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Untitled

the Music section has been moved to Art of War (album) Alkivar 04:21, 14 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yin-ch'ueh-shan source texts

Would it not be important to include information on the Yin-ch'ueh-shan discoveries in 1972? This included five additional chapters (dialogue), and a version of the 13 known chapters that was at least about 1000 years older than the one used up till then for translation (even up to Cleary in 1988). As far as I know it was only by R. T. Ames in 1993 that a 'new' English translation with this recently discovered source text was made. Ideally a "tree" of versions and relationships between the source texts (since 1972, at least two) could be made in this article. --Matrixtom (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 13:29, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

The Art of War (http://nanguo.chalmers.com.au/~robert/Publishing/China/suntzu/) translated by Thomas Cleary (1991)

-link does not work. Anyone know where the site has moved?

I wouldn't be surprised if it's hard to find it online again since his translation is still in print. --Mrwojo 17:54, 21 Nov 2004 (UTC)


The Denma translation

Is this some sort of book advertisement? If so, it shouldn't be here. --SunTzu2 09:42, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)


Duplicate of Sun Zi

This article is a duplicate of Sun Zi. This is what the Germans think w:de:Sun Zi and what I think as well after reading the book. This article should be merged into Sun Zi and redirected. --Francois Genolini 07:42, 22 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Hmm...Doesn't look like a duplicate to me...  :-/ --SunTzu2 09:39, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Is this book meaningful? .....I don't exactaly think so. It is a bit old right?

lol he did not copy it from Sun Zi moron he made it himself he was genius wow I can't believe you didn't know that and yes it is meaning full to see the stratagem that they had back then moron —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.70.55.89 (talk) 00:41, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Please be civil. --Mrwojo 18:04, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Modern Military Applications

I heard that Art of War is still used in some military schools (including in the US, along with On War by Karl von Clausewitz). But I can't confirm this. Can anyone help? --SunTzu2 05:47, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Also this comment was just added: "In the United States Marine Corps, it is required reading for intelligence personnel and officially recommended for all Marines.". I'm not convinced. Does anyone have a source for this? --Lawrence Lavigne 00:53, July 13, 2005 (UTC)

The Navy War College uses the text "On War" by Von Clauswitz but, I don't think they use "The Art of War". FrankWilliams 19:09, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's a link to the USMC domain that lists the "Art of War" as part of the US Marines "Professional Reading Program". http://www.mcu.usmc.mil/ProDev/ProfReadingPgm.htm Seems like a pretty reputable source :)

On the back of the book I have it says the Art of War is a pocket favorite of the US army, in this article it tells you how it was used in modern sitations.

Added referenced note to section regarding US Army unit libraries containing "the Art of War" (without specific mention of "On War"). Still searching for annual book list (not unclassified?) authorized under Army Regulations 28-86, "US Army Contemporary Military Reading Program", but strongly suspect concordance with CSI/C&GSC recommendation on "The Art of War." Hotfeba 18:52, 12 April 2007 (UTC)


Overview

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of overview of basic principles that mirrors the level of detail seen on The Prince. I'm confident that I could write such a summary, but what I'm wondering is if other people agree.

Also, I'm currently working on a Table of Contents for the book.

I totally agree with such a suggestion. This article definitely needs expansion. It is arguably one of the most influencial written texts in history. I also believe that there needs to be things written about how the Art of War can be applied in the business world as well. --Colipon+(T) 04:36, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


Title

The article has the literal translation of the title as "Sun Tzu's Military Strategy". "Bing1" = soldier and "fa3" = laws/rules/guidelines, so would it be more accurate to read "bing1 fa3" as "soldier's rules/guide" or "rules for soldiering"? --siafu 23:39, 7 Jun 2005 (UTC)

兵法 (bing1 fa3) is a word in Chinese, although archaic. People today would use 战略 (zhan4 lue4). You may look it up in a Chinese word dictionary. Word by word, it would be similar to what you mentioned. --Voidvector 04:46, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, a more literal translation of "bing fa", at least in modern Chinese, would be something along the lines of "The Way of the Soldier", or even just "Soldiering". But semantic ranges of words change over time, place and circumstance. 203.67.20.38 (talk) 03:30, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I think The art of war can be used in anything as long as it includes taking down an enemy....... its all a matter of metaphor —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.28.205.64 (talk) 23:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The literal translation of a well-known work isn't necessarily important to what it should be refered to in an encyclopedia. The book is called "The Art of War" here because it is generally published under that name, and because the 孫子兵法 is known by that name in modern popular culture. Renaming a well-known work of literature based on a literal translation of its original-language name isn't the role of an encyclopedia. This is like why we still call the 論語 "the Analects", and not something more literal like "Discussions and Sayings."Ferox Seneca (talk) 08:35, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I am a Chinese and I can tell that 兵 (bīng) has several meanings in archaic Chinese.

1. Weaponry. Extended meaning: To harm (with a weapon).
2. Soldier; army.
3. Military affairs. Extended meaning: Military tactics.
4. Warfare.

So the sense "the way of the soldier" would not be correct. The literal translation of 兵法(bīng fǎ) would better be "the way of warfare" or simply "military tactics". Alaha (talk) 02:51, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

Criticism?

This complaints  is intentionally vague and open to interpretations, so the success of 'users' are more to do with their own skills, making the book's power something of a myth. --137.205.68.193 14:49, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
The text isn't really vague, it's just not completely relevant to the modern military "paradigm". It worked well in the Warring States period of China with armies meeting in formation in pitched battles, etc., but abstracting the text to provide insight into modern issues results in the introduction of "vagueness". --siafu 15:55, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I would said some notable quote of the book is actually a Tautology. For example, quotes like "知彼知己，百戰不殆", is always true, but a perfect 知彼知己 is nearly impossible to be realized. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.186.23.33 (talk) 14:02, 9 January 2011 (UTC)
Thesis/Synthesis/Antithesis

The section comparing the the Thesis /Synthesis /Antithesis concept with the excerpt from the AoW is not useful. Firstly, the comparison has no sound. Secondly, it implies a false precedence. It parrots common Chinese propaganda that attempts to link western socialist , communist writings with earler Chinese philosophies.

I've removed this section.Because it sounded like someone's original research to me.

Uncertainties of Origin?

