Talk:Mozi

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

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Mohism and Christianity

Just like to clarify the phrase I added in the article

Between the ideas of "universal" (jian) and "differential" (bie), Mozi said that "universal" comes from righteousness while "differential" entails human effort.

In the Christian doctrine, the purpose that Christ need to come is because the Law failed to justify man. Instead of bringing men salvation, the Law acted as a mirror, revealing the sinful nature of man. Law needed to come to an end because no man by his own efforts is able to be perfect. Jesus introduces grace. Grace is receiving what we do not deserve. Jesus died for our sins, took our unrighteousness and gave us His righteousness. We can henceforth go to the Father covered with the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Going along similar chains of philosophical thoughts in interpreting this line, I would read the above "universal" (jian 1) as "obedience to God by grace through faith" and "differential"(bie 2) as human will to justify himself, which is unrighteous because all works that emanate from the flesh cannot be perfect.

Furthermore, I would like to bring to attention that tian(1) zi(3) can also be translated as Son of God. Jesus, the Son of God, is the only one capable of perfect love. NOTE: THIS IS NOT AN ATTEMPT TO CREATE NEW DOCTRINE. RATHER, IT IS AN ATTEMPT TO POINT OUT CERTAIN FACTS WHICH DESERVE FURTHER RESPECTFUL RESEARCH.

Another point worthy of attention is that Mohism was led by three juzi and that it died out during the Han dynasty. Jesus Christ was born around 0 AD, which is also the reign of Han dynasty. The Bible clearly described three wise men from the East who worshiped the babe Jesus in Bethlehem. IF Mozi had been prophecizing the birth of Jesus (instead of only philosophizing about universal love), the three juzi, with their advanced mathematics and wide network, would be more than capable to make that journey to the west.

Mozi make sacrifices during spring and autumn. There are seven feasts of Israel instituted in the Law of Moses. The seven feasts of Israel are divided into the spring festivals (Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Pentecost) and the autumn festivals (Day of Atonement, Trumpets and Tabernacles). The Jewish interpretation of feast is similar to "appointment". In other words, the feasts were instituted for the purpose of prophecy. The spring festivals are believed to be fulfilled by the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. The autumn festivals point to the Second coming of Jesus Christ. IF the timing of Mozi's sacrifices and offerings are identical to those instituted by the law of Moses (Btw, Mozi..Moses...hmmm), then there is a possibility that they may be waiting for the birth of Christ.

IF, the three juzi were truly the three wise men who were waiting for the birth of their tian(1)zi(3); it would make sense that they would return to China and dissolve the entire Mohist networks since their purpose of existence have already been achieved, i.e. the King they had been waiting for has arrived. There is no more need of another philiosophical school to rival the coming of Christ.

15 Dec 2008

P.S.

This may (or may not) be heretical; but I find quite a number of teachings in Mozi which has chain of thoughts similar to Old Testament teachings. These are mostly from the chapter "Da Qu", which I admit I do not understand fully myself. If anyone has better understanding of this chapter, I would be glad to receive some sharpening of my understanding too.

Da Qu, Mo Zi: The love of heaven is greater than the love of saints. Heaven is good to man, more so than then saints. Isaiah 55:9, Old Testament: For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts.

Da Qu, Mo Zi: To the "thickly" righteous, show him "thick" righteousness; to the "thinly" righteous, show him "thin" righteousness. 2 Samuel 22:26-27, Old Testament With the merciful, You will show yourself merciful; With a blameless man You will show Yourself blameless; With the pure you will show yourself pure...

Last but not least, there is this confusing line: Da Qu, Mo Zi: To kill another for the sake pf preserving the world - this is not righteous. To offer oneself for sacrifice for the preservation of the world - this is righteous. This seems to speak of the crucification of Jesus Christ, the righteous Son of God, who gave his life for the salvation of the world. The righteousness of Christ is contrasted with the unrighteousness of the Pharisees who crucified the Son of God, unwittingly also fulfilling God's plan of salvation.

