## 1. Background and Overview



The
 early Mohists
 hoped to develop
 objective moral standards
 by which to unify society and achieve social order. Part of their
solution was to develop a theory of
 *fa* Fa  (models, standards)
 that explained how to judge distinctions (*bian*
Bian ) between *shi* Shi  (this, right) and
*fei* Fei  (not-this, wrong). The core idea was to
identify clear, objective *fa* (models) to serve as
paradigms for pattern recognition or analogical extension. Things
relevantly similar to, or "matching"
(*zhong* Zhong ), the *fa* would be
*shi* (right, this); anything not relevantly similar
would be *fei* (wrong, not-this). The theory of
*fa* applied not only to ethics but to other areas of
thought as well. In epistemology, for instance, it could be applied to
explain what it is to know something: it is knowing how to correctly
distinguish what does or does not match the *fa* for that
sort of thing. To determine whether some claim '*A* is
*B*' should be accepted, we compare *A* to the
*fa* for *B* to see whether they are similar. To
determine whether some doctrine is right, we can compare it to the
 "three models"--the
 deeds of the sage-kings, perceptual experience, and practical
benefit. In logic, the theory yields a model of analogical
argumentation. For the Mohists, an assertion is the application of a
term to something. To support an assertion, we cite a *fa*
for the term we are asserting and then show that the thing we are
asserting it of is relevantly similar to the *fa*. In
philosophy of language--though early Mohist texts do not
explicitly take this step--the theory could be applied to explain
why words denote the things they do. The extensions of terms are
determined by social practices in which we associate *fa*
with terms and distinguish what things do or do not match the
*fa*. Everything that does is thereby properly referred to
by the term in question. 



Accounts can be given at several levels to explain the correctness of
*shi/fei* Shi Fei  judgments. Most
immediately, *shi/fei* distinctions seem to rest on
social norms for distinguishing various kinds of things. This view is
suggested by how the Mohists describe the process by which we learn to
judge *shi* and *fei*: through conformity to
the model set by social superiors. According to the theory of the
 "three models,"
 these norms for drawing distinctions rest in turn on three
fundamental standards: the precedent set by wise leaders of the past,
perceptual experience, and benefit to society. To some extent, then,
the norms have a real basis in perceptual experience and in whatever
strategies actually work, in practice, to promote
"benefit," which the early Mohists understood as wealth,
population, and social order. The Mohists also seem to have thought
they could ground at least some of these norms--specifically,
ethical norms--in the patterns of action exemplified by
*tian* Tian  (Heaven, nature) itself. The third of the
"three models" is also grounded in the norms that
*tian* follows, specifically the norm of promoting benefit
to all. So *shi/fei* distinctions based on benefit
are also, at least in an indirect sense, underwritten by
*tian*. 



The later Mohist texts present a more detailed and sophisticated
version of the same basic approach, grounded in the core notions of
*fa* Fa  (models), *zhong* Zhong 
(matching), *shi/fei* (this/not-this)
Shi Fei , and *bian* Bian  (distinguishing).
They continue the search for objective standards of
*shi/fei* by which to guide action and judgment,
and they explore numerous philosophical issues arising along the way.
For instance, every *shi/fei* distinction divides
the world into what is and is not a certain thing or kind of thing.
But why divide things up one way rather than another? What is it about
particular things that makes them fall on one side of a distinction
rather than the other? In practice, how do we make the similarity
judgment needed to determine which side a particular thing belongs on?
*Shi/fei* distinctions are associated with
"names" (*ming* Ming ) and thus with
language. How do these distinctions underpin language and explain
communication? What is their relation to knowledge? 



One important difference from earlier Mohism is that the later texts
seem to abandon the idea of grounding ethics or social norms in
 "Heaven's intention"
 (*tian zhi* Tian Zhi ), or at least they
say nothing about it. This move would might seem to push Mohist ethics
toward a form of pragmatic consequentialism: the proper standards for
*shi/fei* distinctions would be whatever tends to
promote human welfare. Extending this idea to language and
epistemology, we might expect the Mohists to adopt some form of
pragmatism or conventionalism, on which similarity distinctions
between things are determined at least partly by human interests,
practices, or conventions, presumably as they interact with
human-independent features of the world. (One might argue that the
earlier Mohists already held such a position concerning
*shi/fei* distinctions other than the fundamental
ethical *shi/fei* identified by Heaven's
intentions.) Yet, as Hansen suggests (1992, 242-243), in a few
passages, their position seems to lean toward a brand of realism, here
understood as the view that the world in itself, independently of
human activity, fixes the similarities by which things are divided
into kinds. It is unclear just how strong these realist tendencies
are, however. The texts may be compatible with a view that allows some
latitude in the kind distinctions we recognize, provided they rest on
at least some objective basis for distinguishing similarities and
differences. 


## 2. The Texts



Our knowledge of later Mohist thought comes from six texts, which form
Books 40 through 45 of the *Mozi*: two books of terse
"canons" (*jing* Jing ), generally just a
sentence or two in length; two of slightly longer
"explanations" (*jing shuo*
Jing Shuo ), keyed to the canons, which provide explanations of
or arguments for the statements in them; the "Greater
Selection" (*Da Qu* Da Qu ), a
collection of fragments on ethics, semantics, and logic, apparently
including the remnants of two or more essays; and the "Lesser
Selection" (*Xiao Qu* Xiao Qu ), which
appears to be either a coherent essay or a pair of essays. (The origin
of the titles "Greater Selection" and "Lesser
Selection" is unknown. Possibly these were two selections, one
longer and one shorter, from the remnants of damaged bamboo scrolls.)
The six books as a whole are conventionally known as the *Mo
Bian* Mo Bian , or "Mohist
 *Dialectics*."[2]
 The *Canons* begin with 87 explications of or equivalence
formulae for important philosophical, scientific, and mathematical
terms. Some of these are in effect nominal definitions; others present
substantive views. After a short, textually corrupt section, these are
followed by 86 theses on a variety of subjects. 



The content of the texts is roughly coherent but not tightly so. The
concepts and theories presented generally fit together well, with
variations in terminology. But the organization of the texts is
unsystematic. There is no statement of their overall purpose, no clear
organizational scheme, nor any headings indicating the themes of
different
 parts.[3]
 The canons do tend to fall into thematic groups, such as series on
knowledge, the virtues, geometry, or argumentation, but the sequence
of topics displays no clear pattern. Concepts are introduced only to
never be mentioned again, and central terms sometimes go unexplained.
Like early Chinese mathematicians, the Mohists had no conception of an
axiomatic system, and the canons do not clearly identify anything
corresponding to axioms, definitions, or theorems. Nor are they
arranged as if to explore a specified set of themes or prove some
distinct set of conclusions. As a result, interpretation of later
Mohist doctrines can be testing. They must be reconstructed from
terse, incomplete statements scattered about different parts of the
corpus, and on some issues there is insufficient textual evidence to
reach any firm
 conclusions.[4]




For a brief overview of the fascinating history of the texts and the
philological problems associated with them, see the following
supplementary document:



> 
> Textual History and Philological Issues
> 


## 3. Ethics



The ethical theory of the *Dialectics* is probably a form of
indirect consequentialism. Such a theory would be a natural
continuation of earlier Mohist ethics, and it would explain why the
texts link morality (*yi* Yi ) to benefit
(*li* Li ) while also specifying norms of conduct
that do not directly aim at benefit. This interpretation is
necessarily partly conjectural, however. The *Dialectics*
sketch a normative theory without presenting a fundamental
justification for it, thus leaving some uncertainty as to the nature
of the theory's
 foundation.[5]
 The fragmentary, unsystematic nature of the texts does not allow us
to rule out the possibility that the later Mohists held a mixed
theory, incorporating both consequentialist and deontological
elements. Moreover, we should emphasize that the "Greater
Selection," in which much of the material on ethics is
collected, has suffered severe textual damage, hindering our efforts
to understand details of the theory and rendering much of the
following summary tentative. 



As in early
 Mohist thought,
 the core of the later Mohist ethical theory is a cluster of four
interrelated concepts: "Morality" (*yi*
Yi , also "duty" or "right"),
"benefit" (*li* Li , perhaps also
"welfare"), "benevolence" (*ren*
Ren , also "kindness" or "humaneness"),
and "care" (*ai* Ai ). These notions
are explicated more precisely than in the earlier texts, and they are
fleshed out in ways that seem intended to rectify weaknesses in
earlier Mohist ethics. 



The texts remain committed to the Mohist doctrine of
 "inclusive care"
 (*jian ai* Jian Ai ), or impartial moral
concern for everyone, though they give no arguments to justify either
it or the underlying consequentialist theory. Instead, they treat
inclusive care as justified and address technical objections, such as
whether the notion of all-inclusive caring is logically problematic.
For an example of such a technical objection and the Mohists'
reply, see this supplement: 



> 
> Canon B73.
>  



Compared with early Mohist ethics, the *Dialectics* specify
more precisely what is meant by "inclusive" care,
indicating that we are to have an equal degree of care for all, using
the same phrase that in Mohist geometry refers to two equal lengths:
"Inclusive care is equal; care for each one is equal"
(EC13). At the same time, the texts clarify that the practice of
inclusive care does not entail having equal obligations toward all or
treating everyone alike. The degree to which we are to seek to promote
others' welfare depends on our relationship to them. 



Besides these clarifications, later Mohist ethics introduces four
major innovations. First, the texts no longer appeal to
*tian* Tian  (Heaven) as a criterion and justification
of ethical norms. Second, they explicate benefit (*li*
Li ) and harm (*hai* Hai ) in terms of the
happiness or dislike that results from obtaining something, instead of
the goods of wealth, population, and order. Third, they introduce an
explicit code under which individuals' obligations to each other
vary with their relationship. Fourth, they consider how benefit and
harm are to be weighed in order to guide action in particular
contexts. The following subsections will discuss these four points.



### 3.1 Heaven



Unlike early Mohist texts, the *Dialectics* nowhere appeals to
Heaven as a justification or epistemic criterion for moral judgment.
However, it is unclear whether or not the later Mohists actually
abandoned the doctrine of
 "Heaven's intention"
 (*tian zhi* Tian Zhi ). One possibility is
that they set aside the doctrine after noticing the epistemic problems
involved in contending that Heaven supports one set of ethical norms
rather than another. One isolated passage seems to recognize that the
moral appeal to Heaven's intention as a standard of morality is
effectively empty, as it could be twisted by a criminal to claim that
since Heaven (*tian* Tian , also "nature")
has given him a criminal disposition, it is right for him to engage in
selfish behavior (EC1). However, the passage in question is so obscure
and corrupt that it cannot be interpreted with confidence. Another
possibility is that the writers merely omitted the doctrine of
"Heaven's intention" without actually rejecting it,
since their texts treat only the content of the ethical theory, not
its foundations. Another, similarly late book of the *Mozi*,
"Models and Standards" (Book 4), continues to appeal to
Heaven as an ethical model, though that text may be the work of a
different branch of Mohists. 


### 3.2 Benefit and Happiness



As in early Mohism, "benefit" (*li*
Li ) is the fundamental standard of what is moral or right
(*yi* Yi ), which underlies moral duties and
virtues: "Morality is benefit" (A8, B76). Benevolence
(*ren* Ren , also kindness) is "caring about
individuals" (A7). "Care" (*ai*
Ai ) is left unexplained, though the texts indicate that the
morally good care constitutive of benevolence (*ren*)
involves caring about others for their own sake, and not as a means to
an end (A7), and that a characteristic feature of care is desiring
benefit for and disliking harm to a person (EC7). 



Earlier Mohist texts give no simple, unified definition of benefit
(*li* Li ), instead characterizing it loosely as an objective list of material and social goods, specifically
wealth, population, and social order, this last good 
 comprising a list of virtues and patterns of conduct. 
 By contrast, the *Canons*
take happiness or delight (*xi* Xi ) as a criterion
of benefit (*li*) and thus of what is morally right
(*yi*): "Benefit is what we get and are
happy" (A26). Accordingly, "dislike" is a criterion
of harm and thus of what is wrong: "Harm is what we get and
dislike" (A27). This characterization of benefit and harm in
terms of psychological attitudes is a remarkable shift from earlier
Mohism. The new account can probably explain the older one, insofar as
the Mohists might claim that wealth, population, and social order are
basic needs whose satisfaction makes all people happy. But the new
account opens up conceptual room to revise and expand Mohist ethics.
Since what makes people happy is likely to vary in different
circumstances, the content of the social *dao* Dao 
may change over time, and wealth, population, and social order may not
be the only goods that it aims to promote. 