Should there be mention of the uncertainties of who wrote it and when it was written as mentioned in Sun Tzu? --Rissole 04:36, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Something on the attribution question would be great. I think I can find a source or two on that also, if you don't have one. siafu 04:55, 11 August 2005 (UTC)
I don't really have any expertise on The Art of War, I made the comment because after reading both articles I thought that they contradicted each other. So if you could write something it would be much better than me writing something :) Rissole 07:35, 12 August 2005 (UTC)
The Griffith translation goes into great detail on the uncertainty of the author and the time period of The Art of War (and concludes that the book was written during the Warring States period, much later than traditionally thought), and I would think it would be a great addition to the article. --70.49.90.175 21:58, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

This needs to be addressed, it needs to be referenced and cited inline immediately. I am changing the wording to coincide with the article on Sun Tzu 203.39.51.116 (talk) 05:52, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

The present edit on this topic is comprehensive.Ferox Seneca (talk) 01:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The Book of Five Rings

Although The Book of Five Rings (Musashi) was written much later (17th Century), this book is often placed in that same category as The Art of War (Sun Tsu). So perhaps it ought to be mentioned or at least added to "Related topics", to please the curious reader. PJ 10:02, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Sun Tzu's Art of War, not of the Five Rings.--207.68.235.128 (talk) 04:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Re: Outline

Maybe an outline of the main themes in the book could be useful.

bold

someone please unbold the opening paragraph. i dont know how. thanks

It's the zh-cpl template that for some reason is screwing up all the text following it. I stripped it for the time being, but after looking at the template page I don't know why it's doing that. Hopefully someone will fix it, though I have to admit it doesn't seem overwhelmingly useful. siafu 18:53, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

TV reference?

am I right when I say that The Art of War was referenced in the show Firefly? I don't remember too clearly... Robin Chen 02:18, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

No, in War Stories (Firefly episode), Niska quotes Shan Yu, a fictional character. I'm pretty familiar with both Art of War and Firefly, and that's as close as the two come. EVula 03:24, 13 June 2006 (UTC)

History International did a wonderful job of showing actual applications of The Art of War. They picked certain battles such as Gettysburg, the war in Vietnam, and several battles of WWII and broke them down, explaining what Sun Zu would have done differently, and why the Generals failed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.69.46.7 (talk) 15:24, 25 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm kinda surprised.

That there isn't any criticism about the book's name, like how can you call war an "art". I guess it's not notable enough.--80.227.100.62 11:37, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

  • I've always thought what is remarkable about the book is how Sun Tzu turns war into an art form.
法 is usually translated as "method" or "law", but in the title of the book it's translated as "art". I think the Art of War sounds a lot better than Sun Tzu's Military Methods/Strategy, as on the front page. --64.231.220.4 19:19, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I think it means that hes defining it finely enough that it no longer becomes something reckless and savage, but more fine, like the way you'd call fine swordsmanship with fluidic movements an art, or archery an art.--Daniel Berwick 06:39, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
"The Art of War" is not a literal nor a figurative translation of the title in Chinese. As the above entry says, the word 法 translate to "method" or "law" which are horrible titles. The current translation almost give it a timeless mythical feeling to it. Yongke 07:19, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Ignorance of the meaning of the word "art" astounding. . .can't comprehend stupidity. . .mind. . .dying. . . —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.41 (talk) 16:05, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

A year and a half later: AAAAGGH THAT HURT ME TOO. People. "Art" in its core meaning refers to "skill". Knack, know-how, ability, training. There's been a bit of drift in usage, admittedly, because one of its common usages is in reference to the fine arts -- painting and such. --GenkiNeko (talk) 07:03, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Listen: Art of War sounds a heck of a lot better than Sun Zi's Soldier Plans. Things aren't always directly translated. Journey to the West instead of Westward Journey, for instance. --15lsoucy (talk) 10:58, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"The Art of War" includes diplomacy, philosophy and abstaining from War. It's not a simple book about how to kill or attack somebody.
  • Abstaining from War
  • "不战而屈人之兵", "上兵伐谋，其次伐交，其次伐兵，其下伐城"
"On winning without going to battle", "The next best is to prevent the junction of the enemy's forces; the next in order is to attack the enemy's army in the field; and the worst policy of all is to besiege walled cities."
  • "兵者，国之大事，死生之地，存亡之道，不可不察也。"
"The art of war is of vital importance to the State. It is a matter of life and death，a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected."
  • "战胜而天下曰善，非善之善者也。"
"Neither is it the acme of excellence if you fight and conquer and the whole Empire says, 'Well done!'"
  • And Chinese Hundred Schools of Thought have the School of the Military "兵家". The 兵家's canon "六韬·文韬·兵道" said "圣王号兵为凶器，不得已而用之。": "The best kings know a weapon or army is a ominous and terrible tool. The best kings use the tool on no leeway (the last way). -孙学 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 12:30, 15 August 2009 (UTC).

Follow-on sentence

From the article:

It was believed by some that the long-lost Sun Bin Bing Fa, or Sun Bin's The Art of War cited in the Book of Han, was actually Sun Tzu's The Art of War, but in April 1972, archaeologists discovered a tomb in Linyi County, Shandong Province, that contained several fragments of important scrolls buried during the Han Dynasty. Among the scrolls were a copy of the Sun Bin Bing Fa and a copy of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, thus removing any doubt.

Maybe I'm a little blonde today, but I'm discovering that these two follow-on sentences have made it increasingly unclear whether the two previously mentioned scrolls are from the same source. In the interests of increasing clarity and improving disambiguaties, could someone kindly state which of the two alternatives doesn't corresponds to the doubt which was removed? Thanks :)

see Yinqueshan Han Slips.--Skyfiler 22:05, 20 September 2006 (UTC)


Page move

The article was moved by The Crying Orc this morning without discussion, with the rationale that Machiavelli shouldn't "play second fiddle" to Sun Tzu. However, I reverted this move since Machiavelli's Art of War is a rather little-known work by an otherwise famous other, and it has a much shorter article. The Bing Fa is by far the more recognized book by the name "Art of War" (lending its name to movies and albums, &c.). siafu 14:19, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

In certain circles, maybe. Others choose to discount Sun Tzu, and would not agree that Machiavelli's work is 'little known' (in their circles). However, it is not up to us to decide such matters. The point is that there is nothing wrong with having an 'art of war' disambiguation page, with the two books by that title (in English) each having their article's title qualified by the author's name. Anything else is systemic bias. The Crying Orc 16:58, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
We do have a The Art of War (disambiguation) page. We are also not concerned with "certain circles" but with the world in general; as The Art of War (Machiavelli) states in the very first sentence, it is "one of the lesser-read works" of Machiavelli. Most non-scholars do not even know it exists, and the work by Sun Tzu is vastly more well-known and referenced. This is born out by the simple Google test also-- "Art of War" Machiavelli yields 170,000 results. "Art of War" Sun Tzu yields 1,490,000. There is simply no contest, and in particular because Sun Tzu's book is so famous it serves us quite well to have it in the place of the just "Art of War" as most often that is what a user means when typing "Art of War" into the search box; doing so is not systemic bias. siafu 18:10, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
Addendum: You may want to have a look at [1], or Wikipedia:Disambiguation under the "Page naming conventions" section and the "Primary topic" heading it states:

When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase (indicated by a majority of links in existing articles and consensus of the editors of those articles that it will be significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that topic may be used for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top. Where there is no such clearly dominant usage there is no primary topic page.

