The main thought of Mozi

His theories of "non-destiny" and "universal love" are in opposition to the Confucian theories of "destiny" and "love has equal difference", holding that "officials are impermanent and expensive, and people have no end." It is required that "the hungry get food, the cold get clothes, and the laborers get rest". Many of them have simple materialism.

The so-called universal love means equality and fraternity. Mozi asked the monarch, father and son, and brothers to get along well on the basis of equality. "If you love yourself, you love yourself", Mozi believes that the phenomenon that the society oppresses the weak, oppresses the poor with the rich, and prides yourself on the humble is caused by the fact that everyone in the world does not love each other. He opposed war and demanded peace.

(2) Tian Zhiming Ghost

The so-called ambition is providence and love for the people. The monarch violates God's will and is punished by heaven, and vice versa.

③ Shangxian County, Shang Tong

Shang Tong asked the people and the Emperor to keep pace, unite as one, and practice just politics. Sages include those who choose sages as officials and those who choose sages as emperors. Mozi believes that the monarch must elect the country's sages and the people should obey the monarch in public administration. Mozi asked the above to know the situation, because only in this way can we reward good and punish evil. Mozi asked the monarch to use Shang Xian, and put forward the idea that "officials are impermanent and expensive, and the people have no final base".

(4) frugality and funeral

Thrift is a point that Mohist school emphasizes very much. They criticized the extravagance and waste of monarchs and nobles, especially opposed the custom of long burial and rebury valued by Confucianism, and believed that long burial and rebury were not conducive to society. People think that monarchs and nobles should live a clean and thrifty life like three generations of ancient sages. Mozi asked Mohism to practice in this respect.

⑤ unhappy

Mozi was extremely opposed to music, and even when he was traveling, he heard the car driving in the direction of singing and immediately turned around. He believes that although music is beautiful, it will affect farmers' farming, women's textile and ministers' handling of government affairs, which is not in line with the principle of the holy king and the interests of the people, so he opposes music.

6 fatal.

On the one hand, Mozi affirmed that Heaven had the will, rewarded the good and punished the evil, and served his "universal love" with the help of external personality gods. On the other hand, he denied the destiny advocated by Confucianism and advocated "non-destiny". It is believed that life recognition, wealth, world security and chaos control are not determined by "fate" As long as people work hard, they can achieve the goal of being rich, expensive, safe and ruling. Mozi opposed the Confucian saying that "life and death have life, wealth is in the sky" and thought that this statement was "decorated with life to call the simple people" Mozi saw that this thought was killing and damaging people's creativity, so he put forward a fate.

Military thought occupies an important position in the whole ideological system of Mohism. Mozi's military thought is a self-defense theory in a weak position, which has two main contents: one is to attack right and wrong and oppose the unjust war of attacking, cutting and plundering; The second is to save and defend and support the just war of defending and punishing. Non-attack: an unjust war against attack, cutting and plunder

Mozi believed that all wars at that time were predatory and unjust wars. In the chapter of non-attack, he complained many times about the meaning of non-attack and thought that war was a fierce thing. He said that most ancient nations perished in this attack, and only a few countries survived. It's like a doctor cured tens of thousands of people, and only a few people were cured. This doctor doesn't deserve to be called a good doctor, a relative, a friend, and war is not a good therapy. Countless rulers died in wars in history. This is tantamount to sounding the alarm for those who attempt to expand their territory and annex the world by attacking the war. Therefore, Mozi advocates serving the world with benevolence and righteousness and eliminating disasters with universal love. In Mozi's eyes, universal love can stop the attack and go to chaos. Universal love is the ethical basis of attacking right and wrong, and not attacking is the inevitable result of universal love.

