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CAPTURING THE WORLD IN WORDS: LATER MOHIST HERMENEUTIC THEORIES ON LANGUAGE AND DISPUTATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 May 2020

Erica F. Brindley
Erica F. Brindley*
Affiliation:
Erica F. Brindley, 錢德樑, The Pennsylvania State University; email: [email protected].
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Abstract

This essay examines some key statements in the Later Mohist treatises to gain a sense of their views on language and disputation (bian 辯). I first show that the Later Mohists viewed disputation as an exercise in familiarizing oneself with patterns of language use and the verification of truth-claims in the phenomenal world. I then demonstrate that such an activity helps one attain one of the Mohists’ highest goals: the clarification of ethical imperatives about how to behave, as expressed through Heaven for all people. This claim ultimately links Early and Later Mohist ethical concerns and offers a religious explanation for Later Mohist involvement and interest in disputation. Lastly, I frame these writings from within a culture of debate about language in Early China—a culture which, for example, yielded not only Mohist views concerning the necessary correlation between language and reality, but also Confucian formulations on the rectification of names, and a Zhuangzian insistence on the emptiness of sayings.

提要

提要

本文探討後期墨家的語言與辯論觀。首先說明後期墨家如何把辯論看成是習慣語言使用模式和証明現象世界真實命題的一種訓練。 然後說明後期墨家最重要的目標是解釋上天賦予人類的道德標準。藉此，我連結了前、後期墨家的道德觀，並提供後期墨家活動一個宗教上的解釋。最後，本文將這些後期墨家的理論放在中國古代對於語言的辯論文化中討論，如儒家的正名觀或莊子學派的言不盡意觀。

Keywords

Later Mohistsdisputationlanguagehermeneutics辨論語言後期墨家
Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 43 , September 2020 , pp. 93 - 121
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Copyright © The Society for the Study of Early China and Cambridge University Press 2020

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References

1. A detailed discussion of the various divisions of the Mohist corpus can be found in the following pieces by Graham, A. C., Divisions in Early Mohism Reflected in the Core Chapters of Mo-tzu (Singapore: Institute of East Asian Philosophies, 1985)Google Scholar and Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science (Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1978). For an overview, see also Fraser, Chris, “Supplement to Mohism: Texts and Authorship,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition)Google Scholar, Edward Zalta, ed., https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/mohism/texts.html.

2. An account of disputation as rhetoric in ancient China can be found in Xing, Lu, Rhetoric in Ancient China, Fifth to Third Century B. C. E. (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1998)Google Scholar. See also Mary Garrett, “The Mo-tzu and the Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu: A Case Study of Classical Chinese Theory and Practice of Arguments,” Ph.D. dissertation (University of California, Berkeley, 1983).

3. Graham, A. C., “Mo tzu,” in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Loewe, Michael (Berkeley: University of California, 1993), 337Google Scholar.

4. A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science. Graham considers time period to be the most important factor for Mohist differentiation among themselves, while region or intellectual environment played less of a role. ibid., 5, note #7. Wang Guan differs slightly from this opinion. He divides the Mohists of the late Warring States period into two schools, one focused on ethics, the other on dialectics. See Guan, Wang, ed. Gongsun Longzi xuanjie (Taipei: Zhonghua shuju, 1971), 11b–13bGoogle Scholar. For more on Early Mohist logic, see Chmielewski, Janusz, “Notes on Early Chinese Logic,” in Rocznik Orientalistyczny, 26.1 (1962), 7–21Google Scholar, 26.2 (1963), 91–105, 27.1 (1963), 103–21, and 28.2 (1965), 87–111; and Shih, Hu, Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China (Shanghai: Commercial Press, 1922)Google Scholar.

5. For an overview of the dialectics, see A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science; and Fraser, Chris, “Mohist Canons,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2011 Edition)Google Scholar, Edward Zalta, ed., http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/Mohist-canons/.