The Mohist appeal to happiness and dislike is interestingly different
from that of classical utilitarianism in the West. Utilitarians such
as Bentham and Mill held a hedonistic theory of value, on which
happiness is the fundamental good. Moral value for them lies in
maximizing happiness. For the Mohists, by contrast, happiness is not a
fundamental good, but a criterion by which to identify the goods that
constitute benefit. Their theory thus sidesteps a well-known criticism
of hedonistic theories of value, namely that happiness is an
unconvincing explanation of or basis for moral value, since it
generally is not a fundamental good but a byproduct of our achieving
other goods. 



On the other hand, the Mohists seem to assume without discussion that
what is genuinely to our benefit will make us happy and that what
makes us happy will be beneficial and morally right. Both of these
points are open to question. A critic might object, for instance, that
there may be goods that produce benefit without delighting us or
things that produce delight without genuinely benefiting us (heroin
use being a standard example). In the Mohists' defense, one
might argue that all goods at least produce some general feeling of
satisfaction, if not delight, and that things that do not genuinely
benefit us produce at best only a transient, unstable, or otherwise
deficient form of satisfaction or delight. Under critical scrutiny,
then, the Mohists' explanation of benefit seems
promising--there may well be a connection, perhaps even a
necessary one, between benefit and some form of psychological
satisfactoriness--but it probably needs to be revised or
developed further. 



Whose benefit counts in determining what morality (*yi*
Yi ) is, and what are the scope of our moral duties? The Mohists
hold that everyone's benefit counts equally in determining what
conduct or practices are right or wrong. As individuals, though, we
may not each have a duty to treat everyone equally. In our basic
motivations or intentions (*zhi* Zhi ), we are to
take "all under Heaven"--the world of living
things--as our "portion" (*fen*
Fen ), or scope of responsibility, whose benefit we are committed
to promoting (A8). But provided we are committed to the benefit of all
and capable of acting on our commitment when the chance arises, we
need not actually benefit everyone. Individuals' moral worth is
determined not by how much they actually benefit the world, which may
be beyond their control (they may die young, for instance (EC3)), but
by their intentions and abilities, which are largely within their
control. (The Mohists may recognize an exception to this rule in the
case of moral heroes, such as the ancient sage king Yu, whose moral
worth surpasses other people's.) Unless we hold high political
office or are responding to an emergency, most of us will not have the
chance to benefit the whole world directly and need not try to do
so.



Instead, the extent to which we should seek to benefit others will
normally depend on our relationship to them. The Mohists propose that
our conduct toward others be guided by a code of responsibilities
associated with various relationships, which they plausibly would have
regarded as justified by its efficacy in promoting the welfare of all.
This code is an articulation of the earlier Mohists' commitment
to the virtues associated with the paradigm social relations of ruler,
subject, father, son, and brother. It may also have been a response to
the criticism that impartial care for all undermines special personal
relationships, which most of us agree are of great value. The Mohists
often expressed their doctrine of all-inclusive care as "caring
about others' as one cares about one's own," a
formulation open to the uncharitable construal that, for instance, one
should treat everyone else's father as having a status identical
to one's own. As the Mohists' critics were quick to point
out, the result would be that we fail to treat our father as our
*father*, rather than simply as one male elder among others. On
these grounds, Mencius, one of the Mohists' Confucian opponents,
claimed that the Mohist doctrine was tantamount to denying one's
father. The Mohists themselves clearly did not consider this a
consequence of their position, which they repeatedly indicated was
compatible with filial devotion (*xiao* Xiao ). But
to settle the issue, an explicit account was needed of the role of
special personal relationships in their ethics.


### 3.3 Relation Ranking



Perhaps partly to answer such critics, the later Mohists developed a
doctrine they called "relation ranking" (*lun
lie* Lun Lie ). This is a code according to which
we are to care for everyone while benefiting some people more and
others less, in proportion to their relation to us. Our different
obligations to people are determined by general standards of morality
(*yi*)--most likely, by conforming to the social
dao (conventional practices) that best promotes the benefit of all.
"Doing more for those whom morality (*yi*
Yi ) permits doing more for and less for those whom morality
permits doing less for is called 'relation
ranking.'...If the kinship is close, do more; if the
kinship is distant, do less" (EC9). Those for whom we are to do
more include the sovereign, government officers, elders, and relatives
(EC9). Inclusive care thus does not entail equal treatment of or
obligations to others. In practice, the later Mohist view would
probably coincide roughly with the view attributed to a Mohist named
Yi Zhi in a dialogue in the *Mencius* (3A5): "In care, no
degrees; in practice, begin from one's parents." 



Another fragment indicates that we ourselves are among those for whom
we are to do more: "Caring about [other] people does not exclude
oneself; oneself is among those one cares about.... Caring about
oneself according to relation ranking is 'caring about
people'" (EC10). So the Mohists were not committed to
selfless altruism. As long as we do not exceed the degree stipulated
by morality (*yi*), doing more for ourselves and our
circle than for outsiders does not count as selfishness, but as
conformity with the moral norm of all-inclusive care for all. On the
other hand, benefiting some people more and others less without
conforming to "relation ranking" is acting "for the
sake of oneself" (EC10) rather than on behalf of all, as
morality requires. 



The texts provide enough detail about "relation ranking"
for us to speculate that later Mohist ethics is consequentialist at
the foundational level. Given the statements that morality
(*yi*) is benefit (*li*) (A8), that in our
commitments, we are to take all the world as our
"portion," or object of responsibility (A8), and that care
for all is to be equal (EC13), the most explanatorily powerful
hypothesis for the empirical content of those texts is that the theory
is foundationally consequentialist. "Relation ranking" was
thus probably justified as a code of conduct on the grounds that its
practice best promoted the welfare of all, making later Mohist ethics
a form of indirect social-practice consequentialism. The Mohist
position would have been that in practice the welfare of all is best
secured by having everyone follow conventional relationship-roles
where the whole social system leads to more universal well-being that
an alternate set of social practices. So doing more for closer
relations and less for distant would still be moral where everyone
followed that convention, e.g. the elderly would generally have been
more effectively cared for by their children, who loved them and
better understood their needs, than by strangers. So equal concern for
the welfare of all would have justified a code in which individuals
provided primarily for their own elderly parents, not others'.
This social dao could have been expected to meet the needs of most
elderly, so it would have been unnecessary for everyone to provide
equal benefits for other people's parents. Outside of the
family, generally only orphans and the childless elderly would have
required help. The Mohists probably expected the burden of caring for
them to be split across society, with the relatively well-off
contributing from their surplus resources. 



"Relation ranking" would thus have generated a system of
practices and duties based on social relations that was largely
congruent with the role-based duties recognized by the *Ru*
("erudites," or Confucians), the Mohists' main
opponents. The major difference would have been in how the two schools
grounded their views. Confucian ethics starts with a conception of the
conduct appropriate to persons standing in various types of
relationships and works outward, proposing an ideal by which persons
extend concern for their in-group to embrace outsiders. Mohist ethics
starts from the conviction that the only objectively or impartially
justified *fa* (model or standard) of conduct is to
promote the welfare of all. It then works downward, proposing a code
of practices associated with particular social relations that, if
generally followed, would best promote everyone's welfare. The
general *fa* (model) of promoting the welfare of all and
the practices it grounds function as reasons for action analogous to
moral principles. In the structure of the Mohist theory, however, they
are conceptualized not as universal principles, applied by deductive
reasoning, but as models or exemplars, applied by pattern recognition
and analogical reasoning, against which we compare social practices or
individual conduct to determine what is *shi* (right)
and *fei* (wrong). 



On this interpretation, then, the later Mohist ethical theory is a
plausible form of indirect consequentialism, though its formal
structure is distinct from familiar forms of rule consequentialism in
focusing on models and social practices rather than rules or
principles. However, one of the
 problems
 with early Mohist ethics arises again in the later, more
sophisticated theory. According to "relation ranking," we
are to do more to benefit those closest to us. But, consistent with
earlier statements of the doctrine of inclusive care, the later
Mohists also hold that we should care equally for all of humanity. Our
treatment of others is to vary with their relation to us, but our
degree of care for them is not. For example, though we are to devote
more resources to ourselves than to distant strangers, there is to be
no difference in the strength of our care (*ai*) for ourselves
and for them (EC10). We are to be as concerned for others'
parents as for our own (EC12). Inclusive care is equal for all, and
care about each person should be equal (EC13); the degree of
"care about others" that we direct toward one individual
is to be the same as that we direct toward any other (EC2). Indeed,
were the whole world to be harmed by the death of one individual, we
would expend vastly more effort looking after that person, but our
degree of moral care would not increase
 (EC4).[6]
 On the other hand, concern for an individual cannot be abandoned,
even if the world were to benefit (EC2). 



A critic might charge that this doctrine commits the Mohists to a
counterintuitive split between the level of treatment we provide to
others and the degree to which we care about their welfare. A more
natural approach, the critic might argue, would be to allow the degree
of care to vary with the closeness of the relationship, with the
proviso that even distant strangers be the object of at least a
minimal degree of care. This approach might allow individuals to
perform the social roles of government official, subject, parent,
child, and so forth more effectively, thus promoting the welfare of
all. One might also question whether the costs of training everyone to
maintain an equal degree of care for everyone else would not be too
high, and whether it would even be psychologically feasible for us to
devote more time, attention, and assistance to those closest to us
without also caring more about them. In the Mohists' defense,
however, we might argue that by "care" (*ai*
Ai ) they seem to be referring primarily to a social attitude of
moral regard or consideration, not one of individual, affective
concern or attachment. For they see equal care as compatible with
filial devotion (*xiao* Xiao ) and parental
compassion (*ci* Ci ), virtues normally associated
with special affective concern for one's parents or children,
and they tie the absence of care to utter disregard for others
(*Mozi,* Books 14-16). If in fact "care" here
corresponds to moral consideration, then the Mohists may be on firm
ground in advocating equal care for all. On the other hand, if
"care" does refer primarily to an affective attitude, the
doctrine of "relation ranking" could easily be modified to
allow different degrees of care on the same consequentialist grounds
that justify different degrees of benefit: doing so would better
promote the welfare of all. Alternatively, the Mohists could recast
the doctrine of equal care as a doctrine about moral justification:
Institutions and practices are to be justified on the grounds that
they reflect equal concern for the welfare of all. Educating people to
think of justification in this way would probably be feasible; indeed,
it might correspond largely to what we think of as commonsense moral
education. 



Though the Mohists advocate concern for all, it is unclear to what
extent they endorse respect for the life or dignity of individuals. On
the one hand, care about an individual cannot be abandoned, even if
the world were to benefit (EC2). But one fragment in the
*Dialectics* states, "Caring about them equally, select
and execute one person among them," and "if the benefit to
the world is equal, then there's no choosing between them. If
the benefit of death and life are as one, then there's no
choosing between them" (EC6). Given their lack of context, any
interpretation of these remarks must be tentative. But they might be
taken to suggest that the only fundamental consideration in Mohist
ethics is the greater benefit of all the world, not respect for
individuals' dignity or the intrinsic value of their lives.
These remarks might seem to permit sacrificing an individual to
increase overall welfare, or even just as long as there is no net
decrease in welfare. However, the same fragment continues,
"Killing a person to save the world, it's not that we kill
a person to benefit the world; killing oneself to save the world,
it's that one kills oneself to benefit the world." This
seems to indicate that even in the extreme case in which we can save
the world by sacrificing another's life, we do so not merely on
the grounds of the net benefit to the world, since adopting such
grounds might suggest that we could routinely sacrifice individuals
for the benefit of society in less extreme cases as well. Rather, we
do so because of the massive discrepancy between the harm we inflict
and that we prevent--the loss of a single life versus loss of the
whole world. If the life to be given up is our own, on the other hand,
the fragment seems to imply that we should make the sacrifice on the
grounds of benefiting the world, though only if the consequences are
suitably weighty.


