: the book named
after him was not carved in metal or stone, and it fared less well than the
sages’ writings. the Mozi 墨子, a book of seventy-one units,1 was seriously
neglected in the course of chinese history partly due to its perceived low
literary value and uninteresting content. this agelong neglect has caused
such serious textual corruption and interpretive difficulties that even con-
temporary scholars are often reluctant to tackle this text. nevertheless,
the authors of the current volume have chosen this voluminous source of
Mohist thought—or, at least, its best-preserved parts—as their topic.
Written over a period of some two hundred years (roughly in the fourth
and third centuries Bce) and possibly put into its current shape during
the han dynasty, the Mozi appears to have been largely forgotten until its
1 only fifty-three pian (units, chapters) are extant. But the fact that a Mozi version in
seventy-one pian was listed in Hanshu 30.1738, has led to the belief that it originally had
seventy-one chapters. for the textual history of the text, see Maeder, “some observations
on the composition of the ‘core chapters’ of the Mozi,” 29–34.