Just so we're clear about this decision vis a vis systemic bias: there is in this case very obviously a clearly dominant usage. siafu 18:14, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
One book was written in the 6th century BC, the other was written between 1519 and 1520. I really fail to see how picking Sun Tzu's text counts as bias, especially when coupled with siafu's above comments. EVula // talk // ☯ // 21:50, 14 November 2006 (UTC)
It's only appropriate to unilaterally move a page when the move is clearly non-controversial. If the move is controversial, it should be proposed at WP:RM.
WP:DAB#Primary_topic says:
When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase (indicated by a majority of links in existing articles and consensus of the editors of those articles that it will be significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that topic may be used for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top.
As mentioned above, one quick way to determine if that rule applies here is to compare relative notability with a google search:
"art of war" "sun tzu": 1,450,000 Google hits.
"art of war" "Machiavelli": 167,000 Google hits.
Another interesting test is to search [http://www.amazon.com amazon.com] for "The Art of War" in the category "Books", ranked by "Relevance". The first three items, and most of the first 36, are various editions of Sun Tsu. The first listing for Machiavelli doesn't show up until item #37. -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 22:06, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Phew, how many nails can we fit in this coffin? :-) EVula // talk // ☯ // 16:16, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Just one more: The page history is now trashed: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=The_Art_of_War&action=history -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 16:36, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Whoever moved it back here should have done so properly...the history is still here. My guess is that when moving it back, they just did a copy/paste instead of a proper page move. The Crying Orc 16:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Indeed. Man, we should get an admin to come in here and fix this... aww, crap. Be right back... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:00, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Okay, the false AoW article was deleted and The Art of War (Sun Tzu) moved to The Art of War, restoring the page history. This talk page, however, got equally screwed over; however, its seen a lot more action than the main article. Should I do the same thing? I can restore all of our comments easily enough, but a bit of history will be lost. Not sure which is most important... EVula // talk // ☯ // 17:08, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Sure, if you can sort it out, go for it! -- Jim Douglas (talk) (contribs) 17:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Hello, I am new to Wikipedia, recently I came to this page and saw a link that I like, but it seem to be removed now. Can anyone tell me how to retrieve it? I only remember that the URL contain a 'chinese' inside. Can anyone show me how to look for it? Thanks


Fullmetal Allusion

Under Television it should be added that Episode 13 of Fullmetal Alchemist: Fullmetal Vs. Flame, Mustang quotes the Art of War a few times.

http://www.tv.com/fullmetal-alchemist/fullmetal-vs.-flame/episode/395450/summary.html

This website may not be very reliable, but anybody who has watched the episode should be able to tell where those quotes come from.

Jaimeastorga2000 16:24, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Ghost Dog reference

I added some clarification here... while Whitaker's character does reference The Art of War multiple times within the film, his primary inspiration is the Hagakure. MrWarMage 04:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Applications Outside the Military

This is my first post. The following are non-military (i.e. law-related) references I found in researching an article I recently wrote called “The Trial Warrior: Applying Sun Tzu’s The Art of War to Trial Advocacy”:

Ashley, Fred T., “The Art of War, Litigation and Mediation”, Ashley Mediation Centers (available online at: (http://www.socalmediator.com/theartofwar.htm);

Balch, Christopher D., “The Art of War and the Art of Trial Advocacy: Is There Common Ground?” (1991), 42 Mercer L. Rev. 861-873;

Barnhizer, David. THE WARRIOR LAWYER : POWERFUL STRATEGIES FOR WINNING LEGAL BATTLES (Irvington-on-Hudson, NY: Bridge Street Books, 1997);

Beirne, Martin D. and Scott D. Marrs, “The Art of War and Public Relations: Strategies for Successful Litigation” (available online at: http://library.findlaw.com/2005/Dec/28/231115.html);

Gordon, Gary, J., “Slaying the Dragon: The Cross Examination of Expert Witnesses”, Rider Bennett LLP website (available online: http://75.100.99.194/news_pubs/article_detail.cfm?ARTICLE_ID=3894&ARTICLE_TYPE_ID=2);

Harris, Paul. WARRIOR LAWYER (San Francisco, CA: Paul Harris (self-publication, 1991);

St. Marie, Ronald M., “The Art of Litigation: Deception and Settlement- The Application of Sun Tzu's Ancient Strategies of War to the Law” Chan Law Group, 2002 (available online at: http://chanlaw.com/litigation.htm).

Solomon, Samuel H., “The Art of War: Pursuing Electronic Evidence as Your Corporate Opportunity” Doar Litigation Consulting website article (available online at: http://www.doar.com/apps/uploads/literature13_art_of_war.pdf ).

Wallo, William E., “Rambo in the Courtroom: Sometimes it Pays to be Confrontational” (available online at: http://www.walloworld.com/pdf/rambo_courtroom.pdf ).

Hope this helps,

Apribetic 16:41, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

I've made the above-referenced reference edits onto the main page.

Apribetic 13:16, 29 May 2007 (UTC) 14:26, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Improving this Article on The Art of War

First, let me introduce myself. My name is Gary Gagliardi. I am generally recognized as the world's leading authority on Sun Tzu's The Art of War, at least by the media, where I appear regularly, the various groups that give book awards, who give me awards regularly, and among organizations that want training in Sun Tzu's methods, which include the largest organizations in the world. I have written over fifteen books on the topic. Ten of them have won book awards in the last four years. My books on Sun Tzu have been translated all over the world. My works are used for teaching strategy and Chinese culture by universities and other training organizations worldwide. You can find out more about me by simply searching on my name. I am in regular communication with most people doing research or papers on Sun Tzu around the world, including many in China and Taiwan, as well as those doing serious work on strategy around the world.

Wikipedia's articles on The Art of War and, to a lesser degree, Sun Tzu, like most of popular understanding of such topics, get more wrong than it does right. I could correct this material, but I hesitant to do so because writing on Wiki is a little bit like writing on water: anyone can undo any amount of serious work in a moment. In a discussion with the Wiki editor, SiobhanHansa, I have encouraged me not to turn my back on the Wiki approach and instead to start a discussion about the changes that I would like to make. I will not make any changes at all before discussing them here.

Of course, anyone can accuse me of having commercial interests in the topic because, like any serious and successful expert, I do have such an interests. All my books are products. I get paid for offering training on Sun Tzu, even when teaching courses at universities, which I do when I have the time. At least one of my university classes is on video and offered as a commercial product, which I have a financial interest in. The vast majority of the people in the world who are offering training in Sun Tzu's Art of War strategy are using course materials that I played a least a part in developing. Anything that touches the popularity of Sun Tzu affects me financially in some way. However, I will not link to any of my product or training sites at Wiki. I won't even link to my personal site or the main site of the Science of Strategy Institute, neither of which offer products for sale directly though other Wiki editors can link if they choose.

As far as my concerns about the topic of "war," I personally wish that no one had every put the word "War" in the English title of the Bing-fa. Sun Tzu wrote his book as a scientific work. A great deal of it is dedicated to the precise definition of terms. In the original Chinese, it reads much like Euclid's Geometry in the ancient Greek (another one of my hobbies and the subject of another website I won't mention). Sun Tzu defines "bing" in his first stanza as "the skill of survival," like our modern idea of "survival of the fittest." He defines "fa" in his seventh stanza as "methods that serve a goal." While no one would be against learning survival skills or methods to reach goals, there is a whole crowd of people who have a an emotional reaction to the word "war" that make Sun Tzu's ideas sometimes difficult to communicate because people assume it must be evil because it explains how to win "war."