Mozi advocated no attack, especially against the predatory war of "the great attacked the small, the strong bullied the weak, many thieves were few, the deceivers bullied the fools, the noble were arrogant and the rich were arrogant and poor". Taking universal love as the criterion, Mozi strictly divided war into "punishment" (punishment without righteousness) and "attack without innocence", that is, justice and injustice. The war of "loving all the people in the world", such as attacking Sanmiao, Shang Tang and Zhou, is in line with the interests of heaven, ghosts and people in China, and it is a just war with the help of ghosts and gods. On the contrary, it is a war of "attacking the big with the big, bullying the weak with the strong, being outnumbered" and "hating the world". It's not fair.

Mozi also resolutely and mercilessly exposed the heavy and endless disasters brought by the war at that time:

(1) Delaying farming time and destroying production. Agriculture is the source of food and clothing for ordinary people.

2 robbing money, getting something for nothing. Stealing peaches and plums, robbing people, dogs, chickens, dolphins, cows, horses, killing people and stealing goods are all "unjust". Attacking a small country, "entering its ditches, cutting its crops and cutting down its trees" is also an unjust act of "getting something for nothing"

(3) killing innocent people and plundering people as slaves. Mozi pointed out that the monarch of a big country ordered the army to attack a small country. "Those who stand in the people's position will be killed." If you fail, you will go home. Husbands think servants are arrogant, and women think chiefs. "

Salvation and Defence: A Just War in Support of Defence and Punishment

Mozi's "only non-attack, is the law of preparing for defense." Starting from "not attacking", Mozi discussed how to actively defend as a weak country. Mozi knew that a great monarch would not give up the war just because he was reasonable, so he advocated "foresight" and actively defended against the war of aggression in which the big attacked the small. These discourses on defensive operations are concentrated in the following eleven chapters of "Preparing the City Gate", forming a defensive theoretical system with the city defense as the core. In a word, it includes three aspects.

First, advocate active preparation and strive to make good preparations. "Get ready, the weight of the country. Eating is the treasure of the country; Soldiers, the claws of the country; City, so self-defense. " "So warehouse unprepared millet, can't stay fierce hunger; The library is unprepared, although it is righteous, it cannot be meaningless; The city wall is incomplete and cannot be controlled; There will be no worries and you will not die. " Only by making full preparations in material and spiritual aspects such as logistics, city defense, armament, diplomacy and internal affairs before the war can we create favorable conditions, take the initiative to defend the city and win the defensive war.

The second is the active defense guiding ideology of "the defenders of the city should put the enemy first". Mozi believes that in defending the city, we should attack while defending the middle and actively wipe out the enemy. It is the best policy to "wait for the rescue". The concrete measures to "hit the enemy hard" are: using the terrain, relying on the city, and arranging troops correctly; Taking the capital as the center, we will form a multi-level defense in depth for border towns, counties and cities and the capital, blocking them layer by layer and consuming the enemy; Combination of tenacious persistence and timely attack.

Thirdly, in the specific tactics of defensive operations, a set of tactical principles of defensive operations is put forward. In "Preparing the City Gate" and other articles, Mozi effectively defended twelve siege methods one by one by asking about birds. For example, the high-close method, the water attack method and the point attack method were all quite advanced siege techniques at that time. Mozi took ingenious measures to explain in detail the making method and using skills of guarding city equipment.

Mozi's defense theory occupies an important position in the history of China's military science. Later generations described the principles and tactics of defense, and many ancestors wrote Mozi, so all solid defenses are generally called "persistence." If Fan Li put forward a simple theory of active defense from the strategic point of view, Mozi discussed defense from the operational point of view, and formed a relatively complete theoretical system of defensive operations, which just formed a complementary relationship with Sun Tzu's theory of offensive operations and made positive contributions to the development of traditional military science. (1) epistemology

The most outstanding philosophical achievements of Mozi are epistemology and logic, and his contribution is incomparable to other philosophers in pre-Qin period.