6. The Larger and Smaller Picks can be understood as the “Larger Account of Picking” (Among Claims), and the “Smaller Account of Picking (Among Claims).” For a complete translation of the Mohist corpus in English that includes the dialectical chapters, see Johnston, Ian, The Mozi: A Complete Translation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010)Google Scholar. I use my own translations in this article, although I sometimes consult A. C. Graham’s Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science and Robins, Dan, “The Later Mohists and Logic,” History and Philosophy of Logic 31.3 (2010), 247–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Besides Graham’s seminal work on the Mohist “Canons,” a recent edited volume discusses the entire Mohist corpus as a text in relationship to early Chinese thought: Defoort, Carine and Standaert, Nicolas, eds, The Mozi as an Evolving Text: Different Voices in Early Chinese Thought (Leiden: Brill, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Other important works on the Later Mohists and Mohist epistemology include Fraser, Chris, The Philosophy of Mozi: the First Consequentialist (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robins, Dan, “Names, Cranes, and the Later Mohists,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39.3 (2012), 369–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Loy, Hui-chieh, “Justification and Debate: Thoughts on Moist Moral Epistemology,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 35.3: Special Issue on Mozi (2008), 455–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and “The Word and the Way in Mozi.” In Philosophy Compass 6.10 (2011), 652–62.

7. See Hansen, Chad, “Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, and ‘Truth’,” Journal of Asian Studies 44.3 (1985), 492CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For a refutation of Hansen, see Fraser, Chris, “Truth in Mohist Dialectics,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 39.3 (2012), 351–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leong, Wai Chun, “The Semantic Concept of Truth in Pre-Han Chinese Philosophy,” Dao 14 (2015), 55–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harbsmeier, Christoph, Aspects of Classical Chinese Syntax, Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Monograph Series 45 (London: Curzon, 1981)Google Scholar, and Harbsmeier, , Language and Logic, Vol 7, Part 1 of Science and Civilisation in China, ed. Needham, Joseph (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998)Google Scholar. A recent overview of the debates on these issues can be found in McLeod, Alexus, Theories of Truth in Chinese Philosophy: A Comparative Approach (London: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016Google Scholar.

8. Hansen, “Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy, and ‘Truth’,” 492.

9. Chris Fraser also speaks of the Early Mohists’ primarily practical view of knowledge, which has implications for their beliefs regarding language. He states: “Knowledge for them is not a matter of holding true, justified beliefs, of having mental representations that correspond to the world, or of understanding a theory about something. It is mainly a set of skills or abilities. To know something is to be able to do something correctly—most fundamentally, to be able to draw distinctions properly.” Chris Fraser, The Philosophy of the Mozi: The First Consequentialists, 57. While Fraser generally agrees with Hansen’s views on Early Mohists and truth, he differs when it comes to the Later Mohists. See Chris Fraser, “Truth in Mohist Dialectics.”

10. Saunders, Frank Jr., “Semantics without Truth: Truth in Later Mohist Philosophy of Language” Dao 13 (2014), 215CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11. Chris Fraser, “Truth in Mohist Dialectics.”

12. Hui-chieh Loy, “The Word and the Way in Mozi,” 660.

13. Loy uses the distinction, “descriptive” vs. “action-guiding” to discuss the Early Mohist orientation on yan (language/teachings) in relationship to truth. Hui-chieh Loy, “On Language and its Relationship with Ethics in Mohist Thought,” 656–58. This is a helpful distinction that will make us more aware of how Mohists move seamlessly from one to the next, as though they believed that semantically adequate, correct descriptions of reality somehow dictated how we as humans should behave in this world.

14. See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics and Science, and Junyi, Tang 唐君毅, “Mozi ‘Xiaoqu pian’ lun ‘bian bian yi” 墨子小取篇論辯辨義, Xinya yanjiusuo 新亞硏究所, 2.2 (1960), 65–99Google Scholar. See also Robins, “The Later Mohists and Logic.”