### 3.4 Practical Reasoning



The fourth area of novelty in the ethics of the *Dialectics*
concerns an aspect of practical reasoning that the Mohists call
"weighing" (*quan*
 Quan ).[7]
 "Weighing" typically involves judging which of several
alternative ends or courses of action is of greater benefit and lesser
harm, and thus should determine how we act. The discussion of
"weighing" is a response to two sorts of issues. One is
how to handle conflicts between competing ends or values. The other is
how to choose the best means of dealing with situations in which no
course of action open to us is *prima facie* beneficial or
right. Early Mohist texts contain no discussion of how benefit is to
be aggregated or maximized--how the different elements of benefit
are to be weighed against each other and combined so as to best
promote the benefit of all. The later Mohist discussion of weighing
can be seen as addressing this issue on the basis of the principle of
favoring the greater part of a whole and thus choosing the greater of
two benefits or the lesser of two harms.



The Mohists identify two forms of "weighing." The first
appears to be weighing of ends or things for which we act (the phrase
in the text is "things treated as units") (EC8). This sort
of judgment is what the text calls weighing proper
(*quan*). The second appears to be weighing of means
(the phrase reads "affairs and action"). The text deems
this process "seeking" (*qiu* Qiu ), a
term used elsewhere to explicate deliberation (see the section on
 epistemology
 below). It seems to refer to deliberation or planning about the
course of action that would best achieve some end. 



In principle, most action requires practical judgment, since general
ethical standards alone are usually insufficient to guide action in
concrete situations. But the cases that draw the Mohists' (and
other ancient Chinese writers') attention are those in which
different values or ethical standards conflict, pulling the agent in
different directions, along with those in which one is forced to act
when none of the available alternatives would normally justify or
motivate action. The Mohists were particularly concerned to explain
how their fundamental standard of benefit (*li*) could
guide action even when by normal standards none of the choices
available are beneficial. 



According to the Mohists, the ends for which we act may be
distinguished as *shi* (right) or *fei*
(wrong) in two ways, either "directly" or by
"weighing" (EC8). In a particular instance, for example,
we might directly judge that something we normally take to be
*fei* is indeed *fei*, or we might weigh the
features of the situation and conclude that in this special case
something normally *fei* is actually *shi*.
Similarly, desires and aversions may form in two ways. We may desire
or dislike something directly or after weighing the benefits and harms
of the available alternatives (A84). An example of the latter sort of
desire is a desire for the lesser of two harms, which one might form
after "weighing benefit." The Mohists consider the case of
a traveler captured by robbers who force him to choose between
sacrificing his finger, his arm, or his life (EC8). Clearly, the
traveler will sacrifice his finger, not his arm or his life. In
absolute terms, he is choosing something harmful. But as the Mohists
see it, selecting the lesser among harms counts as selecting benefit,
not harm. They point out that the agent's choices are not fully
within his control. Forced to choose among harms, he selects the least
harmful option. When compelled to give up something we possess, we
choose the least harmful alternative. When free to select something we
do not yet possess, we choose the most beneficial alternative. Either
way, we still count as selecting benefit, not harm (EC8). 



The decision-making procedure depicted in the discussion of
"weighing" is tantamount to act consequentialism. However,
as we have seen, later Mohist ethics overall seems to be a version of
indirect consequentialism, in which actions are guided and justified
by practices that are in turn justified by appeal to their beneficial
consequences. The basic standard for
"weighing"--"among benefits, select the
greatest; among harms, select the smallest" (EC8)--appears
to be a rule for resolving conflicts between standards or goods or for
guiding action in exigent cases not covered by familiar moral norms.



## 4. Philosophy of Language



The later Mohists develop a sophisticated naturalistic semantic theory
that explains reference, and thus communication, by appeal to
speakers' shared capacity to learn to distinguish different
kinds of things on the basis of their characteristic features. As in
the *Analects*, the other parts of the *Mozi*, and the
*Xunzi*, theoretical attention focuses on the issue of applying
names or terms to things correctly, and not on the structure or truth
of sentences. (The "Lesser Selection" moves on to consider
"expressions" (*ci* Ci ) formed of
strings of words, but these are treated along the same lines as
terms.) Unlike traditional Western theories of language, such as
Lockean conceptualism, the Mohists do not explain the relation between
language and the world by appeal to mental ideas or meanings that
words stand for. Instead, speakers are understood to communicate by
mastering practices for distinguishing (*bian* Bian )
the referents of names for various kinds of things. By virtue of these
practices, members of the same language community know that each
general term stands for all similar things of a certain kind
(*lei* Lei ). 


### 4.1 Names and Stuff



The Mohists regard all words as various types of "names"
(*ming* Ming ). They draw no distinction between
different parts of speech, probably because classical Chinese words
have no obvious morphological features to indicate their different
grammatical functions. They do identify three types of names,
according to the scope of their denotation (A78):
"all-reaching" names, such as 'thing'
(*wu* Wu ), "reach to" or denote
anything. "Kind" (*lei* Lei ) names,
such as 'horse', consistently "proceed to"
(*xing* Xing , go on to be consistently predicable of) all things relevantly similar to each
other. "Personal" or "private"
names, such as the proper noun 'Jack',
"stop" in one thing only, the individual that bears the
name. Kind names are in effect general terms. They are established by
dubbing things of a certain kind by that name. Having named something
"horse," for example, we are committed to applying the
same name to all similar things (A78). (As we will see in section 6, the Mohists also seem to recognize how some general terms might refer to things grouped together on grounds other than being members of the same kind.) 



Names are used to talk about various *shi* Shi 
(stuff, things, objects, reality). '*Shi*'
can be interpreted as roughly "stuff" or
"solid" and has the connotation of "real" and
"full." *Shi* has a semantic range similar
to, but broader than, the English 'thing',
'object', or 'stuff'. It may refer to physical
objects, conduct, events, or situations. It is also used to refer to
"the facts," the reality or genuine character of
something, and the actual conduct or ability that matches or warrants
a
 reputation.[8]
 According to ancient Chinese beliefs about nature, everything in the
cosmos consists of a dynamic, flowing elemental stuff called
*qi* Qi  (breath or vapor). When used to refer to
objects, *shi* in effect refers to regions where
*qi* has condensed and thickened to fill out space and
form a solid. The use to refer to "reality" or "the
facts" seems to be an extension of this use; in both cases,
*shi* refers to what is really, solidly there. 



As an object or what is real or factual, *shi* contrasts
not with "subject" or "subjective," but with
*xu* Xu  (empty, hollow, insubstantial,
indeterminate) or with *ming* Ming  (name), the
linguistic label for the thing referred to. Nor is *shi*
"substance," as contrasted with a set of properties that
are in, possessed by, or realized by it. What we think of as the
properties of a *shi* are all just inherent parts of it.
Instead of positing an essence or a set of essential properities
instantiated by all things of a kind, the Mohists take it as a brute
fact that *shi* may be similar or different in various
respects, and they seek criteria by which to divide them into kinds
based on these similarities and differences. As we will discuss when
we consider the notions of
 "same" and
 "different,"
 features they cite as such criteria include "shape and
look" (*xing mao* Xing Mao ),
"residence and migration" (*ju yun*
Ju Yun ), and "amount and number"
(*liang shu* Liang Shu ) (NO2). Whether a
particular thing falls within a certain kind, and thus takes a certain
name, such as 'horse', is determined by comparing it with
a *fa* Fa  (model, exemplar) of that kind to see
whether they are similar (A70). A particular horse counts a horse
because its "look" or "characteristics"
(*mao* Mao ) are "like the model" (A71).
As we will see, in some places, the writers of the *Canons*
seem to assume that such similarity relations are fixed by nature,
though they do not give an explicit defense of this stance. 



The Mohists identify three kinds of "calling"
(*wei* Wei ) (A79), or the speech act of uttering
names. The first, "designating," refers to
"linking" (*li* Sa /Li ) two or
more names together, as when we say "dogs are hounds." The
text leaves it unclear whether it is referring to predication in
general, noun predication, or merely introducing a new name for
something, since other passages indicate that 'dog' and
'hound' were considered coextensive. Probably the writers
do not distinguish clearly between these different cases, and it is
likely they are referring generally to all instances of noun
predication, if not also verbal predication. A second kind of
"calling," "applying" or
"attaching" (*jia* Jia ), is illustrated
by scolding a dog. Other passages in the *Mozi* suggest that
"applying" refers to using a term of approval or
disapproval of someone in order to praise or reproach the person. One
possibility, though speculative, is that "applying" might
refer to adjectival predication. The third type of speech act is
"presenting" (*ju* Ju , also
"bringing up" or "raising"), which is
using a name to talk about something. For instance, uttering the word
'dog' or 'hound' is "presenting"
dogs or hounds.


### 4.2 "Presenting" and Communication



Speaking or "stating" (*yan* Yan ) in
general consists of a series of "presentings" (A32).
"Presenting" something is explained as a form of
"emulating" or "presenting a model for" it
(A31). The Mohist view seems to be that names function as models of
their referents, in effect "showing" others what the
speaker is talking about (B53). Using a name of something is
"describing" or "characterizing"
(*mao* Mao ) it, just as if we drew a picture of it
(A32). (This idea might be motivated by the pictographic roots of
Chinese writing.) If we "present" our friend as an example
of a rich merchant, then we are using our friend's name to show
what a rich merchant is (B53). 



"Presenting" (*ju* Ju ) is related to but
distinct from the contemporary concept of reference or denotation.
Words can refer to or denote objects, but names cannot
"present" *shi* (objects, reality). Rather,
speakers *use* names to "present"
*shi* Shi . English concepts similar to
*ju* Ju  include "raise" and "bring
up," as in sentences such as "Mary raised a question"
nd "Mary brought up a possible candidate for the job."
In contexts where we might speak of a word or a speaker
referring to an object, early Chinese texts typically use the
expressions *zhi* Zhi  (point, indicate)
or *wei* Wei  (call) instead of
*ju* Ju  (present, bring up). 



The Mohists' theory that using names to talk about things is a
matter of modeling them can be seen as one version of the commonsense
idea that words represent or signify things. But the Mohist notion of
"emulating" (*ni* Ni ) goes beyond this
basic idea. It is part of a broader theory that names of
kinds--general terms--enable us to communicate by appeal to
shared practices for distinguishing similar from different kinds of
things. On the Mohist view, words can represent things because they
show us what the thing the speaker "presents" is "the same
as" (*tong* Tong ). They show us this because
we have previously learned to distinguish the similar kind
(*lei* Lei ) of thing denoted by that name. Given
this background learning, language tells us what something is
"like" (*ruo* Ruo ) and thus enables us
to know (*zhi* Zhi ) the thing (B70). When someone
uses a word to present something, we know that thing is "the
same" as other things denoted by that word. Hence using words is
a process of "using what people understand to rectify what they
don't know" (B70). The Mohists compare this to using a
measuring tool. We can use a ruler to measure length because we know
the length of the marks on the ruler and we see that the thing
measured is the same length as one of the marks. Analogously, through
language, we can use what listeners are familiar with to inform them
about what they don't know. By using a name of something, we
indicate that the thing is relevantly similar to the other things
conventionally referred to by that name. When we say something is
"white," we are indicating that it is the same color as
the other things we call "white." By grasping the
reference of each other's words in this way, we are able to
"connect thoughts" (*tong yi*
Tong Yi ) (B41) and thus to communicate. 