My biggest problem with the current Wiki article is that much of it and the resulting discussion are based on poor translation. Virtually all English translations are taken almost mindlessly from "modern" Chinese dictionaries The result is often laughable. Even the Chinese have to translate Sun Tzu's ancient Chinese, even though they still use the same characters (or more precisely, the decendents of those characters since Sun Tzu wrote before the current "brush" based characters, when Chinese was written in using a stylus on bamboo.)

This mistranslation leads to some absurd statements in various translations. For example, a character that currently means "persistent" originally meant "long time." You can easily understand the historical relationship. However, one popular English translation renders a line of Sun Tzu to read "No success in battle comes from being persistent." Which seems just plain stupid even to those not training in strategy, but, of course, the original sense of "No successful battle lasts a long-time," is easy to understand, especially in since one of Sun Tzu's main points is that conflict is expensive and that success is not just to winning but to make victory pay, which means eliminating conflict, or what I call "winning without conflict." There are many very common problems in translating

As an example of poor translation, the chapter titles reference Chow-Hou Wee's translation. I have never heard of Chow-Hou Wee, but I can tell you that his chapter English titles have nothing to do with what Sun Tzu's actually wrote. Though the Chinese in these titles is correct, the "translation" doesn't translate those characters except through the filter of what Chow-Hee thinks the chapter is about. Once again, Sun Tzu defines the terms he uses, especially those he uses as chapter titles. However, a listing of chapter titles is not as useful as a brief explanation of what the chapters cover and why. Sun Tzu developed his book in a very systematic way: starting with basic concepts and building on them through the course of the work. Each chapter has a purpose: chapter one defines the key factors affecting decision-making, chapter two covers the economics of competition, and so on. It is also useful to know that the book is written in a circle, so that the last chapter on information sources leads back to the first chapter on situation analysis.

The section of this article on "Thesis-AntiThesis-Synthesis" is some of the purest drivel I have every seen associated with Sun Tzu. It has no foundation in the history of Chinese philosophy or in the study or appliction of Sun Tzu. There have been lots of commentators on Sun Tzu down through the centuries and most of them are pretty dense. One of the problems with Sun Tzu is the way commentary gets mixed in with his work. Sun Tzu had some very Darwinian ideas but Hegel and Sun Tzu are a million miles apart in approach.

One of my main criticisms of most English translations of Sun Tzu is that they mix commentary with translation, often with the commentary replacing the Sun Tzu. For example, Griffith didn't like a lot of Sun Tzu's ideas so he would translated one line, say, "Always leave an escape route for your opponent." Then he would add his own commentary to undermine Sun Tzu, which as I recall in this case was something like, "This isn't so the enemy can get away, but so that you can chase him down from the rear and destroy him," which is a complete invention on Griffith's part. One of the reasons I did my translation side-by-side with a transliteration, was so that people could compare the original text with any given translation (not only my own) so that they could see what the "translators" were just making up as an explantion of Sun Tzu. All this stuff about what Tu Mu said or what Hsiang said just confuses what Sun Tzu said and the Hegelian twist on it is nonsense times two.

However, a discussion of the ancient Chinese philosophy of science would be very helpful in understanding The Art of War. Sun Tzu patterned his five key factors (introduced in the beginning of chapter one) after the five elements of classical Chinese science and philosophy. (Much as the five Greek elements influenced Western science for generations.) He also used the graphical/geographical diagramming method from the I Ching now known as the ba gua ("eight directions" after the eight cardinal points on the compass) as one of his organizing principles. A great deal of Chinese culture and medicine are built around the many associations of the ba gua and the five elements. I did a whole book (The Art of War plus Its Amazing Secrets) around the ancient diagramming methods and cultural symbolism of the Bing-fa that is lost on modern readers. (And unfortunately, on many from mainland China, where a lot of this was culture suppressed in the twentieth century, but preserved among the Chinese outside of PRC.) I can add such a discussion if people would like to see it.

Sun Tzu's ideas are easier to understand when explained in in terms of Asian culture. Much of his system involves what we call in our training "complementary opposites," that is the balance of opposing forces that require each other to exist. In the West, we call this idea "yin and yang" but in Sun Tzu's work, every system exists as a balance of forces: climate and ground create the environment, command and methods create an organization, obvious action and surprise create momentum and so on. For Sun Tzu, understanding competitive systems means working with these opposing forces. These forces are polarities: pure opposites in their very nature, though they create each other in a cycle, and exist only in a harmonious whole.

This can get confusing though because Sun Tzu also teaches a very important and seemingly similar concept, but one that is really very different called "emptiness and fullness." Emptiness and fullness is the descriptions of comparative extremes that exist along a continuum of conditions (as opposed to pure polarities). For Sun Tzu, all relative conditions (large/small, fast/slow, near/far, weak/strong, unobstructed/barricaded, etc.) can be simplified into the idea of emptiness/fullness. These extremes aren't "forces" but a comparison of the quality of things. The title of his Chapter Six (rendered in Wiki as "weakness and strength") is actually the Chinese characters for emptiness (poverty, need, etc.) and fullness (abundance, wealth, etc.) that Sun Tzu defines extremely clearly. In Sun Tzu's analysis, extreme conditions along the one continuum engender their opposite extreme in OTHER conditions along OTHER continuums. So large forces are slow; empty land creates speed, and so on.

The section here, "Application Outside the Military" section is especially weak considering the large amount of work being done in this area. It is more about name-dropping and popular culture than about people actually using Sun Tzu's methods. The truth is that most of the practical application of Sun Tzu are being used in the business world in business courses at universities and industry seminars. People might also find the historical relationship between the Asian martial arts and the Bing-fa interesting. The interest of some cricket player or even political advisor in The Art of War says virtually nothing about the practical application of Sun Tzu's methods. I personally have worked for both political parties and can tell you that in the real world, real political contests have been decided more often by politicians ignoring Sun Tzu's advice than using it. (True life: A group of Democrats tried to get John Kerry to use a Sun Tzu's approach in positioning on the War in Iraq, but Kerry and his key advisors didn't understand it and refused. Could he have won using it? We will never know.)

If readers would like me to add any of this information or work on the existing article, I will do so, but only with your support. My interest is not to debate these issues but to expose as many people as are interested to the vast amount of information available about them. Garygagliardi 20:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)garygagliardi

HI Gary, I agree with your criticize of this article, it needs a lot of clean up, detail, and much more information can be presented. I would be interested to know your opinion of Lionel Giles' 1910 translation, as that is the copy (and information about) the Art of War I am most familiar with. In that translation his noted and preface/introduction provide a large amount of information on the background and context of the work, as well as talking about the commentary and larger impact of the work on chinese literature. I would prefer to use this edition as a framework for rebuilding the article - as it is the standard reference text. Your thoughts? DarkCryst 21:33, 8 September 2007 (UTC)
Gary, thanks for taking an interest in this article. I think your suggestions for improving this article are well reasoned. Let me offer a suggestion, however. You are evidently a learned scholar on Art of War, but seemingly relatively new to Wikipedia. One principal tenet of Wikipedia's editing process is that reasoned argument, which constitutes most of your post, trumps arguments from authority, which is restricted to the just one paragraph of your post. Unfortunately, it's the first paragraph, and that paragraph might give the impression—however unjustified—that you are trying to push your argument through by sheer force of credentials, and cause some folks to disregard the rest. That seems a shame. Just a thought. BrianTung 17:00, 28 September 2007 (UTC)
I expected a "too long, didn't read" comment right about here. :P
Great post, nothing to add. Now hope someone actually changes this article. Qevlarr (talk) 23:01, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Portugal did not technically 'beat' England in Euro 2006, they drew, then won on penalties, its unlikely you'd be able to use the art of war to plan a shoot out win. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.152.252.218 (talk) 21:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

The Art of War can be applied to all aspects of life. Caddcreativity 19:00, 08 November 2007 (UTC)

What is the language of the original text?