15. In addition to all the sources on Mohist ethics and epistemology mentioned in previous notes, this body of scholarship includes a host of other works, such as Van Norden, Bryan, Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Xiufen, Lu, “Understanding Mozi’s Foundations of Morality: a Comparative Perspective,” Asian Philosophy 16.2 (2006), 123–34Google Scholar; Brindley, Erica, ““Human Agency and the Ideal of Shang Tong (Upward Conformity) in Early Mohist Writings,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy 34.3 (2007), 409–25CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16. While the English term, “reality,” is laden with its own historical baggage, including the relation to “realism,” I prefer to use it instead of “actualities,” which I deem vague and unnecessarily complicated.

17. For a thorough analysis of these terms, see A. C. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 32–34; 196–99. The phrase, “names and realities” occurs periodically in the “Canons and their Explanations,” “Larger Pick,” and “Smaller Pick” of the Later Mohist corpus as an integral part of the process of disputation.

18. Chris Fraser, “Truth in Mohist Dialectics.”

19. For more on dang (fitting) as the best candidate for “truth” in classical Chinese, see Chris Fraser, “Truth in Mohist Dialectics.”

20. Xunzi, “Achievements of the Ru.” Emended slightly from Hutton, Eric, Xunzi: The Complete Text (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 56CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

21. For a detailed account of the early Confucian concept of the “rectification of names,” see Makeham, John, Name and Actuality in Early Chinese Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994)Google Scholar.

22. Liji, “Wang zhi chapter.”

23. Mozi, “Suo ran chapter.”

24. Most of the “Daqu” consists of textual fragments whose component parts are extremely difficult to comprehend. To compound this difficulty, there are very few commentators who have attempted to interpret or translate these fragments so that there is very little to rely on when one encounters and studies the text. In addition to consulting A. C. Graham’s work on “Names and Objects,” and “Expounding the Canons,” his own reconstruction of texts that he believes can be found in these fragments, I work from my own rough translation of the chapter, based on Sun Yirang’s critical edition of the text: Mozi jian gu 墨子閒詁, ed. Sun Yirang 孫詒讓 (Taipei: Huaqu shuju, 1987).

25. The nature of the term, bie 別, or “heretical,” “divergent,” is revealing in this context, suggesting an act of disputation writ large. The very identification of another group as “heretical” is a clever rhetorical tactic reflecting the larger aim of establishing a Mohist orthodoxy.

26. The passage that mentions the heretical Mohists occurs in the “Tian Xia (All Under Heaven),” chapter of the Zhuangzi. Wang Xiaoyu 王孝魚, ed. Zhuangzi jishi 莊子集釋 (Taipei: Wanjuanlou, 1993), vol. 2, 1079. A. C. Graham dates this chapter approximately to the period between the fall of Qin and the adoption of Confucianism by the Emperor Wu (140-87 B.C.E.). Graham, , “The Syncretist Writings,” in his translation of Chuang-tzu: The Inner Chapters (London: Mandala, 1981), 257Google Scholar.

27. Commentators consistently note the similarity among the names Deng Ling and Xiang Li with Deng Lingzi and Xiang Liqin, who were mentioned in Zhuangzi “Tian Xia.” See Yu Yue’s comments in Zhuangzi jishi, 1079. For a detailed genealogy of the Mohist line, see Shouchu, Fang 方授楚, Moxue yuanliu 墨學源流 (Shanghai: Zhonghua shuju, 1940), 136–142Google Scholar.

28. It is also significant that the groups mentioned in Zhuangzi are not divergent in the sense that they deviated from what I call a “Mohist school,” or, the social organization typically deemed “Mohist.” This is clear because the passage in Zhuangzi also states that Mohist followers were still willing to die for their respective Juzi, or leaders. Zhuangzi jishi, p. 1079.