The main contribution of Mozi's philosophy is epistemology. He regards the direct feeling experience of "the truth of eyes and ears" as the only source of understanding. He believes that judging the existence of things should be based on what everyone sees and hears, not personal imagination. Based on this simple materialist empiricism, Mozi put forward the criteria for testing the truth and falsehood of knowledge, namely, three tables: "The origin of knowledge lies in the matter of ancient sages", "The truth of people's eyes and ears is observed below", and "Abandoning criminal politics and observing the interests of the people in the country". Mozi integrated "matter", "reality" and "benefit" and tried to eliminate personal subjective prejudice by taking indirect experience, direct experience and social effect as the criterion. On the relationship between name and substance, he put forward the proposition of "not taking it by name, taking it by name" and advocated naming it by substance. Mozi's epistemology which emphasizes the authenticity of sensory experience also has great limitations. He once concluded that there were ghosts and gods on the grounds that someone "tasted the things of ghosts and gods and smelled their voices". But Mozi did not ignore the role of rational knowledge.

Mozi believes that people's sources of knowledge can be divided into three aspects, namely, listening, speaking and knowing relatives. He divided what he heard into hearsay and personal hearsay, but in Mozi's view, neither hearsay nor personal hearsay should be simply accepted, but must be digested and integrated to make it his own knowledge. Therefore, he stressed the need to "smell and get its meaning", that is, after listening and accepting, we should think and investigate on the basis of other people's knowledge, and then inherit and carry forward.

Mozi's "knowledge" contains the meaning of reasoning and investigation, and refers to the knowledge obtained through reasoning. He particularly emphasized "knowing what it is but not knowing why", that is, unknown knowledge can be inferred from known knowledge. If the fire is known to be hot, it is inferred that all fires are hot; Compasses can draw circles, and it is inferred that all circles can be measured with compasses. It can be seen that Mozi's knowledge and learning are not passively and simply accepted, but contain a positive and enterprising spirit.

In addition to listening and speaking knowledge, Mozi attached great importance to personal understanding, which is also a big difference between Mozi and other pre-Qin philosophers. Mozi's intimate knowledge is the knowledge he has gained through his own experience. He divided the intimate process into three steps: consideration, connection and understanding. "Trouble" is the state of people's cognitive ability to seek knowledge, that is, the beginning of the mind, interested in the mind and seeking something. But you may not get knowledge just by thinking. For example, if you look at a foreign object with your eyes open, you may not be able to identify the real image of the foreign object. Therefore, it is necessary to "receive" knowledge, so that sensory organs such as eyes, ears, nose, tongue and body can contact with foreign objects and perceive the external nature and shape of foreign objects. However, the "received" knowledge is still very incomplete knowledge, and only superficial knowledge of things can be obtained. Some things, such as time, are not felt by the senses. Therefore, the knowledge acquired by human senses is still preliminary and incomplete, and it is necessary to integrate, sort out, analyze and infer the acquired knowledge in order to reach a "clear" knowledge realm. In a word, Mozi organically links the three aspects of knowledge sources and is unique in the field of epistemology.

② Logic

Mozi is one of the important pioneers of China's ancient logical thought system. Mohism, Egyptology and ancient Greek logic are called the three major logics in the world. He consciously and extensively used logical reasoning to establish or demonstrate his political and ethical thoughts. He also put forward logical concepts such as argument, category and reason for the first time in the history of China's logic. But also requires that debate be studied as a kind of specialized knowledge. Although Mozi's "argument" refers to the debating technique, it is based on the knowledge of categories (things and the like) and reasoning (grounds and reasons), so it belongs to the category of logical analogy or argumentation. Mozi's "three forms" are not only the ideological standard of speech, but also the factors of reasoning and argumentation. Mozi is also good at revealing the enemy's contradictions by analogy. Due to Mozi's advocacy and enlightenment, Mohism developed the tradition of attaching importance to logic, and later Mohism established the first system of ancient logic in China.