As this conception of communication as "connecting
thoughts" suggests, the Mohists see language as enabling
speakers to express their *yi* Yi  (thought,
intention, point) (A92), a view shared by other early Chinese theories
of language, including those of the *Xunzi* and *The Annals
of Lu Buwei*. However, the role of "thought" or
"intention" (*yi* Yi ) in these ancient
Chinese theories is distinct from that of ideas, meanings, or
intensions in certain familiar Western views. In Western folk
theory--what we might call the Idea Theory or a
 "dog-legged"[9]
 theory of language--a word's meaning is the mental idea it
stands for, which in turn represents some object in the world. The
content of the idea explains why the word is used as it is, such as
why it refers to certain things and not others. A well-known
difficulty with this view is that it merely moves the explanandum back
a step, since the content and function of ideas, a set of inner,
private symbols, is just as much in need of explication as the content
and function of language, a set of outer, public ones. The Mohist
theory makes no detour through ideas or other mental entities to
explain semantic content. Instead, the reference of words is explained
by similarity relations and by practices for distinguishing the kind
of thing designated by each word. The thought (*yi*
Yi ) expressed by language does not explain why words are used as
they are. Rather, the way words are used explains how it is that they
can express thoughts. "Expressing thoughts" (*shu
yi* Shu Yi ) (NO11) or "connecting
thoughts" (*tong yi* Tong Yi ) (B41)
is communication, the aim or result of using language, not an
explanation of why terms refer to the things they do. One canon (B41)
depicts a scenario in which we come to understand the thought
(*yi* Yi ) of a speaker who uses an unfamiliar word
by asking to what the word refers. The point is that if we can
determine reference, we can communicate. There is no need to consider
meanings or "ideas" corresponding to words, and indeed
intensional concepts play no role in the Mohist theory. 



Accordingly, *yi* Yi  (thought) is typically
associated not with words (*ming* Ming , names), as
one would expect if Chinese thinkers held an Idea Theory of meaning,
but with "statements" (*yan* Yan ) and
"expressions" (*ci* Ci ). (An
"expression," in ancient Chinese philosophy of language,
is any string of two or more words used to communicate a thought.)
Understanding the *yi* (thought) expressed by an
assertion or command is in effect "getting the point." For
this reason, in some contexts *yi* (thought) plays a
conceptual role resembling that of "speaker's
 meaning."[10]
 However, other passages suggest that it is not a semantic notion at
all, but more akin to "what one is thinking" or
one's intentions. One canon tells us that "trustworthiness
is statements agreeing with *yi* (thought)" (A14),
a remark that is difficult to understand if *yi* is
interpreted as a semantic concept. For if *yi* (thought)
were speaker's meaning, then what speakers say could not fail to
agree with their *yi*, and if it were literal meaning,
then failing to conform to it would show only that the speakers use
words incorrectly, not that they are untrustworthy. People are
trustworthy when what they say genuinely reflects what they have in
mind, particularly what they intend to do. The best interpretation of
*yi* in contexts concerning language, then, seems to be
as a general notion of "thought" or a more specific notion
of "intention," and not as semantic
 meaning.[11]




To sum up, the *Dialectics* presents a theory of language on
which reference is explained by speakers' associating
"names" with kinds of similar objects, events, or
situations (*shi* Shi ). Communication is explained
by language users' familiarity with the kinds of similar things
referred to by "names." The relation between language and
the world is not explained by appeal to meanings, ideas, or concepts
in the mind, nor abstract essences of things, but by practices for
distinguishing different kinds of similar objects. This naturalistic
theory seems highly plausible, as far as it goes. But it raises
several crucial questions: How should things be divided into kinds?
What makes things belong to one kind or another? What justifies
recognizing certain kinds rather than others? As we will see, a
weakness in later Mohist thought is that they leave these questions
partly unanswered. Their texts make it clear that they recognize the
issues. Yet they lack an explicit, principled explanation of what
similarities and differences should count in distinguishing kinds of
things and why. 



These questions pertain not only to the Mohists' philosophy of
language, but to their epistemology. So before addressing them, we
will survey later Mohist epistemology and its relation to semantic
theory. 


## 5. Epistemology



As in early
 Mohist thought,
 the focus of later Mohist epistemology is not on the justification or
truth of beliefs, or propositional attitudes, but on knowing how to
distinguish which things or situations are *shi*
Shi  (this) for some term and which are *fei* Fei 
(not-this). As in the earlier texts, the core expression of knowledge
is knowing how to apply terms to things correctly. However, the
*Dialectics* identifies new aspects of knowledge to explain
cases such as when someone is able to make a correct assertion about
something but not to identify it perceptually or when someone can
recognize a thing under one name but not another. 



The core of later Mohist epistemology is presented in two places, a
group of canons describing basic cognitive functions (A3-6) and
another canon listing sources and types of knowledge (A80). It is not
entirely clear how, or whether, the doctrines presented in the two
places fit together as a system. (The texts make no attempt to link
the two, and Canon A80 treats aspects of knowledge that do not mesh
directly with the account in A3-A6.) But they do give a
reasonably informative picture of the later Mohists' approach to
knowledge. 


### 5.1 Awareness, Knowing, and Understanding



Humans who are alive and awake have a capacity or resource
(*cai* Cai ) called "the knowing"
(*zhi* Zhi ) (A3, A22), roughly akin to the capacity
or disposition to have conscious states and perform cognitive
functions. ("The knowing" is thus comparable in different
respects to our notions of consciousness and of "the
understanding.") "The knowing" is inactive in
dreamless sleep (A23), and it is what has desires and aversions (A25).
It is the capacity by which we are aware and have knowledge of things,
and, provided we are awake, it cannot fail to be aware of something.
The text compares it to eyesight: sighted people who open their eyes
always see something, in the sense of having some visual experience,
even if what they see is only pitch black darkness or their perception
is mistaken. The functions the Mohists ascribe to "the
knowing" overlap with those other early texts ascribe to the
heart-mind (*xin* Xin ), a concept that plays no role
in later Mohist thought. 



One function of "the knowing" is deliberation or
forethought (*lv* Lu ), which is described as a
process of mentally "seeking" something. This may involve
visualizing various courses of action and identifying their benefits
and harms, which can then be "weighed"
(*quan* Quan ) to reach a decision on how to act. An
interesting difference from prominent views in the Western tradition
is that deliberation is understood as seeking various features by
which to draw a distinction between *shi* Shi  and
*fei* Fei  or benefit and harm. It is not conceived of
as, for instance, running through the steps of a practical syllogism
in one's head. Rather, extending the vision analogy, the texts
suggest that whereas "the knowing" is comparable to
eyesight, deliberation is analogous to peering this way or that while
trying to spot something. 



Another function of "the knowing" is to know or recognize
(*zhi* Zhi ) things, which is explained as
"contacting" them (A5). Here the analogy is to the
eyesight veridically seeing something. The text explains this sense of
knowledge as "to know is, by means of 'the knowing',
passing by something and being able to describe it."
Interestingly, knowing is here characterized as the practical ability
(*neng* Neng ) to "describe"
(*mao* Mao ) something encountered, probably by
applying a term to it. It is not regarded as an inner mental state
that represents the world accurately, nor as an attitude toward a
sentence or proposition. Technically, the ability to correctly apply a
term to something (such as by saying, "This is a dog" or
by pointing at a dog and declaring, "Dog!") can be
understood as an expression of propositional knowledge. But the text
explains such knowledge in terms of an ability or know-how. 



This passage seems to characterize knowing (*zhi*
Zhi ) quite narrowly, as the ability to recognize something
encountered in perceptual experience. Elsewhere the *Canons*
and *Explanations* use the word 'know'
(*zhi* Zhi ) with a broader scope, so that it includes
cases other than perceptual knowledge, or at least other than
knowledge of things the knower has personally experienced. One passage
explains that though the senses are the source of perceptual
knowledge, once we know something, we need not rely on the senses in
order to continue to know it (B46). Our knowledge of
something--that is, our ability to describe it--can remain
even after we no longer perceive it. We can also come to know
something by having it reported or explained to us without having
perceived it ourselves (A80, B9). 



A third function or capacity of "the knowing" is
discursive knowledge, here equated with understanding (A6). This form
of knowledge is explained as "by means of 'the
knowing,' sorting things [into kinds] in such a way that
one's knowing [correctly recognizing] them is obvious."
Whereas knowing in the sense of recognition is analogous to seeing
something, knowledge or understanding in the sense explained here is
analogous to being clear-sighted. The two are closely interrelated,
though the text does not make the details of the relationship entirely
 explicit.[12]
 One reasonable interpretation is that *zhi,* or "to
know," as described in Canon A5 is primarily a verb that refers
to recognizing or knowing of some particular thing or another, while
knowledge or understanding as characterized in A6 is a noun referring
to the underlying, systematic ability to recognize and sort
(*lun* Lun ) or classify various things. Knowledge
(in the sense of A6) may be the underlying skill or ability that
enables one to know or recognize things (in the sense of A5) in
various contexts. Knowing (A5) would then be an application of
knowledge (A6). At the same time, however, knowing (A5) is in effect a
component of knowledge (A6), since the text says that the latter lies
in being able to sort things in a way that shows one knows them,
presumably in the sense of A5. Another passage tells us that
knowing--again, presumably in the sense of A5--is the means
by which one sorts things (B34), which is the sign of knowledge in the
sense of A6. 



Knowledge or understanding (A6) seems to be the Mohist analogue to
what we might call discursive or theoretical knowledge, systematic
knowledge of various things and relations between them. But there are
interesting differences between the Mohist conception of such
knowledge and conceptions prevalent in the Western tradition. The
Mohists regard the structure of such knowledge as a system of
classifications--of relations and distinctions among various
kinds (*lei* Lei )--and not, for example, as a
deductive system. They do not see knowledge as having a sentential or
propositional structure. Knowing is not a matter of the
subject's standing in a certain relation to a true proposition;
indeed, their account makes no mention of beliefs, propositions, or
truth. Rather, knowledge or understanding is explained as a kind of
ability or know-how: the ability to use 'the knowing' to
"sort" things, which is to distinguish them into kinds and
apply the appropriate names to them. This know-how corresponds
functionally to propositional knowledge, in that it will typically be
expressed in statements of the form "*A* is
*B*"--such as "oxen are
animals"--which by our lights express facts or true
propositions. But the Mohists' explanation is that such a
statement manifests the skill or ability to "sort" or
"distinguish" oxen as falling within the kind
*animal*.


### 5.2 Sources and Objects of Knowledge



Canon A80 gives a categorization of three sources and four objects of
knowledge. The sources of knowledge are hearsay, or testimony;
"explanation," or inference; and "in person,"
or observation. Hearsay or testimony (*wen* Wen ) is
explained as "receiving it as passed along." Elsewhere,
"passing along" is glossed as "someone reports
it" (A81), and "reporting" (*gao*
Gao , also "informing") is itself explained as
"making someone know" (B9). Explanation
(*shuo* Shuo ) is illustrated by the example
"squares do not rotate." Other passages explain it as
"that by which one understands" (A72) and as a process of
citing reasons or causes (NO11). "In person" or
"personal" (*qin* Qin ) is explained as
"observing it there oneself." This notion is probably the
closest the Mohists come to articulating a conception of experience.
However, since they do not, in fact, use any term interpretable as
expressing an explicit concept of experience, we should stick closely
to their terminology and characterize "personal knowledge"
(*qin zhi* Qin Zhi , B70) as knowledge by
observation (*guan* Guan ). 



Interestingly, in discussing "personal knowledge," the
Mohists do not posit any sort of intermediary, such as the British
Empiricists' ideas or impressions, that stands between objects
and the mind. Rather, we perceive things by means of the sense organs
(B46), which allow perceived features to enter directly into
"the knowing" (A98). "Personal knowledge"
contrasts with "knowledge by explanation" (*shuo
zhi*  Shuo Zhi , B70), which is in effect knowledge
obtained by inference or reasoning. The Mohists probably understand
explanation (*shuo* Shuo , also "account"
or "doctrine") as a process of giving reasons
(*gu* Gu ) to support or explain some claim (NO11,
B66). Explanation enables us to obtain knowledge that goes beyond
direct personal observation, such as by drawing inferences from
information provided by others. Having been told that an object hidden
in a room is the same color as a white object before us, we know
"by explanation," without observation, that the hidden
object is white (B70). In a debate, or *bian* Bian ,
having an explanation allows us to assert more than merely that
something does or does not match an agreed-upon model. We can assert,
for instance, that a circle is nowhere straight (A98). However,
knowledge by explanation probably does not reflect a conception of
reason in itself as a distinct source of knowledge, an idea familiar
from Western rationalism. For the clearest example the Mohists give of
it is not knowledge of an a priori proposition, but knowledge obtained
by analogical inference from information provided by an informant
 (B70).[13]
 So "knowledge by explanation" seems a catch-all term for
knowledge obtained by inference, whether deductive, inductive,
abductive, or analogical. 