The end of Da Qu is incomplete. Best attempts at translation mentioned "...saint teaching all the people under heaven, like a father taching a lost brother" and something about executing a murderer, that if the murderer is not executed, universal love is not practised (Dorisyong (talk) 08:55, 24 January 2009 (UTC))

bo-ai?

This term is mentioned in the article but it is not defined. --Catch153 (talk) 10:38, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Link broken

Link to text of Mozi broken as of this writing. Mikedelsol 04:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Disputed

Unfortunately User:Gbog, you are wrong in this case because Dí (翟) in the dictionary means "a long tail pheasant" whereas Zhái (翟) is a surname, so I'm changing it back to my original Pinyin spelling if you have a problem with my spelling, look it up HERE!

Answer: It is not by looking in dictionnaries that we will find the prononciation of 翟 in the name 墨翟. Many characters have different and very unused prononciations when they are used names, I heard. I've searched different sources, and only one said 墨翟 should prononce Mo Zhai :

1. Wenlin (dict.) : Mò Dí (480?-400 B.C.) n. pacifist philosopher, also known as Mozi (Micius)
2. [1] : "Mo Di 墨翟 died around 470 BC"
3. Robert Van Gulik, La vie sexuelle dans la Chine ancienne, confirms "Mo Ti"
4. Marcel Granet, la Pensée chinoise, confirms : "Mo Ti".
5. and more...

Googling on "Mo Di" Mozi gives many refs, but "Mo Zhai Mozi" gives only one relevant:

Ed. Robert Innis. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1985. 178-89. Mo Zhai 墨翟. Mozi shiwu juan 墨子十五卷 [Writings of Mozi] Yingyin Wenyuange siku quanshu 景印文淵閣四庫全書. Reprint. Taibei: Shangwu Yinshuguan, 1983. Vol. 848.[2]

Now, do you have more refs giving "Mo Zhai" ? If not, I would guess that the ref above is simply a mistake and that nobody ever said 墨翟 should be prononced "Mo Zhai". gbog 03:24, 28 July 2005 (UTC)

I got the answer to it now: Read Here

N0N4am0r 23:14, August 1, 2005 (UTC)

Hey, I agree from the beginning that 翟 is referenced in dictionnaries as reading "Zhai" for a surname, and as "Di" for the concrete meaning. This must be the case now, but they surely don't talk about the prononciation during Mo Zi's time ! (which was surely very different). My question is why for god sake all reputed sinologist I read all refers to this guy as "Mo Di". I don't know more than them on these topics so I would fully trust them, and use "Mo Di"... If you find somewhere Legge or Wilhelm or Waley talking about Mo Zi as "Mo Zhai" I will instantly change my mind ! gbog 09:04, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

To clarify, isn't 翟 in this case the given name, and not surname? If not, then I don't think that it's pronounced as Zhái when used as a surname is even relevant here. --Menchi 09:41, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

To clarify what you said, a Chinese given name is a surname. N0N4am0r 1:04, August 10, 2005 (UTC)

mmm... that doesn't really clarify what I said. That's more like twisting my words. See Surname#China, Hungary, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. --Menchi 19:07, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

Err, you don't understand it at ALL! Mozi's LAST NAME (surname) is pronounced a zhái WE aren't talking about his first name by the way so I don't see why you're arguing about his first name and not his last name. You said "isn't 翟 in this case the given name, and not surname?" We were arguing about his surname not his given name. N0N4am0r 11:04, August 13, 2005 (UTC)

Talk of "first name" and "last name" makes things even more confused, as the ordering of names is the variable part. Look, there's the family name or surname, and there's the personal name or given name. A given name can't be a surname, by definition.