Based on this law of thinking, Mozi further established a series of thinking methods. He summarized the basic thinking method as "outlining the nature of all things and discussing the ratio of words." Give examples, express ideas in words, and tell the reasons. Take by class, give by class "("small take "). That is to say, the purpose of thinking is to explore the inevitable connection between objective things, and to explore the form of reflecting this inevitable connection, expressed by "name" (concept), "word" (judgment) and "saying" (reasoning). Take by class, give by class ",which is equivalent to the analogy of modern logic, is an important reasoning method. In addition, Mozi also summed up a variety of reasoning methods, such as hypothesis, outspoken, choice of words, deduction, induction and so on. Mozi's argument has formed an orderly and systematic system, which is unique in the ancient world, alongside ancient Greek logic and ancient Indian hermeneutics. (1) put forward cosmology

Mozi believes that the universe is a continuous whole, and individuals or parts separated from this unified whole are all components of this unified whole. In other words, the whole contains individuals, and the whole is composed of individuals, and there is an inevitable organic connection between the whole and the individuals. Starting from this continuous view of the universe, Mozi further established a theory about time and space. He named time "Jiu" and space "Yu", and gave the definitions of "Jiu" and "Yu", that is, "Jiu" refers to all time in ancient and modern times, and "Yu" refers to all spaces in east, west, north and south, and time and space are continuous.

After giving the definitions of time and space, Mozi further discussed whether time and space are finite or infinite. He thinks that time and space are limited. For the whole, time and space are infinite, while for some people, time and space are poor. He also pointed out that continuous space-time is composed of space-time elements. He defined the elements of time and space as "beginning" and "end". "Start" is the smallest unit of time and "End" is the smallest unit of space. In this way, space-time is continuous and infinite, and this continuous and infinite space-time is composed of the smallest units. There is finiteness in infinity and discontinuous space-time theory in continuity.

On the basis of space-time theory, Mozi established his own theory of motion. He unified and linked time, space and object motion. He believes that in the continuous and unified universe, the movement of objects is manifested in time differences and spatial position migration. Without the change of time series and position distance, there is no movement, no simple movement in time and space.

Mozi also expounded the origin and attributes of matter incisively. Among the pre-Qin philosophers, Laozi first proposed that the origin of matter is "born from nothing" (Laozi's chapter 1) and "everything is born from something, and everything is born from nothing" (Laozi's chapter 40). Mozi first opposed this view of Laozi and put forward the idea that everything begins with "being". He pointed out that there are two kinds of "nothingness", one is that it existed in the past and does not exist now. For example, an extinct bird cannot be denied as "existence" just because it does not exist; One is that things that have never happened, such as the sky were to fall, are nonexistent "nothingness". Things that didn't exist originally won't give birth to "you", and things that existed originally and then didn't exist are not "you" born from "nothing".

It can be seen that "you" exists objectively. Then, Mozi further elaborated the issue of material attributes. He believes that if there is no stone, you won't know the hardness and color of the stone, and if there is no sun and fire, you won't know the heat. In other words, without physical objects, attributes do not exist, and attributes are an objective reflection of physical objects. The reason why people can perceive the properties of matter is because there are physical objects.

② Mathematical exposition

Mozi was the first scientist in the history of China to treat mathematical problems rationally. He gave a series of propositions and definitions of mathematical concepts, which are highly abstract and rigorous.

The mathematical concepts given by Mozi mainly include:

On the definition of "times". Mozi said, "Double is two." (The Book of Mohism) That is, the original number is added once, or the original number is multiplied twice, which is called "times". For example, two feet is "times" one foot. On the definition of "Ping". Mozi said, "The level is the same as the height." (The Book of Mohism) is the same height, which is called "Ping". This has the same meaning as Euclid's geometric theorem that "the common vertical lines between parallel lines are equal".

Regarding the definition of "the same length", Mozi said: "the same length, the same positive phase." (On the Book of Mohism) That is to say, the lengths of two objects are exactly one-to-one correspondence and completely equal, which is called "equal length".