In comparison with the Western tradition, it is notable that the
Mohists privilege neither observation nor explanation--and by
extension, neither experience nor reason--as a more fundamental
source of knowledge. Both are given equal weight. Nor do they
emphasize a distinction between the type or quality of knowledge
derived from the two sources, such as that one is more certain than
the
 other.[14]
 Moreover, they take observation and explanation to be on a par with a
third source of knowledge, "hearsay," or the reports of
other people. They thus explicitly recognize the social aspects of
knowledge, a topic that has recently attracted much interest in
contemporary epistemology. 



The four objects of knowledge (A80) are names (*ming*
Ming , words), stuff (*shi* Shi , including
objects, events, and situations), "matching"
(*he* He ), and acting (*wei*
Wei ). The first two are explained by their role in language.
Names are "that by which we call" (what we use to talk).
Stuff (*shi*) is "what we call" (what we
talk about). The next two concern the correctness of assertion and
action. "Matching" is when name and thing fit together
properly. "Acting" is intentional conduct. 



The first two kinds of knowledge concern acquaintance or
familiarity--what we might call "knowing-of."
Knowledge of names probably refers to knowing words, without
necessarily knowing how to correctly distinguish what
*shi* (stuff, objects) they refer to. An example would
probably be the
 blind man
 who can use the words 'black' and 'white' in
statements such as "Bright things are white and dark things are
black" but cannot identify black or white objects when presented
with them. Presumably the criterion for knowing a name is knowing how
to use it in at least some contexts.



Knowing stuff probably refers to recognizing objects, events, or
situations under some name--at the very least, under the
"all-reaching" or "universal" name
'thing', which applies to everything--without
necessarily knowing the correct name for them. For example, sometimes
the same kind of object may have two names, such as 'dog'
and 'hound' (B39). Someone might know of this kind of
object and know to call it "dog," without also knowing to
call it "hound." Then the person would know the stuff
referred to by 'hound' but not the name
'hound'. 



Knowledge of "matching" is knowing how to correctly
distinguish, or identify, the kind of thing to which a name refers.
This is the sort of practical know-how that the blind man lacks. Early
Mohist epistemology seems to have focused on this form of knowledge to
the exclusion of the preceding two. The later Mohists also seem to
have taken this as their primary focus, since as we saw above they
explain both perceptual knowledge and understanding as an ability to
match names with things by describing them (A5) or sorting them into
kinds (A6). (Clearly, though, a person could learn a good deal about
sorting into kinds merely on the basis of knowing names.) The fourth
type of knowledge, knowledge of acting, is knowing how to act
correctly--probably, given the context, knowing how to respond
appropriately to the sort of thing denoted by a particular name or
term. That this is included in a categorization of the objects of
*zhi* (knowledge) underscores the theoretical unity of
knowledge and action for the Mohists. Cognition and practical wisdom,
or knowing what to do and when to do it, are both considered aspects
or forms of *zhi* (knowledge). 



Another, unfortunately obscure canon identifies four sources of doubt,
or potential causes of erroneous judgment (B10): accidental
circumstances, inconclusive evidence, causal overdetermination, and
transience. The first of these seems to refer to error due to atypical
circumstances. In a dense fog, for instance, someone might mistake a
man for an ox. Unseasonable weather might cause a person who has moved
to a light hut in summer to unexpectedly feel cold. The possibility of
error in such difficult or unexpected circumstances can provide a
reason to doubt a judgment. The second source of doubt is insufficient
evidence. We have reason to doubt that someone who lifts a load of
feathers is strong or that someone who shaves wood along the grain is
skilled woodworker, because these tasks are too easy to be firm
evidence of strength or skill. The third source is the presence of
multiple causes that could explain something. The cause of a
fighter's collapse might have been that he was drinking alcohol
before the match or that he was overcome by the heat of the noonday
sun. Since we cannot know which factor was decisive, we have grounds
to doubt any claim that one or the other was. The fourth source refers
to situations in which the object of knowledge may change, such that
what we know ceases to be the case. An obvious example--the
Mohists do not give one--is knowing the status of the weather. We
knew it was raining when we ran in from the storm, but after some time
we may have grounds to doubt whether it is still raining.



Interestingly, particularly in comparison with the Western tradition,
the Mohists do not regard the fallibility of perceptual or cognitive
processes as grounds for doubt. In their view, the sources of doubt
lie not in the nature of the cognitive subject, but in contingent
features of particular circumstances--that they are potentially
confusing, atypical, causally overdetermined, transient, or simply
provide inadequate evidence. With the exception of causal
overdetermination, in most cases doubt can be resolved by further
investigation. Nor is reality considered inherently unknowable,
because of incessant phenomenal change or because appearances mislead
us as to how things actually are. Accordingly, ancient Chinese
skepticism--as expressed in the *Zhuangzi,* for
example--is not concerned with the unreliability of sense
perception or a gap between appearance and reality, but with the
problem of grounding the norms by which we draw distinctions between
things. 



An interesting consequence of the Mohists' account of knowledge
as grounded in know-how, or practical ability, is that they do not
treat justification as a component that must be added to a state
corresponding to belief in order to produce knowledge. (Reasons
(*gu* Gu ) have a role in the later Mohist theory
of dialectics or argumentation, but not in the canons on knowledge.)
The text recognizes a contrast between knowing and "taking to be
so" (A24, B10), an attitude corresponding to belief, but this
attitude is not treated as a constituent of knowledge, to which
something must be added to yield knowledge. Instead, perceptual
knowledge and discursive knowledge seem to lie primarily in the
ability to recognize and respond to things appropriately, mainly by
naming and sorting them correctly. Probably no role is assigned to
justification because the Mohist conception of knowledge is just a
type of reliable capacity. The role of justification in the account of
knowledge as justified true belief is mainly to exclude accidentally
true beliefs, such as lucky guesses, from counting as knowledge. The
Mohists handle this point by taking only correct naming and sorting
that issues from a reliable skill or ability to be knowledge. A
reliability component is obvious in the case of the discursive
knowledge characterized in Canon A6, which is a comprehensive,
systematic ability to sort things into kinds. But reliability may also
be part of the Mohist conception of perceptual knowledge, a
prerequisite for which is the reliable ability to recognize and name
things correctly. The Mohists' account of knowledge converges in
places with themes in contemporary virtue epistemology, in particular
with a position that we might call "ability reliabilism."
The relationship between the Mohist view of mind and knowledge and
contemporary epistemology is an area that deserves further research.




The Mohists' conception of knowledge and understanding as
grounded in the ability to name and sort things correctly leads us
back to the questions we raised in response to their theory of
language. What determines kind distinctions? What makes it correct to
distinguish a particular thing as part of one kind or another? In
practice, how do we determine to which kinds things belong? These
questions must be answered before we can determine whether we actually
have knowledge in particular cases. For the later Mohists'
answers to these questions, we need to look to their account of the
notions of "sameness" and "difference" and
their theory of argumentation. 


## 6. "Same" and "Different"



The notions of "same" or "similar"
(*tong* Tong ) and "different"
(*yi* Yi ) lie at the heart of later Mohist
thought. As we have seen, they are a core part of the explanation of
how words refer to things and how we use language to communicate. They
determine what counts as correct "describing,"
"sorting," and "matching" of names and things
and thus what knowledge is. The issues of how to distinguish the
"same" from "different" kinds of things and
how to identify particular individuals as belonging to one kind or
another are central issues in Mohist semantics and epistemology, and
through them, in the Mohist theory of argumentation as well. 



The *Dialectics* explore aspects of "sameness"
(*tong* Tong ) and "difference"
(*yi* Yi ) in several places. Fragments collected
in the "Greater Selection" indicate that the writers were
developing a detailed classification of types of
"sameness," and one canon (A88) appears to explore a
contrast between relative and absolute sameness or difference. Textual
problems make it impractical to discuss these passages here, but one
pair of canons presents a clear, intelligible taxonomy of four types
of sameness and difference (A86-87): 


1. Sameness in being identical or coextensive, as when two names
refer to the same *shi* Shi  (object, event,
situation). This sort of sameness contrasts with difference in the
sense of being two different *shi.*
2. Sameness in being parts of the same unit (*ti*
Ti ), as when things are included within a single whole
(*jian* Jian ). This contrasts with difference in the
sense of not being connected or attached. The concept of a
"whole" here corresponds roughly to a mereological whole
or fusion and includes functional wholes, such as the body. It may
cover sets as well, although the textual evidence suggests that the
Mohists probably assimilated set-member relations to part-whole
 relations.[15]
3. Sameness in being together or united, as when things share the
same location. This contrasts with difference in the sense of not
being in the same place. One suggestion is that this sense of
sameness might refer to the relation between the hard and the white
features of a hard, white stone (B37), the body and "the
knowing" of a living thing (A22), or the length and breadth of
an object (B4) (Graham 2003: 335). Different aspects or features of a single thing might be
considered "the same" in this sense. Another plausible hypothesis is that this type of sameness refers to things being grouped together on the basis of location or other extrinsic facts about them, such as how they are used. All the items in my desk drawer or all draft animals could be considered "the same" in this sense and thereby take the same general "name" (Fraser forthcoming). Such groupings of things contrast with groupings on the basis of intrinsic similarity, the fourth type of "sameness."
4. Sameness in being "of a kind" (*lei*
Lei ), explained here as "having a respect in which they are
the same." This contrasts with difference in being "not of
a kind," which is "not the same in any respect."
Unlike the first three types of sameness, being "of a
kind" entails that things are intrinsically similar
(*ruo* Ruo ) in some respect other than that defined
by these notions of "sameness." Being "of a
kind" explains why things are referred to by the same "kind name," or general term for things of that kind. As we saw in the section on
 language,
 the names of kinds apply to all the similar things that are members of the
kind (A78).



This list invites an intriguing observation. The writers take the
general notion of "sameness" (*tong*
Tong ) to express (at least) four different types of relations: identity or
coextension; part-whole relations; being constituent
features of something or, alternatively, being grouped together on some extrinsic grounds; and sharing some intrinsic similarity and thereby being
"of a kind." These relations correspond roughly to those of identity, part versus
whole, constitution, set membership, and kind relations, which in European languages are all typically expressed using the verb *to be*, or the copula.
We can say, for example, that Cicero is Tully, in that he is
identical with Tully; that Cicero's finger is Cicero, in that it is part of the whole that is Cicero; that Cicero is his
body, in that he is constituted by his body; that Cicero is a magistrate, in that he was a Roman public official; and that Cicero
is human, in that he is a member of the kind *human.*




This parallel between the forms of "sameness"
(*tong*) the Mohists identify and our use of *to
be* strongly suggests that the concept of "sameness"
plays a theoretical role for classical Chinese thinkers comparable to
that of *to be* or the copula in European languages. It is
likely that the Mohists and other early Chinese thinkers implicitly
understood an assertion we would translate into the form
'*A* is *B*' as claiming that *A* and
*B* are "the same," in one of the several senses
specified above. Evaluating the truth of such an assertion would be
understood as evaluating whether *A* and *B* are indeed
"the same" in the relevant way. More generally, early
Chinese theorists probably regarded assertion, judgment, and reasoning
all as processes of distinguishing whether things are "the
same" or not. Stating a fact about the world would have been
seen as a matter of identifying a sameness or difference, in one of
four (or more) senses of
 "sameness."[16]
 "White horses are horses" would be interpreted as in
effect claiming that white horses and horses are "the
same," and "Oxen are not horses" as claiming that
oxen and horses are "different." If these interpretive
hypotheses are correct, then it is no exaggeration to say that
distinguishing same and different--in effect, pattern recognition
or analogical extension--is the core explanatory notion
underlying classical Chinese philosophy of language, epistemology, and
logic.