Since there are many "Chinese languages" (and dialects), what precisely is the language utilized in the original?

I'm aware that languages are always changing, and this is especially noticeble after centuries have gone by, but even so there must be a way to express in greater detail what the language of the original text is -- other than simply saying that it was written in "Chinese".

Can somebody help?

Bepp (talk) 19:06, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Classical Chinese. -Choij (talk) 02:13, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
Sunzi was described in the Shiji as being a native of Wu. Wu was located at the mouth of the Yangzi river, so he likely spoke a southern dialect. Modern Chinese native to the mouth of the Yangzi river speak a Wu/Huizhou dialect (like Shanghainese). If Chinese living at the mouth of the Yangzi river 2500 years ago spoke a similar dialect to modern Chinese living at the mouth of the Yangzi river, then Sunzi would have sounded like a Shanghairen.Ferox Seneca (talk) 09:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Alternatively, the Spring and Autumn Annals states that Sunzi was a native of Qi[1], which was centered around the Shandong peninsula. If the people living around the Shandong peninsula 2500 years ago spoke a dialect similar to the people who live there now, and if the Spring and Autumn Annals is correct, then Sunzi would have spoken a dialect of Mandarin as his first dialect.Ferox Seneca (talk) 01:07, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

13 Chapters section

In 'The 13 chapters' section, the descriptions of each chapter use chapter titles that do not match any of the 3 listed sets of titles. Does anyone have any thoughts on which to use? I by no means am a Art of War scholar (I came to this article to find out more about it actually), but this jumped out at me. PabloSus86 05:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Full text

The full text of The Art of War does not belong in the article. I believe that policy is clear on this, particularly WP:NOT#PLOT. I removed it once, and was reverted, but without any comment. I am removing the text again, but if anyone has a good reason for it being here, please tell me. 99.248.214.86 (talk) 04:51, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Quotations section

...is verging on almost gibberish. Personal opinion and commentary throughout; it's not even well formatted. If no one feels like cleaning it up, I'll remove that section or at least hack it down to a couple of actual quotations. Matt Deres (talk) 19:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

This Article Really Needs Help

Really. When the fanboy references garbage is more comprehensive than the actual scholarship, you've got a problem. I unfortunately, am not an expert. If this Gary Gagliardi who posted a year ago wants to go for it, I say let him. He seems to know more than anyone here. BTW, The Art of War is very popular among all militaries probably because it addresses strategic realities and Strategies that transcend the sword and spear era Sun Tzu lived in. (With only a couple areas where he notes costs to recruit and equip a Warring States period army.) By comparison, Machiavelli's Art of War is pretty much rooted in Renaissance Italy, though many universal strategic principles can be gleaned with hard study. The Prince remains his masterpiece. Clauswitz died before he could fully formulate what he thought of war on paper. It was up to his wife, army friends, and academics to put it all together. His On War is profound, but fuzzy in areas and depended much on the reader and the translation. As a result, its not unusual to find people with diverse ideas on what he meant. (Plus he's a great cure for insomnia). In the English speaking militaries, Samual Griffith's Art of War translation is simplest, straight to the point, and includes apt commentaries from Chinese sages (some are famous strategists in their own right). Modern academics are less enthusiastic about it, but their translations tend to be more pedantic and obfuscatory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.138.41.10 (talk) 13:43, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

Lionel Giles translation & Project Gutenberg Errors

The PDF that was linked for a while from this page (but was subsequently removed as link spam) is significantly more correct than the Project Gutenberg edition. Take the first page and the last page:

Chapter 1, page 1: "The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerity, benevolence, courage, and strictness." -- whereas the Project Gutenberg text has, "The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom, sincerely, benevolence, courage, and strictness."

Chapter 13, last sentence: "Spies are a most important element in war, because on them depends an army’s ability to move." -- whereas the Project Gutenberg text has, "Spies are a most important element in water, because on them depends an army’s ability to move."

The PDF also correctly uses British variants of words, whereas the Project Gutenberg text appears to have been haphazardly Americanized, not to mention the precious few instances of accents having been stripped (while they appear correctly in the PDF).

If the prominence of Project Gutenberg allows Wikipedia to overlook the poor quality of their text of "The Art of War", perhaps it should also overlook the unknown publisher's lack of prominence on account of the obviously high quality of their PDF of "The Art of War"?

Why are we talking about obvious errors in translation? Seems like a waste of time to me. Anybody who can read it, should be able to understand the words that are meant. Instead of complaining about it, put some time in reporting the errors to PG (after checking that they aren't in the original text) and the issue is solved, section can be deleted. 82.171.30.5 (talk) 21:16, 21 May 2011 (UTC)

It seems silly to only have a butchered version of the Lionel Giles translation linked, when there is at least one (and one would think multiple) better versions available. --198.103.167.20 (talk) 13:29, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

Project Gutenberg is a website containing open source material whose copyright has expired and is now in the public domain. Individual and commercial works or websites are subject to copyright restrictions. If you are linking to a PDF of copyrighted material, this would be considered a violation of wikipedia guidelines. The page which is linked to, in this case, clearly has copyright information on the first page. Please view: WP:COPY for more information. --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 01:04, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
From the copyright page of the PDF: "All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the Publisher. Non-profit digital distribution however is explicitly permitted and encouraged by the Publisher. Please note that the text presented herein is in the public domain and the publisher makes no copyright claims thereto."
From WP:COPY: "Since most recently-created works are copyrighted, almost any Wikipedia article which cites its sources will link to copyrighted material. It is not necessary to obtain the permission of a copyright holder before linking to copyrighted material, just as an author of a book does not need permission to cite someone else's work in their bibliography. Likewise, Wikipedia is not restricted to linking only to GFDL-free or open-source content."
Am I misinterpreting something in either of the above, Oliver? --76.71.47.12 (talk) 03:14, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
I believe you are correct in your interpretation of Wikipedia guidelines, and unless any other editors take issue with the link, I have no problem with it being added to the article. Now that it is documented on the talk page, it will help to avoid future deletions during routine "link farm" removal. Best regards and thanks for being persistent. --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 22:34, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
The link was again removed as spam... is there an appropriate course of action, other than adding it back in with a clearer comment? (Assuming the removal was in ignorance of the talk page, not despite it.) --70.24.169.113 (talk) 13:49, 18 March 2009 (UTC)
The best option is to add the link back with "please see talk page before deleting" for the edit summary. --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 22:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