On the definition of "zhong". Mozi said, "China people are of the same length." (On the Book of Mohism) The "middle" here refers to the symmetrical center of the object, that is, the center of the object is a point with the same distance from the surface of the object.

About the definition of "artificial intelligence". Mozi said, "Hey, a China person is as long." The word "er" here is a circle. Mozi pointed out that the circle can be drawn with compasses or checked with compasses. Compasses have been widely used before Mozi, but it is Mozi's contribution to give a precise definition of circle. Mozi's definition of circle is exactly the same as that in Euclid's Geometry.

On the definition of a square. Mozi said that all four corners are right angles, and a quadrilateral with four equal sides is a square. You can draw a square with the "moment" of a square ruler and test it.

This also accords with the definition of square in Euclid geometry.

On the definition of straight line. Mozi said that the three-point line is a straight line. As the definition of straight line, three-point * * * line is widely used to measure the height and distance of objects in later generations. Liu Hui, a mathematician in the Jin Dynasty, used three-point * * * lines to measure the height and distance in the monograph Calculation of Islands. After the Han Dynasty, the "Mountain Sight" on the crossbow machine was invented accordingly.

In addition, Mozi also discussed the decimal numerical system. China widely used decimal notation as early as Shang Dynasty, and Mozi was the first scientist to summarize and expound the concept of value system. He clearly pointed out that different digits have different values. For example, on the same number, one is less than five, while on different numbers, one can be greater than five. This is because in the same number (unit, tens, hundreds, thousands, etc.), five contains one, and when one is in a higher number, it in turn contains the invention of decimal, which is a great contribution of China to world civilization. As Needham said in the Mathematical Volume of the History of Science and Technology in China, "The number system of Shang Dynasty is more advanced and scientific than that of ancient Babylon and ancient Egypt at the same time", "Without this decimal system, it is almost impossible to have our unified world now".

③ Physical research

Mozi's research on physics involves many branches such as mechanics, optics and acoustics, and gives many definitions of physical concepts, makes many important discoveries and summarizes some important physical theorems.

First of all, Mozi gave the definition of force and said, "Force, punishment (form) is also exciting." In other words, force is the cause of the motion of an object, even though the function of the motion of an object is called force. In this regard, he cited an example to illustrate that this is like lifting heavy objects from bottom to top, and it can only be done because of its powerful function. At the same time, Mozi pointed out that when an object is stressed, it will also produce a reaction force. For example, after two objects of equal mass collide, they will move in opposite directions. If the mass of two objects is very different, the object with large mass will not move after collision, but the reaction force still exists.

Then, Mozi gave the definitions of "moving" and "stopping". He thinks that "moving" is because of pushing, and more importantly, he puts forward "stop, it will take a long time, so there is no time to stop." The point of view is that the stop of object motion comes from the action of resistance and impedance. If there is no resistance, the object will move forever. This view is regarded as the pioneer of Newton's law of inertia, which is more than 1000 years longer than the whole world at the same time, and it is also the symbol of the birth and development of physics (Aristotle thinks that force is the reason for making objects move, and without force, objects will not move, but stopping is the nature of objects, which is in line with the results observed by ordinary people, but superficial and wrong).

Mozi also made an incisive statement about the lever theorem. He pointed out that the reason why the balance beam will balance when weighing heavy objects is that the "mark" is short and the "mark" is long. In modern scientific language, "Ben" is the resistance arm, "Biao" is the power arm, and the mechanical formula is power × power arm (Biao) = resistance × resistance arm (Ben). In addition, Mozi also made a series of studies on mechanical problems such as lever, inclined plane, center of gravity and rolling friction. I won't go into details here. In the history of optics, Mozi was the first scientist to conduct optical experiments and systematically study geometric optics. If Mozi laid the foundation of geometric optics, it is not an exaggeration, at least in China. As Needham said in China's History of Science and Technology, Physics Volume, Mozi's research on optics was "earlier than Greek as we know it" and "not as good as Indian".