### 6.1 The Basis for Distinguishing Kinds



The explanation of sameness in being "of a kind" bears on
the questions raised at the end of section 4 about the grounds for recognizing some
kinds and not others and the explanation of why particular things count as members of one kind or another. The Mohists' explanation of being
"of a kind"--"having a respect in which
they're the same"--might at first glance seem to allow
that any group of things with anything in common could be considered a
kind. Could the collection of items in your desk drawer then
constitute a kind by virtue of their similarity in being in the
drawer? A view that allows an affirmative answer might make
identification of kinds highly arbitrary, leading to an extreme
relativist or conventionalist view on which almost any group of things
could count as a kind. However, the Mohists would probably reject such
an extreme view. A collection of things in a drawer might be
"the same" in being united, or grouped together, the third of the four types of
sameness above, but presumably it would not be "the same" in being
"of a kind." Rather, the Mohists seem to hold that to be
of the same kind, things must possess one or more shared, intrinsically
similar features, such as their visible characteristics (*mao* Mao )
or shape (*xing* Xing ) (Robins 2012). Nevertheless, since there
are indefinitely many respects in which things might have similar
observable features, the Mohist stance could still be quite liberal,
allowing things to be divided up into various kind distinctions
depending on which features a speech community happens to attend to. 



The Mohists specify three sorts of general criteria for naming things,
as we mentioned briefly in the section on
 language. (There may originally have been
further criteria, as only a series of fragments remain of the text or
texts that treated these issues.) Some general names refer to objects that share the same "shape and looks" (*xing
mao* Xing Mao , visible form and observable
features). Examples include mountains, hills, houses,
shrines, swords, humans, and parts of the body (NO1-2, 7).
Such names are likely regarded as denoting kinds, since their use is based on features regarded as intrinsically similar. Other general names distinguish things on the basis of "residence and
migration" (*ju yun* Ju Yun ). These
include anything named after a place, such as a Qin horse, or anything
located in a place. Instead of picking out things that count as kinds in the sense of sharing some intrinsic similarity, this criterion seems to identify things that are "the same" by virtue of being "united" in some way, such as by being in the same location. A third set of criteria are "amount and
number" (*liang shu* Liang Shu )
(NO2). Perhaps an example of a kind based on such criteria
might be "quadruped."



These general criteria are hardly enough to resolve all of our
questions about the basis for kind distinctions, however. Kinds are
discriminated from other things by citing or
 "presenting"
 (*ju* Ju ) distinctive features shared by their members. These features must be selected carefully. If we
choose features that are not genuinely relevant or comparable, then
the distinctions we draw will be specious (B76). If we cite features
shared by individuals of more than one kind, we will fail to
distinguish the kinds correctly and reliably. The Mohists call the use
of such specious or unreliable criteria "wild
presenting" (*kuang ju* Kuang Ju ,
citing features "crazily" or "arbitrarily").
As canon B66 explains, we cannot recognize the differences between
kinds of things correctly if we cite features that different kinds
both have (as oxen and horses both have teeth and tails) or features
that only some but not all of one kind have (as some but not all
cattle have horns). 



The specific issue framed in B66 is how, assuming that oxen and horses
are indeed different kinds, we can specify distinguishing features to
differentiate them
 reliably.[17]
 But the Mohists' rejection of "wild
presenting" raises a more general issue. What determines the
distinctions between kinds, such that citing some features is
"wild" and others not? Instead of distinguishing oxen
from horses, could we instead group hornless oxen and horses together
as a kind? The Mohists' implicit view seems to be--though
the textual evidence is sparse and open to competing
interpretations--that the difference between kinds such as oxen
and horses lies in distinctive similarities shared by members of each
kind that are inherent in their *shi* Shi  (stuff),
obtaining independently of human activity. Hence kind relations are determined by the
natural world, not by human attitudes or conventions. Which kind
distinctions we attend to and employ may be up to us, but that some
group of things forms a kind is not. In seeking to distinguish kinds,
then, our task is to identify features that allow us to recognize the
inherent differences between them reliably.



This view seems implied by canon B1, which depicts two parties to a
debate discussing how to "settle" (*zhi*
Zhi ) what kind (*lei* Lei ) they are referring
to by considering in turn whether the presence or absence of various
features in one or more individual exemplars generalizes to the entire
kind. The scenario depicted seems to presuppose that the particular
exemplar (a horse, suppose) is inherently a member of a predetermined
kind (*horses*). (This implicit assumption is reflected in the
text's referring to the exemplar as "this/these
here" [*ci* Ci ] and to the kind it is
understood to belong to as "this (kind)"
[*shi* Shi ].) The debaters' task is not to
agree on features by which to establish or institute the kind, but to
find features that reliably distinguish a collection of inherently
similar things from other, non-similar things. They cannot simply
stipulate what the features of the kind will be, just as they cannot
simply stipulate that oxen are distinguished from horses by having
horns. The similarity relation between the exemplar horse and other
horses that constitutes being "of a kind" is intrinsic to them and does not depend on our deeming them similar. Hence it seems
appropriate to characterize the Mohist stance as "realist," specifically in the sense that the "sameness" relations that determine kinds are inherent in things and not a product of human attitudes or practices.




This implicitly realist view of similarity relations and kind
distinctions seems operative as well in canon B2, which indicates that
we can be mistaken in how we project kind relations, since features of
individual exemplars may not generalise to all members of their kind.
The canon again seems to assume that the kind relation between an
exemplar and others of its kind exists independently of our
identifying it, and so questions can arise as to whether we are
extending kinds properly. If kind relations were not independent in
this way, the features by which we distinguish and name the exemplar
could simply define what features are "so" of the kind.




On this line of interpretation, then, we find the Mohists contending
in canons B8 and B72 that although we can "borrow" the
name of one kind and use it of another thing--their examples are
that we might name a dog "Crane" or a family might be
surnamed "Crane"--it is impermissible to claim things
just are whatever we call them. The dog is not actually a water bird.
Whether or not something is the sort of thing designated by a name is
determined not by our happening to deem it so, but by whether it is in fact
relevantly similar to other things that take that name. 
General terms must "proceed" (*xing* Xing ), or be projectible to, their extensions in regular, predictable ways. Names of kinds must "proceed" on the basis of inherent similarities. 
Canon B72 is
in effect attacking the stance, associated with the
 "School of Names"
 and discussed in certain *Zhuangzi* passages, that anything
can arbitrarily be deemed "so" with respect to some
 kind.[18]




The issues at stake here matter not only for the Mohists. They are
among the central questions in classical Chinese philosophy, addressed
in different ways by Mohists, Daoists, Confucians, and others. For
what scheme of kind distinctions we adopt was seen as determining
values, norms of action, and even the organization of society. In the
Western tradition, views on similar issues have tended to fall into
one of three general categories: realism, conceptualism, or
 nominalism.[19]
 This taxonomy is unhelpful in understanding classical Chinese
thought, however, for the various positions in the Chinese discourse
all tend to fall roughly under the label of nominalism, appealing
neither to universals nor to concepts to explain the relation between
a thing and its kind. The range of Chinese positions can more usefully
be plotted along a spectrum from a form of realism to various forms of
conventionalism or
 relativism,[20]
 representing the extent to which they treat distinctions between
kinds as fixed and independent of human activity, on the one hand, or
as relative to our (potentially plural and variable) attitudes,
practices, context, or point of view, on the other. On one end of this
spectrum would be monistic realism, the view that kind distinctions
are determined by a single, uniquely correct pattern of similarity
relations fixed by the world itself, such that exactly one set of kind
distinctions are the correct ones. Next might come a weaker form of
realism, on which kind distinctions rest on similarity relations fixed
by the world, but different speech communities might employ kind names
that pick out some or other of these distinctions depending on their
interests or customs. Further in the relativist direction would be
 Xunzi's
 pragmatic conventionalism, which holds that the similarity relations
that underwrite kind distinctions are not inherent in things
themselves but are determined by social conventions based on our
natural biological disposition to classify certain things similarly,
our cultural traditions, political decisions, and practical efficacy
in securing socioeconomic order. Still further in the relativist
direction would be the positions of the "Discourse on Evening
Things Out" and "Autumn Waters" essays in the
 *Zhuangzi,*
 both of which hold that, though the schemes of kind distinctions we
employ are grounded in similarities between things, these similarities
themselves are determined by our perspective, practices, or context.
At the extreme relativist end of the spectrum would be the view that
kind distinctions are entirely arbitrary, fixed only by the contingent
whims of the person doing the classifying. It is unclear whether any
early Chinese thinker actually held such a view, though ideas
associated with
 Hui Shi
 and
 Gongsun Long
 suggest that they might have. 



The later Mohists most likely fall on the realist side of
this spectrum, although their account of the grounds for kind distinctions is so sketchy that any interpretation of their position is partly conjectural. Their stance seems to be that whether we recognize some kind by dubbing its exemplars with a name--as when we dub horses
"horse"--is determined by our practices, but that whether a group of objects, such as horses, form a kind is determined by whether the objects are intrinsically similar, independently of our practices (A78, A86). 


The texts do not clearly indicate whether, for example, the aggregate *oxen-and-horses*--that
is, draft animals--could conventionally be deemed a kind (cf. B67).
Perhaps the Mohists would instead hold that, as draft animals, oxen and horses are "the same" in being "united" by their function in pulling carts (that is, by the third of the four types of "sameness"). Canon B66 seems to imply that hornless oxen and horses cannot form a kind, probably because no feature distinguishes just this grouping of hornless animals from all others. By contrast, perhaps hornless quadrupeds could constitute a kind, because their inherent similarity in having four legs but lacking horns distinguishes them from all other creatures. In the end, later Mohist texts offer no explicit, detailed explanation of exactly which similarities between things constitute the basis for kinds. On this point, their treatment contrasts with that of, for example, Xunzi, who clearly indicates that the relevant "samenesses" are constituted through social practices. [21]



## 7. Argumentation and Logic



As we have seen, Mohist semantics and epistemology are grounded in the
notion of distinguishing things as "the same"
(*tong* Tong ) or "different"
(*yi* Yi ). To predicate a general term of
something is to distinguish it as similar to, or of a kind
(*lei* Lei ) with, other things denoted by that
term. Knowledge and understanding are explained in terms of the
ability to distinguish and name things correctly. In this theoretical
framework, judgment amounts to the act of either grouping things
together as "similar" or "the same" or
distinguishing them as "different." An assertion is in
effect a claim that something is or is not "the same" or
"of a kind" with something else. Thus argumentation or
disputation--the process of supporting an assertion by citing
other, established claims--is typically seen as a process of
distinguishing whether two things are or are not "the
same" or whether something belongs to a certain kind. 



As might be expected, given this background, the Mohists'
logical investigations focus on analogical reasoning, and indeed they
tend to treat all argumentation as fundamentally analogical in nature.
They do not investigate formal logic or deductive inference, nor
formulate an explicit notion of logical consequence. They do apply
versions of the laws of excluded middle and non-contradiction, along
with concepts of logical "permissibility"
(*ke* Ke ) and "perversity"
(*bei* Bei , Bo ) that are intertwined with a
rough notion of logical
 consistency.[22]
 They also employ a rigorous system of quantifiers and conjunctions of
implication. Still, none of these logical notions is addressed as an
explicit topic of investigation, nor are they organized and presented
in a systematic way. The Mohists' discussion focuses on
semantics and analogical argumentation.



The Mohists refer to the field of activity in which we support,
evaluate, and argue over assertions as *bian* Bian ,
a word interpretable as "dialectics," "distinction
drawing," "discriminating," or
"disputation." (For convenience, we will translate it as
"disputation," though, as we will see, Chinese thinkers
understand it very literally as a process of
"discriminating," or drawing distinctions.) Early Chinese
texts describe disputation at several levels of
 generality.[23]
 In its broadest sense, disputation is extensive in scope, covering
aspects of semantics, argumentation, logic, and rhetoric. It is
comparable to the Greek notion of dialectics, considered loosely as
debate or reasoning aimed at knowledge. The Mohists'
"Lesser Selection" (*Xiao Qu*) depicts it
as a general process of reasoning and judgment that covers virtually
all cognitive activity, including topics corresponding to politics,
semantics, natural science, and ethics. 