Economic and Competitve perspectives

I am currently adding and altering the text to this article to reflect the translations that I have. Within this scope I plan to limit the use of the 'competitive' and economic perspectives; competition is not included and economics has too much breadth compared to Sun Tsu's usage of the word. I also have in mind to more accurately define the content of the 13 chapters, however, some of these chapters are, by way of there design, intractable(so it will be difficult). I would therefore also like to include a new heading, 'Ideaology', to describe how the Art of War should be considered today. This will center upon its Daoist nature: similarities between Lao Tzu's, Tao Te Ching, and Sun Tzu's, Art of War. The reason for this is that during the Zhou dynasty confucianism was well established but the 2 aforementioned texts clearly have many similarities and deviate strongly from Confucianism. Certain aspects of the Art of War will be better understood with an elaboration of this linkage such as: Emptiness and fullness, the Way, Forms, Intractability and Heaven and Earth usage. Although Lao Tzu's text appeared after the Art of War it provides a good aid for western thought, unless of course somebody is aware of a translated Yangist script that provides a better bridge to understanding the indiscernable elements.

New headings proposal I believe that I have identified 4 new headings to be included within the article:

• Translational notes
• History
• Ideology
• Some sort of elaboration of the 13 chapters

Translational notes - Several problems exist within the current articles discussion page and there are several other problems that occur as well. This can easily be rectified with a dedicted and balanced discussion about these polemics while at the same time allowing the investigator to make a well informed judgement. I will try to deliver an outline and test section as some point below.

History - Clearly historical fact is missing here. We need to include the Zhou dynasty and Qin dynasty. The latter because competing philosophies to Legalism were destroyed and because, if I remember correctly, the ancient brush script was altered to the more modern chinese script that we know of today. The Zhou dynasty should include: its inception, and in particular the decline via the 7 main states and several smaller states, the 'warring states' period, possibly the 'mandate of Heaven', the beginning of the Chinese iron age.

Ideology - I've already mention Legalism we also require Conficianism and Daoism; our rosetta stone for understanding the text, its ambiguous and mystical nature.

Chapter Elaboration - the current entries do not consist of enough information to adequately inform the reader. The difficulty here is that the AOW is somewhat terse in its description and it does not have a structure thats easily summarised due to many topics and considerations within a single chapter. Copyright infringement needs to be a primary concern here, but I believe that a balance can be struck between the nature of the text while circumventing copyright, and only leaving a few holes and cracks in the dissemination; an accurate partial representation would sell more books = more chinese literary greats. Even though i'll be using 4 translations, the wording is close enough in many areas to be treading on someones toes, and at the same time deviation from the text, via Thesaurus say, would fail in its accuracy. My feeling is that although the text will, in many areas, lend itself to lists of bullet points or syllogisms this won't distance itself enough from the reference material. Also, rambling descriptions that arbitrarily deviate from the script will fail in accuracy. My initial conclusion is therefore that the text should be diagramatically represented - boxes and flow diags - with elimination of peripheral text. I will build a trial for chapter 1 as a test bed at some stage.Fithsun (talk) 23:52, 31 March 2009 (UTC)—Preceding unsigned comment added by Fithsun (talk • contribs) 00:21, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Depiction in media section: Growing Trivia Farm

This list of trivia seems to creep back into this article by anonymous users, even after it has been removed repeatedly. Generally, I like to follow the rule of thumb that if the Trivia section, in this case "Depiction in the media", grows larger than the scholarly information contained in the article, action needs to be taken. Please make cases for individual items which may be of larger importance here on the talk page, so that future editors can have a reference when doing routine maintenance. On May 7th, barring convincing discussion here, I will begin deleting large portions of this trivia section. Best regards. --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 00:33, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Burn it all. RJC TalkContribs 17:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Since there hasn't been much comment, I'll extend the deletions by a few more days. If you have an opinion one way or another, now's the time.--OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 03:02, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
I'd removed it completely. Hopefully the article will stay clean for some time. Pavel Vozenilek (talk) 19:01, 16 August 2009 (UTC)
Three points that WP:TRIVIA makes are 1) That trivia lists should generally be considered temporary, while material is integrated into article, and 2) That some information is better presented as a list, and 3) That trivia sections should not necessarily be removed as a whole.
Pragmatically, many editors adding trivia are insensitive to these concerns: They simply want the factoid that they added to remain. It's hard to deal with these people, because a quote of a favorite movie or TV show seems enormously important to them. It might be the only time they've even heard of "The Art of War".
Where I draw the line and remove trivia is: 1) When the article really doesn't have anything to do with the trivia (e.g., a cartoon animal that is named after a real animal), 2) When the trivia just mentions somebody using the phrase in passing (e.g., "The Boobie Girls" say "Art of War" in verse two of their international smash hit "Nail Polish".).
Where the trivia should stay is where an entire notable work is influenced by the topic. So in this situation, I've left a play and a couple games that seem to entirely depend on "The Art of War" to exist. Regards, Piano non troppo (talk) 21:05, 7 October 2009 (UTC)
How much would you like to wager that the "Wall Street" and Scandinavian death metal band references are restored in time for the holidays? How about the loser gets to alphabetize the sources and translations section? ;o) --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 12:12, 8 October 2009 (UTC)
Heh. I win, by default. --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 12:46, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Why the El Paso Norte Press edition if the Lionel Giles among sources?

It is neither a faithful nor a complete, unabridged reissue of the 1910 Lionel Giles translation. In fact it has several glaring mistakes not in the 1910 original. Why is it listed among the sources, instead of the 1910 original (which can be found in many libraries around the world)? --70.49.183.247 (talk) 20:47, 7 October 2009 (UTC)

Simple, I used it in gathering information about the article. Also, I don't know of any other Giles edition which contains the Chinese characters, the original 1910 introduction, and the annotated 1910 version of the text (which it does contain, by the way, beginning on page 69, after the non-annotated version of the text). A google search for "The Art of War," [3], turns up this edition on the first page in results. A search for "The Art of War" on Amazon turns up this edition in the top 5 search results [https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+art+of+war&x=0&y=0]. As for the book being in libraries...[4]... I checked a few random library zip codes, including Harvard, (02138) Princeton (08544), The London Library (SW1Y 4LG), and my own city library, and they all seem to hold the book. The necessary listing of a book which was used as an actual source of information for the article is not in any way a dismissal of the other fine editions out there. --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 02:02, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

In Our Time

The BBC programme In Our Time presented by Melvyn Bragg has an episode which may be about this subject (if not moving this note to the appropriate talk page earns cookies). You can add it to "External links" by pasting * {{In Our Time|The Art of War|p00548zm}}. Rich Farmbrough, 03:21, 16 September 2010 (UTC).