Mozi first discussed the relationship between light and shadow. He carefully observed the changing law of moving objects and put forward the proposition that "the scenery does not move". That is to say, when a moving object looks at its shadow from the table, it is also moving with the object. Actually, this is an illusion. Because when the position of a moving object moves, the image it formed a moment ago has disappeared, and the image formed after its displacement is newly formed, rather than the original image moving to a new position. If the original image does not disappear, it will always exist in its original position, which is impossible. Therefore, the movement of the seen image is only formed by the continuous and uninterrupted life and death of the old and new images with the movement of the object, not the movement of the image itself. Mozi's proposition was later inherited by famous artists, which put forward the proposition that "the bird's shadow has not moved"

Later, Mozi also discussed the umbra and secondary shadow of objects. He pointed out that if the light source is not a point light source, the object will produce umbra and auxiliary shadow because of the repeated irradiation of light from each point; If the light source is a point light source, only the umbra appears.

Then, Mozi conducted pinhole imaging experiments. He clearly pointed out that light travels in a straight line, and the image formed by an object through a small hole is an inverted image. This is because when light passes through an object and then through a small hole, the upper part of the object is imaged at the bottom and the lower part of the object is imaged at the top due to the straight-line propagation of light, so the image formed is inverted. He also discussed the relationship between the size of the image and the tilt of the object and the distance from the light source, pointing out that the shadow is long and thin when the object is tilted or the light source is far away, and short and thick when the object is straight or the light source is near. If it is reflected light, a shadow is formed between the object and the light source.

What is particularly valuable is that Mozi systematically studied plane mirror, concave mirror and convex mirror, and obtained a series of basic principles of geometric optics. He pointed out that the images formed by flat mirrors are the same size, far and near are symmetrical, but left and right are reversed. If two or more flat mirrors illuminate each other, repeated reflections will occur, forming countless images. Concave mirror's imaging is to form a positive image in the middle. The positive image at a distance from the middle is larger, the positive image at a distance from the middle is smaller, and the positive image in the middle is as big as the object. Outside the "middle", the image is upside down, the near "middle" image is large, and the far "middle" image is small. The convex mirror only forms a positive image, with a large near mirror image and a small far mirror image. The center here is the center of the spherical mirror. Although Mozi has always been unable to distinguish between center and focus, and confused them, his conclusion is basically consistent with the imaging principle of modern spherical mirrors.

Mozi also studied the propagation of sound and found that wells and poppies can amplify sound and use it skillfully. He once taught students that when guarding the city, in order to prevent the enemy from digging tunnels to attack the city, they should dig a well every 30 feet, put a big poppy in the well, put thin cowhide on the mouth of the poppy, and let people with good hearing lie on the poppy to listen, so as to know whether the enemy is digging tunnels and where the tunnels are dug, and make preparations to guard against the enemy.

(4) mechanical manufacturing.

Mozi is proficient in manual skills and can be compared with the craftsmen's bus class at that time. Mozi is good at guarding the city, and his ability and attainments in this respect have been fully reflected in the offensive and defensive drills such as Chu's defeat in attacking the Song Dynasty. He spent three years developing a flying wooden bird (kite, paper kite) and became the founder of ancient kites in China. He is also an expert in making vehicles, and he can build a car with a load of 30 stones in less than one day. The car he built was fast, labor-saving and durable, which was appreciated by people at that time.

It is worth pointing out that Mozi almost knew all about the manufacturing technology of various weapons, machinery and engineering buildings at that time, and he had many creations. In Mozi, he introduced and expounded in detail the suspended door structure of the city gate, the structure of various defense facilities inside and outside the city gate, the manufacturing technology of crossbows, oranges and various offensive and defensive equipment, and waterways. These instruments and facilities he talked about have a great influence on the military activities of later generations. Mozi's educational thought is "to practice hard and observe discipline", and put forward the educational purpose of "promoting the benefits of the world and eliminating the harm of the world"