They were the chief rivals of the Confucians in their early days, but today no one has heard of them. Meet the Mohists: a faction of hard-headed, big-hearted philosophers whose ideas would fit right in to modern leftist politics, but which were scorned at the time in ancient China.
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Time/place: China, 475-221 BCE
Dead Idea: Mohism
Co-hosts: Andre Sólo
Main Sources
Confucius. (1998). The Analects. Hinton, D., Trans. Washington, D.C.: Counterpoint.
Eno, R. (1990). The Confucian Creation of Heaven: The Philosophy and the Defense of Ritual Mastery. New York: State University of New York Press.
Frazer, C. (2016). The Philosophy of the Mozi: The First Consequentialists. New York: Columbia University Press.
Frazer, C. (2010). “Mohism.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved Nov. 7, 2017, from: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/mohism/
Feng, Y. (1952/1983). A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 1. Bodde, D., Trans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Knoblock, J. and Riegel, J. (2013). Mozi: A Study and Translation of the Ethical and Political Writings. Berkely, CA: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California Berkeley
Lee, J. (2004). Xunzi and Early Chinese Naturalism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Machle, E. J. (1993). Nature and Heaven in the Xunzi: A Study of the Tian Lun. Albany, NY: University of New York Press.
Mencius. (2016). Mencius: An Online Teaching Translation. Eno, R., Trans. Retrieved Nov. 4, 2017, from: http://www.indiana.edu/~p374/Mengzi.pdf
Mozi. (2010). The Mozi: A Complete Translation. Johnston, I., Trans. New York: Columbia University Press.
Mozi. (1963). Mo Tzu: Basic Writings. Watson, B., Trans. New York: Columbia University Press.
Xunzi. (2014). Xunzi: The Complete Text. Hutton, E. L., Trans. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Music and graphic design by Rachel Westhoff. Maps, pics, references and more at http://www.deadideas.net.