29. King Hui-wen Wang of Qin (r. 337–324 b.c.e.).

30. Lüshi chunqiu jiaoshi, vol. 2, Book 16, “Qu You,” 1013.

31. And, of course, to any reader cognizant of the cultural ideologies of the time, this passage is especially noteworthy because it depicts a Mohist acting against another Mohist out of self-benefit, thus flagrantly violating the Mohist creed of “universal caring.”

32. It is now common among specialists to speak of “metarhetoric” as the theoretical counterpart to the practice of rhetoric. See Kennedy, George, A New History of Classical Rhetoric (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 3Google Scholar.

33. Hu Shih, Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China, 59–60.

34. Zhuangzi jishi, 1079.

35. See Hu, Development of the Logical Method in Ancient China, 185. A. C. Graham agrees with Hu’s contention. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 244.

36. It is unclear in early Chinese texts whether authors would recite their own texts, or merely the texts of their predecessors.

37. For A. C. Graham’s brief discussion of the problems of the “Daqu” (Larger Pick) and his reasons for constructing the so-called texts, “Expounding the Canons” and “Names and Objects” from the “Smaller Pick” and “Larger Pick,” see Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 101–10.

38. Garrett, “The Mo-tzu and the Lü-shih ch’un-ch’iu,” 320.

39. Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 20–22.

40. In n. 9 above, I mentioned Chris Fraser’s intriguing claim that knowledge is primarily a set of skills or abilities. While Fraser is probably right in that practical knowledge is their main emphasis and interest, I would temper this claim by arguing that knowledge in itself—to embrace it, memorize it, and understand it—was also an important ethical and religious goal.

41. I have benefitted greatly from and consulted the analysis and translation of the “Smaller Pick” by Robins, “The Later Mohists and Logic.”

42. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Xiaoqu,” 379.

43. For more on this religious connection, see Erica Brindley, “Human Agency and the Ideal of Shang Tong.”

44. Of course, this describes the Sophists of ancient Greece, one subsection of intellectuals involved in disputation at the time, and not all disputers in Greece were like this. Socrates, for example, argued against the sophistic disputers in favor of valid disputation “based on a knowledge of truth, of logical method, and of the psychology of the audience”; see Kennedy, A New History of Classical Rhetoric, 8.

45. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Jing shang,” 285.

46. This is written about throughout the literature on Mozi. See deFoort, Carine, “Do the Ten Mohist Theses Represent Mozi’s Thought? Reading the Masters with a Focus on Mottos,” Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 77 (2014), 337–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fraser, The Philosophy of Mozi; Van Norden, “Mozi and Early Mohism,” in Virtue Ethics and Consequentialism in Early Chinese Philosophy, 144; and Hui-chieh Loy, “The Word and the Way in Mozi,” 655.

47. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Xiaoqu,” 379.

48. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Xiaoqu,” 379.

49. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Xiaoqu,” 379.

50. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Jing Shuo Shang,” 317. A. C. Graham does not overemphasize the importance of “names and realities” when he attempts to reconstruct many disparate passages in these two chapters into one, relatively complete and coherent document by the title, “Names and Objects.” Graham translates shi as “objects” rather than “realities,” so he is referring to the same concept; see Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 469. Though I am not convinced by Graham’s assertions that these passages should form a single original text, I support the view that the concept by which Graham titles his document, “names and realities,” is central to Later Mohist discourse on disputation.

51. Sun Yirang thinks that the text is corrupt here and that the word yu 欲 “to desire” should probably be xiao 校 “to model” (Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, 373). But I think that it makes better sense to retain the term “to desire.”

52. Commentators do not know what to do with this statement. Some, like A. C. Graham, who follows Zhang Qihuang, emend the “ming” at the end of the sentence to “he 合.” See Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 470, note 600. Sun Yirang thinks that the first “ming” should be dropped because it is a corruption. He leaves the rest the same and does not emend the second “ming.” Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, 373. I have chosen Graham and Zhang’s emendation.

53. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Daqu,” 373.

54. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Daqu,” 372. Unable to make sense of the sentence as it stands and noticing an apparent attempt at parallel sentence structure, I am following Sun’s emendation of the word fang 方 to pu 不 and adding an additional pu 不 into the bottom half of the sentence. This change corresponds to the sense given in sentence, “What one calls ‘far’ or ‘near’ are the actual distances of the congruency in ‘being less than’.” In this statement, it is clear that the focus is on the congruency of the linguistic concept ‘being less than’,” and not on something else, as implied when left unaltered.

55. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Xiaoqu,” 379.

56. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Jing Shuo Shang,” 316. According to Graham, “Cang” and “Huo” were “abusive names for bondsman and bondswoman”; Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 247. In this particular context, however, it does not appear that the name is necessarily associated with a social value.

57. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Jing Shang,” 285. See also Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 325.

58. The following critique of disputation by Zhuangzi functions very well as a response to the example I produce here: “Rather than use a horse to show that ‘A horse is not a horse’, use what is not a horse.” (I would wager that Zhuangzi is engaging the Sophist position here, as the Later Mohists would probably be trying to prove that “A horse is a horse” and not “A horse is not a horse.”) Zhuangzi, Chapter 2, translation by Graham, Chuang-Tzu: The Inner Chapters, 53.

59. For the main linguists and philosophers of the twentieth century who have helped contribute to the fields of semiotics and deconstructionism, see the works of Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Peirce, Roland Barthes, and Jacques Derrida, among many others.

60. The normative standards mentioned above are found in Heaven’s responses to humans. This is not to say that Heaven’s norms do not exist without the presence and actions of humans. It merely underscores the point that Heaven’s responses to human action in the world are based on the prior existence of norms that can be deciphered through correct observation of the world.

61. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Xiaoqu,” 379.

62. Though the authors do not always mention the term “kind” when speaking of making distinctions on that basis, it is clear from their writings that almost all claims concerning language can somehow be related to this concept.

63. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Daqu,” 377.

64. I am providing the entire comments provided by the “Explanations, Upper” for the terms tong and yi (similarity and difference) so the reader can see the larger context in which these are discussed. I have translated only the parts in boldface.

65. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Jing Shuo Shang,” 319.

66. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Daqu,” 376. Reading yu 與 “and” instead of the word, yi 異 “different,” as is recommended by Qing scholar, Yu Yue 俞樾, in the commentary provided by Sun Yirang.

67. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Daqu,” 376.

68. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Daqu,” 372.

69. Note that, since not all beasts are also prey, they are not identical. I thus refer to the relationship as one of “overlapping” kind.

70. I follow commentators who gloss 顧 as 類 lei (kind). Graham takes the “yi-righteousness” in this phrase to belong to the previous sentence. His translation is quite different from mine, and it reads as follows: “Do not justify doing more for parents by their conduct, but do pay attention to their conduct”; see Graham, Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science, 255. Mozi jian gu, ed. Sun Yirang, “Daqu,” 369.

71. For the connection between Mohist ethics and the obtainment and deciphering of knowledge about the real world, see Fraser, The Philosophy of the Mozi, 27–76 and Erica Brindley, “Human Agency and the Ideal of Shang Tong.”

72. Given that the late Mohists’ views are consistent with earlier Mohist thinking, one might wonder if they also argued on behalf of an ethical consequentialism, as did their forefathers. My sense is that, while they did not explicitly draw a link between the objective truths to be found in language and a consequentialist approach, the very act of trying to use language carefully to discern truth might have been used to justify a consequentialist logic that was allegedly derived from Heaven.

73. As mentioned in this article, it is important to note that understanding objective reality properly appears to be different from perceiving reality, as the former constitutes knowledge that can be distorted by improper language use. Linguistic statements are necessarily altered or verified through one’s proper understanding of names and the way they work. While everyone shares similar perceptions of reality, only those with a subtle grasp of the proper norms set by language can describe it properly, gaining access to a “true” objective reality as the Later Mohists believe it ought to be discussed and understood.