> 
> Disputation (*bian* Bian ), by it we clarify
> divisions between this (*shi* Shi ) and not-this
> (*fei* Fei ) to examine the guidelines of order and
> disorder; clarify points of sameness and difference to discern the
> patterns of names (*ming* Ming ) and stuff
> (*shi* Shi ); and settle benefit and harm to resolve
> uncertainty and doubt. Only then can we lay out what is so of the
> myriad things and sort out parallels in groups of statements. (NO6)
> 



Other texts portray disputation as a competitive, argumentative
activity, a kind of public debate or dispute. The narrowest, most
specific descriptions depict it as a process of arguing over whether,
with respect to some name or term (*ming*), something is
*shi* (this) or *fei* (not-this), part of
the extension of the term or not. Any two or more things that are
*shi* (this) are thereby "the same" in some
way. So disputation is in effect a process of distinguishing what is
or is not "the same." At each level of generality, it is
said to involve distinguishing *shi/fei*
Shi Fei  (this/not-this) and *tong/yi*
Tong Yi  (same/different). Disputation in the narrow sense of
arguing over whether a term can properly be predicated of a thing is
probably the basic component activity of disputation in the wider
senses. Disputation in the broadest sense of "debate" or
"dialectics" is in effect an extended process of
disputation in the narrow
 sense.[24]




Canons A73-74 give a precise explication of disputation in its
most concrete sense. It is contending over which of two complementary
terms, such as 'ox' and 'non-ox',
"fits" (*dang* Dang ) a thing
(*shi*) (A74). Such pairs of terms divide everything in
the world into two mutually exclusive categories: any one thing is
either ox or non-ox. In disputation, one side calls a thing
"ox," the other "non-ox"; the side whose claim
fits the thing wins. The text cites a version of the law of excluded
middle (A73) to show that at least one of the pair of terms must fit
and a version of the law of non-contradiction (A74) to show that at
least one must fail to
 fit.[25]
 The speech act of calling the thing "ox" or
"non-ox" has the pragmatic significance of an assertion,
and so disputation can be understood by our lights as a debate over
which of two contradictory assertions is true. But the Mohists do not
view it this way. They see it as contending over whether the
*shi* (stuff, thing) at hand is of the kind *ox*
or not. Equivalently, they see it as debating whether, with respect to
the term 'ox', the thing at hand is "this"
(*shi*) or "not-this"
(*fei*)--whether the term "fits" it or
not. 



How do we determine whether something is "this" or not? As
explained in
 section 4.1,
 we cite a
 model or paradigm (*fa* Fa )
 of the kind in question and try to show that the thing is or is not
relevantly similar to it. A thing is "so"
(*ran* Ran ) when its "looks"
(*mao* Mao , observable features) are similar
(*ruo* Ruo ) to the model (*fa*)
(A70-71). Models may include a thought of the thing, measuring
tools or other devices for identifying it, or concrete examples.
Things can "match" (*he* He ) the model
"exactly," as when a circle is exactly the same shape as
the model, or by what is "appropriate," as when we deem a
man "swarthy" by the color of his skin, not his hair or
eyes (A83, A96). The overall process of citing a model, explaining the
reasons for distinguishing something as "this" or
"not-this," and thus achieving understanding is called
"explanation" or "persuasion"
(*shuo* Shuo ) (A72, NO11). "Explanation"
(*shuo*) is the analogue, in the Chinese context, of
giving an argument for a claim. However, an "explanation"
has no particular formal structure. Nor is it regarded as proving a
conclusion; the Mohists develop no conception of deductive proof. It
is simply the process of explaining the grounds (*gu*
Gu ) for distinguishing something as "this" or
"not-this." 



A series of canons following those just discussed describe detailed
procedures for disputation, but textual and interpretive problems
place them beyond the scope of this article. Several other
canons--equally obscure, but worth summarizing briefly
here--identify potential problems in disputation. These have two
main sources: the inherently fallible nature of analogical extension
and the Mohists' discovery that similar grammatical structure
need not reliably reflect similar semantics. 


### 7.1 "The Difficulty of Extending Kinds"



In a typical disputation (*bian* Bian ), we compare
something to a model or exemplar of the kind (*lei*
Lei ) of thing denoted by some term and judge whether or not they
are "the same." In the narrowest sort of case, we might
dispute whether a particular individual is of a certain kind, such as
*oxen.* At a higher level of generality, we might dispute
whether or not one kind of thing, *A*, is also of another kind,
*B*. For instance, we might dispute whether or not oxen are of
the kind *four-footed animals*. In either sort of case, we are
considering whether to "extend" our judgment about what is
of a kind to include something new. In classical Chinese thought,
judging that some new thing falls within a recognized kind is called
"analogical extension" or "extending kinds"
(*tui lei* Tui Lei ).



Such judgments will typically be based on comparison with selected
features of a limited set of exemplars. We will usually proceed by
identifying a few distinguishing features of a handful of
representatives of the kind, a process the Mohists call
"settling the kind" (B1). Yet things of the same kind may
be dissimilar in some respects, while things of different kinds may
nevertheless share some similarities. So problems can arise in
identifying distinguishing features and differentiating kinds. The
Mohists call this the "difficulty of extending kinds"
(B2). The canon that presents the problem is corrupt and obscure, but
we can make an educated conjecture as to its gist. It identifies two
sources of difficulty: first, some features, but not all, are shared
by every member of a kind; second, because kinds may be larger or
smaller in scope, two things may be similar in both falling under one
kind without being similar in falling under another. All quadrupeds
are alike in having four feet, but not all are alike in being oxen,
horses, or deer. Birds and all other animals are alike in being living
creatures, but not all animals are birds. One cannot invariably
generalize from features of an exemplar to claims about an entire
kind, because--with the exception of special cases such as being
four-footed--it is not obvious from the exemplar which features
are shared by all members of the kind. Thus in disputation the process
of identifying features of individual exemplars that are indeed
representative of their kind will always be fallible. 



Other problems concerned the semantics of compound terms, or phrases.
The simplest early Chinese model of language--probably the
default starting point for the Mohists' and other ancient
Chinese thinkers' reflections--is what we might call the
one-name-one-thing model (cf. Hansen 1983). On this view, names or
words (*ming* Ming ) are taken to stand in a
one-to-one correspondence with kinds of *shi* Shi 
(stuff, things, events, situations). When the Mohists moved on to
consider phrases or expressions (*ci* Ci ) formed
by combining two or more words, they discovered that the
language-world relation is more complex than this naive model
suggests. Linguistic structure does not always directly reflect the
structure of things in the world. When two names are strung together,
the reference of the resulting phrase may change in unpredictable
ways. Combining 'oxen' and 'horses' gives
'oxen-and-horses' (*niu ma*
Niu Ma ), a phrase denoting the sum of all oxen and horses
(B12). But combining 'hard' and 'white' does
not produce a phrase denoting the sum of all hard things and white
things. It forms one denoting things that are both hard and white in
the same place at the same time (A66, B37). Everything hard-and-white
(*jian bai* Jian Bai ) is white. But not
everything falling within the extension of
'oxen-and-horses' is oxen. In fact, a dispute over whether
oxen-and-horses are oxen or not is undecidable, since if we claim that
they are, on the grounds that part of the sum is oxen, our opponent
can claim in response that they are not, on exactly parallel grounds
(B67) (Fraser 2007b). 'White horse' and 'blind
horse' have the same grammatical structure. But whereas a white
horse is white all over, a blind horse is not "blind all
over"; only its eyes are blind (B3). Deeming someone
"*fu* Fu " (husband) but combining the
word with '*yong* Yong ' (brave) to form
the phrase '*yong fu* Yong Fu '
("brave man") is not deeming him a husband. But deeming a
pair of things "shoes" while combining the word with
'buying clothes' ("buying clothes and shoes")
is still deeming them shoes (B3). 



Observations about such formally similar but semantically dissimilar
phrases led the Mohists to doubt that complex linguistic structures
have any regular or reliable relation to the patterns of similarity
and difference that ground their correct use. Formal parallels between
the words and phrases we use to talk about things can guide us in
discriminating kinds only up to a point, because linguistic
similarities may not reflect actual similarities in things. In
classical Chinese, 'oxen-and-horses' (*niu
ma* Niu Ma ) and 'white horse'
(*bai ma* Bai Ma ) have a similar formal
structure, but the first denotes the sum of two kinds of things, the
second a portion of one kind of thing. Formal similarities in
linguistic structure are thus an unreliable guide to distinguishing
kinds. To discriminate kinds properly, we need to examine the semantic
criteria (*yin* Yin ) or grounds (*gu*
Gu ) that determine the proper use of the words or phrases that
denote them, and not rely only on structural similarities to other
words or phrases. In some cases, we may need to point out that
structurally similar expressions in fact have very different
semantics. This is a key theme of the "Lesser Selection"
(*Xiao Qu*), a brief summary and illustration of
Mohist dialectics that is probably the most important text in the
history of Chinese logic. 


### 7.2 Methods of Argumentation in the "Lesser Selection"



We quoted the opening paragraph of the "Lesser Selection"
 above:[26]
 The text depicts disputation as the general method of achieving
understanding in virtually all areas of inquiry. Specifically, it is
the means by which we can determine "what is so" of
things--what terms are predicable of them, and thus what claims
are correct--and "sort out parallels" between various
types of statements, thus determining what relations between
statements might provide good grounds for accepting one statement on
the basis of another. The text continues by introducing basic concepts
and principles of disputation: 



> 
> By names (*ming* Ming ), present stuff
> (*shi* Shi ); by expressions (*ci*
> Ci ), put across thoughts (*yi* Yi ); by
> explanations (*shuo* Shuo ), bring out reasons
> (*gu* Gu ). Accept and propose on the basis of
> kinds (*lei* Lei ). Having it in our case, we do not
> reject it in the other's; lacking it in our case, we do not
> demand it in the other's.
> 



From the perspective of comparative philosophy, this statement is of
far-reaching significance. Here, in an explicit, systematic
presentation of their theory of dialectics, the most logically
inclined thinkers in the Chinese tradition tell us directly that
assertions are put forth and accepted or rejected on the basis of
analogical extension, by deeming things to be of the same kind or not.
They add a principle of fairness, stipulating that the same grounds or
demands be applied whether evaluating our own claims or the
opponent's. They thus indicate that their dialectics is
primarily not the study of deductive logic, or formally valid
inference. It is the study of fair or unbiased analogical persuasion.
Interestingly, this is an instance of the explicit study of logic in a
culture reflecting prevailing patterns of reasoning across other
fields. Early Chinese mathematics and science are likewise based on
analogical reasoning and taxonomy, rather than on the model of the
deductive system that dominates ancient Greek thought. 



The passage is also significant for what it tells us about the
components and structure of disputation. Three sorts of linguistic
units are mentioned, all of them explained in terms of function, not
structure. "Names," or words, are used to
"present" or talk about things. "Expressions"
are used to express thoughts and thus to make assertions.
"Expressions" overlap functionally with what we would
identify as sentences. However, a sentence is a grammatical unit,
composed of a subject and a predicate. The Mohists do not characterize
expressions as grammatical units, nor as comprising a subject and
predicate. They see them simply as strings of names that enable us to
express thoughts. Since in classical Chinese a predicate term standing
alone can express a thought, presumably such a term can also be an
"expression." "Explanations" are used to
elucidate the reasons for drawing distinctions one way or another.
Functionally, an "explanation" is roughly analogous to an
argument, or, more precisely, to the premises of an argument, in that
it serves to support an assertion by giving reasons. However, an
explanation is not described as having any particular structure, nor
any particular logical relation to an assertion other than giving
reasons for it. 



The text next introduces several further notions, including that of
"emulation," or the use of models to distinguish
*shi/fei*, before explaining four standard
rhetorical techniques used in disputation. The four techniques and the
text's explanation of them are as
 follows:[27]




> 
> * Analogy (*pi* Pi ): "Presenting other
> things and using them to clarify it."
> * "Paralleling" (*mou* Mou ):
> "Placing expressions side by side and jointly proceeding."
> * "Pulling" (*yuan* Yuan ):
> "Saying, 'You are so, how is it that I alone cannot be
> so?'"
> * "Pushing" (*tui* Tui ): "On the
> grounds that what they don't accept is the same as what they do
> accept, propose it."
> 
> 
> 



Scholars have debated the relationship between these four techniques,
some suggesting that they are a sequence of steps employed in the
process of establishing a claim, others that they are inference
procedures. It is unlikely they form a fixed sequence of steps, since
rhetorically in many cases giving an analogy might make presenting
parallel claims unnecessary, or "pulling" (appealing to
the opponent's precedent) alone might be sufficient to establish
one's point. Probably there is no fixed relation between the
four, and disputers may apply one or more of them as needed to make
their case. Frequently, using just one may be sufficient. 