Use of Pinyin

Sunzi is the only Chinese figure that I am aware of who is still referred to on Wikipedia by his name's antiquated Wade-Giles Latinization. Can't we edit this article to reflect the modern, pinyin spelling of his name instead? Leaving his name spelled as "Sun Tzu" isn't consistant with modern Chinese naming conventions. Please let me know if anyone seriously opposes such an edit.Ferox Seneca (talk) 09:28, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I strongly oppose such a change. AFAIK WP:Commonname beats modern Chinese naming conventions. I'm aware that Sunzi is the name's latest translation but AFAIK it hasn't replaced Sun Tzu yet and Sun Tzu still remains the common name for the author of this book as far as the English language is concerned. Such changes take time (sometimes several years) and we simply have to wait patiently. Furthermore this article is NOT the proper place for a Sun Tzu/Sunzi discussion. The proper place is the talkpage of the article Sun Tzu. A similar proposal was made already at Talk:Sun Tzu#Pinyin Please but you certainly can make a new proposal (in 'that' talkpage). Flamarande (talk) 13:33, 6 January 2011 (UTC)
Thank you for your opinions. I won't make any such edit.Ferox Seneca (talk) 00:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Semi-Protection?

As anyone who watches this page is probably aware, The Art of War suffers a relatively frequent rate of vandalism. Does anyone have any objections with putting the page in semi-protection? I think this would solve at least some of these issues.Ferox Seneca (talk) 23:17, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Obviously I'm not the only one who has seen references/quotes of this in TV and movies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deadfishv (talk • contribs) 09:55, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

There has been such a section before, numerous times in this article's history, and the consensus is that it is too random and exhaustive to provide any useful, educational information about Sun Tzu or The Art of War. If you view the "history" tab of the page, and go back through the edit summaries about a year ago, you can see how the page looked at the time. Also, you can read Wikipedia's guidelines regarding trivia here: WP:TRIVIA --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 20:28, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
The first sentence of the first paragraph of WP:TRIVIA states "Avoid creating lists of miscellaneous information." If you can think of a way to incorporate a "popular culture" section that would not quickly become a list of miscellaneous trivia, then please discuss your suggestion and do so. Ferox Seneca (talk) 22:09, 3 June 2011 (UTC)
Just for reference, this is what the page looked like with the section two years ago. [5]. It significantly contributed to the article being rated as "B-class." --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 22:42, 3 June 2011 (UTC)

Is this a dumb question?`

In part thanks to Kisinger's new book, there is renewed talk of Sun Tzu's work as representing a more generalizable, abstract "Chinese" way of approaching problems, and perhaps life. So, what would the proper European equivalent be? Machiavelli? Or Clausewitz? I know anyone can compare or contrast The Art of War to On War or to The Prince and perhaps other books. I am asking rather, which book is conventionally use to represent European thinking in contrasting ways? Thanks, Slrubenstein | Talk 07:30, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

I think Kissinger may be overstepping here, since the Sunzi Bingfa is really a rather period-specific guide to warfare strategy and tactics and doesn't represent the whole of Chinese thought on any topic. The more generalizable Chinese way of approaching problems could only be established with a generalized view of Chinese thought, and not just one book. This logical misstep is what I think makes it so hard to find just one book in the European canon to compare it to. Also, Machiavelli, Clausewitz, etc., are temporally separated from Sunzi by millenia, so a direct comparison might not be particularly helpful in this article. The contemporaries of Sunzi in Europe whose works we still have would be mid-classical thinkers like Socrates; I don't know of a work of military strategy from this period in the west. The oldest I can think of would be Maurice's Strategikon, already a millenium after Sunzi is believe to have written his book. siafu (talk) 16:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
It's difficult to comment on Kissinger's book without actually reading Kissinger's book. I'll have to read Kissinger's book.Ferox Seneca (talk) 19:51, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
I have not read the book myself, just several reviews. But your comments make perfect sense. One might compare Sun Tzu to Cesar, because when they lived wars were fought with comparable technologies ... it is really just a thought-question. But, thanks for your thoughts, Slrubenstein | Talk 20:31, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Machiavelli would be more comparable than Clausewitz and de Jomini. I'm afraid I have to agree with Siafu here on the broader point. If there were a European equivalent, Sun Tzu's work would not still be as pervasive throughout our culture. It's a simple book, only 13 chapters and roughly translated into 60 pages, yet it could arguably be said that *all* subsequent treatises on strategy and conflict were based upon Sun Tzu. Hard to find a comparison to that in Western culture. OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 20:35, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for another sensible comment. Is Roger Ames' the best translation into English? Slrubenstein | Talk 21:32, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Actually, I think reading the academic translation (200 page, non public domain version) by Lionel Giles gives you a better understanding of how we, as Westerners are interpreting words in Chinese which are more complex than sinologists are able to render into English. The second translation I would attempt, would be Samuel B. Griffith's version, and finally you might try Roger Ames as an "interesting sidebar". Ames has only built on the works of Giles, Griffith and James Clavell, and he attempts to apply Sun Tzu's teachings in a "self help guru" kind of way, which I didn't find added to a clear or historical perspective on the subject matter, if I hadn't been familiar with two of the other translations first. --OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 22:53, 21 July 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, I appreciate your suggestions. I asked to China specialists, one in the US and one in hong Kong, and they both think Ames's translation is a better translation. I will seek additional views. Slrubenstein | Talk 20:10, 23 July 2011 (UTC)
I'd read all of them you could get your hands on, but one of the more prominent reviews of Ames' book on Amazon makes the following point, which I'd have to agree with: According to Professor Ames, "From the perspective of the more rationalistic Western world view, the penalty the Chinese must pay for the absence of that underlying metaphysical infrastructure necessary to guarantee a single-order universe is what we take to be intelligibility and predictibility." (introduction, p.54) Considering that language depends on intelligibility and predictibility for its communicative function, one might wonder how Professor Ames then proposes to interpret and translate Chinese at all. On examination, as might be expected from such an attitude, he does indeed make illogical misreadings of the text. These misinterpretations do reveal deficiencies, not in Chinese reasoning, but in the professor's own understanding of the nature of language, linguistics, and semantics in general; of literary Chinese grammar and vocabulary in particular; and of underlying principles and practical procedures of military science. This, moreover, in spite of the fact that Sun Tzu's work is not really difficult and has already been translated into English many times. Also, a comparison of East and West relevant to military science would logically treat the works of such Western writers on war as Machiavelli and Clausewitz. Military science is based on physical principles and psychological dynamics, not on metaphysical musings. The only use of metaphysics in war is in the context of psychological operations, that is on the cultural front of warfare, when a claim to exclusive possession of abstract truth is used tactically to incite violence by inflaming overbearing self-righteousness and antagonism toward others. Professor Ame's unsubstantiated generalizations about Chinese and Western thought do nothing to advance an objective understanding of either, much less of Sun Tzu's work, but rather serve to project a demeaning image of China. Here's the [http://www.amazon.com/review/R2UTE2PMVH2ZVT/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R2UTE2PMVH2ZVT Link]. That doesnt' sound exactly promising for a new millennium world view of the subject matter. Still, no book is a wasted read. OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 00:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Beg to [http://www.amazon.com/Callous-Disregard-Autisms-Vaccines-Tragedy/dp/1616083239/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311470529&sr=8-1 differ] on [http://www.amazon.com/FOOD-GODS-Divine-Nutrition/dp/184799847X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311470656&sr=8-1 that] [http://www.amazon.com/Ageless-Body-Timeless-Mind-Alternative/dp/0517882124/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1311470790&sr=1-1 last] point... siafu (talk) 01:29, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
Hmm, I may have to concede that last point after all. OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 02:05, 24 July 2011 (UTC)

You will always endanger yourself?