With regard to the usage by modern scholars:

• Mozi
  1. A Companion to the Philosophers, ed. Arrington
  2. Companion Encyclopedia of Asian Philosophy, edd Carr & Mahalingam
  3. A Companion to World Philosophies edd Deutsch & Bontekoe
  4. Eastern Philosophy: Key Readings, Ed. Leaman
  5. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Mo-zi
  1. One Hundred Philosophers, King

I found one older book using "Mo-tzu", and none using "Mo Di". --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 20:27, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Can't really argue with that but mind you we're not exactly looking for his "surname". We're looking for the proper spelling for his surname in PinYin. As a full-Chinese, Dí is less likely to give the reading of 翟 then Zhai will. For instance, this is the dictionary entry for the Pinyin "zhai" "翟【zhái】 a surname." versus 嚁 (this is the closest Chinese character I could get to the real one). N0N4am0r 23:44, September 12, 2005 (UTC)

I have a source that gives 396 B.C. as a more approximate death date, but I have no certainty enough to change it as is. Nagelfar 05:40, 29 October 2005 (UTC)

Are we sure about Mozi saying those things about how benevolence is innate in humans? Because the Korean EBS internet lectures say that Mozi said something similar to Locke's tabular rasa. --Exec. Tassadar (comments, contribs) 10:18, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, here's the source. HERE --Exec. Tassadar (comments, contribs) 10:26, 9 July 2010 (UTC)

From: unlogged user, Faust-Leaguer: the last paragraph of section "Works and Influence", to which this disputation is not limited to, has no links to sources. Is Wikipedia able to censor opinions that have no evidence to correspond to any historical accuracy of sentences made without evidence? Feel free to type to the unlogged user, to whom shall have a look at any responses, if there is any. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.15.226.132 (talk) 01:33, 4 May 2022 (UTC)

Clean-up

With the large amount of new material added by an anon., the article is a bit of a mess. It's a long chunk of undifferentiated text, mixing up myth and fact. Without, of course, overdoing it, it needs to be split up, and the status of the various claims made clear. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:01, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand your concern. Most of the added stuff comes from the Mozi itself or from other Chinese historical writings on Mozi. Not all of it might be reliable, but it is highly interesting. I will add subheadings and sources soon. --Mike

WikiProject class rating

This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 14:45, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

How do you pronounce his name?

How do you pronounce Mozi? I'm always very confused with chinese names! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.76.135.48 (talk) 03:23, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

See Pinyin--刻意(Kèyì) 06:36, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Mentioned in "Cosmos"

I didn't have a pen handy while watching the 5th episode of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey", "Hiding in the Light", but I believe the man's name might have been given as "Mo Tze" in the animation. Anyway, some information about his his life and beliefs was presented in a very positive light. He was credited with developing the beginnings of the scientific method and demonstrating the camera obscura. If you missed this episode, it's being rebroadcast on the "National Geographic Channel" at 11P eastern tonight. Or you can watch the episode on the show's website for the next 97 days. http://www.cosmosontv.com/ Yours, Wordreader (talk) 02:40, 8 April 2014 (UTC)

It'd be nice if we could have an authoritative source that confirms or dis-confirm it.[3] 24.215.188.243 (talk) 00:57, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

I added this to the camera obscura article. However, Mozi was not a scientist and the depiction of him doing an "experiment" in Cosmos is completely inaccurate. Shii (tock) 04:55, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Military engineer?

As of this edit, the subject is in Category:Ancient Chinese military engineers (as its sole member). There doesn't seem to be anything in the article (or anything else I've read) that indicates he practiced this trade. Shouldn't he be in Category:Ancient Chinese military writers instead? Folly Mox (talk) 23:24, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I did it. Folly Mox (talk) 12:20, 10 August 2023 (UTC)

Mozi neglected by parents?

The article declares that "It is known, however, that his parents were not affectionate towards him and showed him very little attention." The source given for this section of the text is Science And Civilisation In China, Vol. 2 by Joseph Needham and Ling Wang, but in this source (and at the specific page number given) I can find no mention of Mozi's parents or how they treated him. He sure talks about the parents of others a lot, and was staunchly anti-nepotism, but this claim remains unproven by this source. I did some research on his background from a number of sources, and I can't find anything mentioning it. It would absolutely make sense for a man unloved by his parents to preach universal love of everyone, and it's entirely possible that the statement is true, but if I can't find any evidence for it, I think it makes sense for it to be deleted. Anyone have a source for this? Ollie.mov (talk) 14:52, 14 December 2023 (UTC)