Why is it translated this way? The words 每戰必殆 clearly means "Every battle will be lost". It doesn't say "endanger yourself" anywhere. The meaning doesn't even come close. Maybe a translation expert can help me here? Or we should just delete the Quotations section? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 129.89.10.149 (talk) 19:23, 15 September 2011 (UTC)

Not sure where you get the "will be lost" part, "殆" (dai4) means "dangerous" or "perilous", and "必" (bi4) means "must" or "must be". I would read it as "every battle will be dangerous," but the "endanger yourself" translation is not inaccurate. siafu (talk) 20:43, 15 September 2011 (UTC)


2012 Spring Cleanup

1. Checked, verified and removed all spam links in references: non working websites, defunct Law Firms, "Walloworld's 'Rambo of the Courtroom'", etc.
2. Consolidated appropriate pages in notes for: Griffith, Giles, Sawyer. Removed all links to pages with purchase buttons from other translators buried within the references. Google Books is now Google Play, so most of the links no longer worked anyway.
3. Changed instances of "Sun Wu" and "Sunzi" to "Sun Tzu" for consistency. On the English Wikipedia, it can be confusing for someone looking for reference material to have the subject of the article's name spelled in three different ways. The intro contains information on the other spelling variations.
4. Sources and Translations: Organized by group: 1st group: translations used in the chapter name summary chart and the chapter summary sections above, in the order in which they are mentioned. 2nd group: all author/editor/translators with individual Wiki articles not in group 1. 3rd group: sources and translations used as references, and appearing in the Notes section (minus the spam). 4th group: all others with notability, but without direct contribution to the article. Hopefully, this will help users track new editions for WP:V and WP:RS.
5. Removed the growing external link farm to websites no longer in service, or being used for advertising purposes. I did not remove the restored Giles version on PDF: I'm talking to you #28, paxliborum.com.
6. Removed honorifics from references: Prof. Esq., etc.
7. Reworded the following section headers: "Was it written in the Spring and Autumn period?" and "Was it written in the Early Warring States Period?" and the "Was it written in the late Warring States Period?" in favor of a more streamlined heading, such as "Alternate viewpoints on the date of origin". People usually turn to Wikipedia for answers, not more questions. It's kind of bad form to have an argument going on visibly in the intro, when both viewpoints can be stated with: "Late Spring and Autumn period or the Early Warring States Period", with a further explanation for both arguments further in the article. Whichever is most valid after a careful review of the sources, can be determined by the reader, rather than with vehement parenthetical assertions by wiki editors.
8. "The most opposite possible" is another example of excess verbiage I deleted. "Opposite" works just fine. Same thing goes for "...most famous and popular in the world." Realistically, this sentence can be shorter. There is after all, only just our one world that we know of, on which people can read. These are overly "expressive" phrases which can seem like WP:Peacock to some people.
9. Quotations: When creating sections titled "Quotations" with an "s", there should probably be at least 2 quotations, or it should be "Quotation". I chose an English phrase used as a proverb from Wikiquote which I believed was the most famous (change it if you have a better idea), "All Warfare is based on deception" along with the Chinese characters, full translation of Verse 18 from Chapter one, and kept it in the same format, with the same indentation, as the Chinese proverb used first in the section.
10. Added Wei Liaozi, Jiang Ziya, etc. to the see also section: added/changed Shiji which redirects to Records of the Grand Historian to Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) for consistency. OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 11:37, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
Most of these are great revisions, and are long overdue. I do have one objection to these changes.
I disagree with the idea that all uses of "Sun Wu" should be changed to "Sun Tzu". "Sun Wu" is a historical figure who is not necessarily the same person as "Sun Tzu". These two names clearly refer to two different people in the Shiji (the oldest historical mention of "Sun Tzu"), and it is only a scholarly interpretation (that is, an educated guess) that they were actually the same person. When the text of the article states that "traditionalist scholars attribute this book to the historical Sun Wu", the text is stating that it is traditional scholars' interpretation that Sun Wu and Sun Tzu were the same (and thus that "Sun Tzu" was a real person and not a legendary invention). Scholars with different interpretations do not necessarily believe that Sun Wu and Sun Tzu were the same person, and scholars who do not believe that "Sun Tzu" was a historical figure may still believe that Sun Wu existed. The source that this section is cited from does not indicate that they were factually the same person, and changing "Sun Wu" to "Sun Tzu" in this context changes the meaning of the sentence so that the sentence does not reflect the information found in the source. Please let me know if you disagree with me reverting this change.Ferox Seneca (talk) 23:47, 20 May 2012 (UTC)
I have no problem with you reverting that change. I did all of the changes in each section individually, so that any of them could be reverted easily, provided there was a logical reason. I agree with you about using "Sun Wu" when referring to him as an historical figure in the instance you outlined, but would probably argue against using "Sun Wu" as a general rule outside of that one source. If it doesn't specifically change the meaning of the sentence in a fundamental way, the name of the subject of the article should be consistent throughout, with the exception of historical figures whose titles may change from Prince to King or Lord, in which case the change in status is normally mentioned within the article, such as for historical figures like Tang Taizong and Cao Cao.
Also, in the main Sun Tzu article, which should be reasonably consistent with information presented about Sun Tzu in the Art of War article, "Sun Tzu" is used consistently, even when being discussed in the context of the Records of the Grand Historian or "Shiji". The default name for the name of the subject of the article should match the article name, even if the translation source uses a different name, unless an exact quote in italics is being used from the source material, or in the specific case you mentioned, in which I inadvertently changed the meaning of the sentence. These details can separate articles like the Art of War from being graded "B-Class" articles from those articles like "Sun Tzu" which are rated "good". Thanks for keeping me accurate. ;0) OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 01:16, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
I copied a brief translation note,(see Note 1 in article) which was added to the Sun Tzu article, to help clear up any remaining confusion about the varying use of names, which I should have thought of doing ages ago. I hope this further helps to clear up any confusion on the part of the reader. OliverTwisted (Talk) (Stuff) 23:17, 21 May 2012 (UTC)
Looks good.Ferox Seneca (talk) 01:32, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

I'm accessing Google Books right now... It's not gone yet... WhisperToMe (talk) 21:23, 4 September 2012 (UTC)

Translations into English?

I see this article has a list of translations, but is there another Wikipedia article that actually compares them? If not, then this would be a valuable avenue of expansion. Bwrs (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2013 (UTC)

  1. ^ Sawyer, Ralph D. The Seven Military Classics of Ancient China. New York: Basic Books. 2007. pp. 149.
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