A key point to note about the four techniques, relating back to the
principle that we "accept and propose on the basis of
kinds," is that all are specifically procedures for analogical
argumentation, aimed at distinguishing similarities and differences
between kinds of things and assertions about them. This point is
underscored by the next line of the text, which describes the two
standard responses to the four rhetorical moves: "'This is
like what's been said' is 'the same.'
'How can I call it that?' is
'different.'" However, the four techniques apply
analogical judgment and reasoning in different ways. A concise way of
capturing the differences between them is that analogy is grounded in
similarities between things, "paralleling" in similarities
in phrasing, and "pulling" and "pushing" in
similarities between the discursive commitments of the two
opponents--between claims one side has previously accepted and
analogous claims the other side now seeks to
 establish.[28]



A further point is that these techniques--along with the general
Mohist practice of citing models or exemplars to support one's
claims--are not the proprietary methods of the Mohist school. As
any reader of the ancient literature will notice, three of them, at
least, are standard rhetorical moves employed by classical Chinese
thinkers and debaters of all stripes. ("Paralleling" seems
to be used less frequently, but examples can be found nonetheless.)
The *Mozi* contains numerous arguments matching these
descriptions. But so too do the scores of essays and anecdotes
collected in *The Annals of Lu Buwei* (*Lushi
Chunqiu*), for instance.
 Mencius,
 not a thinker one normally associates with the study of logic, is
depicted as using them regularly (though not always correctly or
intelligibly; see *Mencius* 6A:3). The four moves are thus
probably representative of the art of disputation as generally
practiced in the 3rd century B.C.E. 



Analogy (*pi* Pi ) is the easiest of the four to
explain. It refers to drawing an analogy between one case and another,
more familiar or easily understood one, in order to clarify the case
at hand and presumably to establish a claim about it. It is based on
an analogical inference from a similarity between selected features of
the analogue and features of the case at hand to some further
similarity between the two. Analogies are used regularly in
argumentation throughout the *Mozi* and in the "Lesser
Selection" as well. 



Two of the techniques, "pulling" and
"pushing," are technically forms of *argument ad
hominem,* in that the immediate basis for an assertion is the
opponent's commitment to a similar assertion concerning what we
take to be a similar case. Rhetorically, these two moves attempt to
support a claim not directly by appeal to features of the thing we are
talking about, nor its similarity to something else, as in analogy,
but by appeal to a claim the opponent has already accepted.
"Pulling" refers to citing the opponent's precedent
in accepting an assertion about something and challenging the opponent
to explain how the precedent is distinct from the case at hand. It is
typically signaled by a rhetorical question asking how the present
case is any different from the precedent. If no explanation is
forthcoming, a similar assertion about the case at hand stands.
"Pulling" thus amounts to shifting the burden of argument
to the other side and inviting them to try to block an implicit
analogical inference from the precedent to the case at hand by showing
how the two are actually dissimilar. "Pushing" refers to
proposing a claim about something on the basis of similarity to
another claim the opponent has already accepted. In early Chinese
thought, the term for "pushing," *tui*
Tui , is typically used to refer to analogical extension, and
"pushing" indeed involves an extension from one claim to a
new one on grounds that the cases are similar. 



Since "pulling" and "pushing" are primarily
*ad hominem* techniques used in face-to-face debate, not in
argumentative writing, they appear in early Chinese texts mainly in
contexts depicting speakers engaged in debate (*bian*
Bian ) or attempting to persuade each other of something. The
"Lesser Selection" itself contains two examples of
"pushing," one of which is presented in
 section 7.3.
 Clear-cut examples of "pulling" in the *Mozi* are
difficult to find. What we generally see instead are instances in
which Mozi challenges the audience to explain how a case under
discussion is any different from a simpler, analogous case. For
instance, in the third "Heaven's Intention" essay,
Mozi cites the case of people who "do not know the difference
between black and white," for on seeing a small amount of black,
they say it is "black," while on seeing a large amount,
they say it is "white." He compares this to the case of
warlike rulers who forbid murder--the killing of a single
person--yet deem it right for their soldiers to kill as many
people of a neighboring state as possible. Of this way of
distinguishing right from wrong, he asks, "How is this any
different from confusing the difference between white and
 black?"[29]




A more unambiguous example of "pulling" comes from the
famous dialogue between Mencius and King Xuan in section 1A7 of the
*Mencius.* Mencius argues that the king has the ability to be a
genuine king--and not merely a king in name only--because of
the compassion he displayed in sparing a frightened ox from
sacrificial slaughter. He offers two examples of people who claim to
be able to perform a difficult feat but not an easy, related task: a
person who claims to be able to lift a heavy weight but not a feather
and one who claims to be able to see the tip of an autumn hair but not
a cartload of firewood. The king agrees that such claims would be
unacceptable. Mencius then points out that the king's
benevolence is sufficient to reach animals--a
"difficult" feat, he thinks, insofar as feeling compassion
for an ox comes less naturally to us than feeling it for other
humans--yet the benefits of this benevolence do not reach his
people--an "easy" task, since being moved to help
other people should be easier for us than being moved to help animals.
He then asks how the king's case is any different from the
preceding examples. The implicit conclusion is that the claim that the
King is unable to benefit his people is as unacceptable as a strong
man saying he cannot lift a feather. Thus the king's failure is
not due to a lack of ability. 



The remaining technique, "paralleling"
(*mou* Mou ), or presenting parallel, syntactically
analogous utterances, is the most intriguing of the four and the most
difficult and controversial to interpret. A variety of accounts have
been
 proposed.[30]
 The interpretive difficulty is due partly to the unfamiliarity of the
technique, which has no obvious counterpart in other logical
traditions, partly to the absence of any clearly specified examples in
the text, and partly to the terminology the Mohists use to explain it.
To paraphrase the text, "paralleling" is lining up
expressions side-by-side and jointly proceeding with them all
(*bi ci er ju xing*
Bi Ci Er Ju Xing ). This description is
extremely general, telling us little more than that paralleling
involves some form of linguistic comparison in which strings of
utterances are extended or developed in some parallel or analogous
way. What exactly is referred to by "expressions"
(*ci* Ci ) is vague, since, as we saw above, the
only explanation the Mohists give is functional, that
"expressions" are used to express thoughts.
"Expressions" could conceivably refer to anything from a
phrase to a sentence to several sentences. "Proceeding"
(*xing* Xing ) is also ambiguous.
"Proceed" is used in relation to semantics in two other
places in the *Dialectics,* Canons B1 and B72. In both, it
seems to refer to "proceeding" to using a general term
consistently of similar kinds of things. So "proceeding"
in the present context could refer to going on to make consistent,
unproblematic utterances. But perhaps it might refer to drawing
inferences or simply to uttering strings of interrelated
"expressions." Even the conjunction "and"
(*er* Er ) here is open to different interpretations, as
it could refer to a two-step process of first comparing expressions
and then jointly proceeding with them or, more likely, to a single
step of jointly proceeding with them in parallel. 



Let me tentatively suggest that the following, relatively simple
interpretation may have the greatest explanatory
 value:[31]
 "paralleling" (*mou* Mou ) refers very
generally to presenting a series of syntactically parallel utterances,
one or more of which are used to argue by analogy that one or more
others should be accepted. The formal similarity between the structure
or phrasing of the utterances is supposed to lead us to also see an
analogical relation between the things or situations described, such
that if we accept some of the parallels, we should accept them all.
The following is one example of paralleling: 



> 
> White horses are horses; riding white horses is riding horses.
>   
> 
> Black horses are horses; riding black horses is riding horses.
> 



On the proposed interpretation, the first utterance above could be
taken as grounds for asserting the second. Alternatively, both
utterances together could be taken as grounds for asserting a further
parallel utterance: 



> 
> Brown horses are horses; riding brown horses is riding horses.
>   
> 
> 



As the Mohists understand paralleling, these examples could also
support utterances unrelated to riding horses, such as the following:




> 
> Yellow dogs are dogs; feeding yellow dogs is feeding dogs.
>   
> 
> Oxen are animals; feeding oxen is feeding animals.
>   
> 
> 



The point of paralleling is to employ similarity in syntax or phrasing
to persuade us to accept new, parallel utterances. The formal
parallelism is intended to guide us to recognize that the cases in the
utterances about brown horses, yellow dogs, and oxen are analogous to
those in the ones about white and black horses.



The form of the above examples is "*x* is *y*,
*Fx* is *Fy*," where "*F*" is a
predicate applied to both *x* and *y*. Paralleling is
not limited to utterances of this form,
 however.[32]
 On the basis of the Mohists' discussion in the "Lesser
Selection," paralleling can be used with a variety of structural
patterns, including the following, for
 example:[33]




> 
> 
> Reading books isn't books; liking reading books is liking books.
>   
> 
> Cockfights aren't gamecocks; liking cockfighting is liking
> gamecocks.
>   
> 
> Being about to fall into a well isn't falling into a well;
> stopping someone about to fall into a well is stopping someone from
> falling into a well.
>   
> 
> Being about to go out the door isn't going out the door;
> stopping someone about to go out the door is stopping someone from
> going out the door.
> 
> 
> 



By analogy to this list of parallel utterances, the Mohists contend we
should also accept the following:



> 
> 
> Being about to die young isn't dying young; stopping someone
> from being about to die young is stopping someone from dying young.
>   
> 
> Holding there is fate isn't fate; rejecting holding there is
> fate is rejecting fate.
> 
> 
> 



The litany of parallel examples is intended to prime us to accept the
new, parallel utterances and to see them as identifying further cases
in which, although *x* is not *y*, *Fx* is
*Fy*. 



The latter half of the "Lesser Selection" presents a
taxonomy of cases in which the Mohists contend that syntactic
parallels between utterances can indeed help justify similar, parallel
utterances, along with examples of cases in which they cannot. One of
the text's central claims is that parallelism--and indeed
all four of the rhetorical techniques introduced--is potentially
misleading and can be used only with meticulous attention to the
semantic grounds underlying the correct use of names and expressions.
This claim underscores the nature of the logical inquiries in the
"Lesser Selection." The text is not exploring formally
valid, truth-functional inference procedures, but examining ways in
which analogical inferences--in particular those based on
syntactic parallelism--do or do not yield what the writers
consider semantically correct utterances. When they do not, the
Mohists reject the results by appeal to what they take to be basic
norms governing the semantics of names and expressions, which they see
as more fundamental than syntactical or formal features. As this
characterization suggests, although their observations about the
misleading nature of syntactic parallels may have helped point them
away from any significant study of formal, truth-functional logic,
their inquiries were oriented in a different direction from the start.



### 7.3 Limitations of the Methods



Despite the Mohists' general optimism about the power of
disputation (*bian* Bian ) to resolve scientific,
ethical, and political problems, an important aim of the "Lesser
Selection" is to warn against blindly relying on its formal
methods. Unlike a valid deductive argument, analogical
distinction-drawing is not invariably reliable. According to the
Mohists' characterization of the four techniques, a typical
piece of disputation might involve giving an analogy to support an
assertion; presenting pairs or series of syntactically parallel
statements and contending that since we accept some, we should accept
others; appealing to an opponent's precedent and challenging the
opponent to explain how the case at hand is different; or asserting a
statement on grounds we take to be similar to those for one our
opponent has already accepted. The Mohists see four sorts of problems
that may arise in drawing distinctions and thus making assertions on
these grounds, one for each of the four procedures. (1) Analogies are
not always reliable, because things similar in some respects may be
importantly different in others. (2) Formal parallels hold only up to
a point. (3) The grounds by which an opponent's precedent and
our own assertion are "so" (correct) or not may be quite
different. (4) Likewise, an opponent's reasons for accepting
some assertion may be different from ours. The "Lesser
Selection" explains: 



> 
> Things have respects in which they are similar, yet it doesn't
> follow that they are completely similar. Parallels between expressions
> are correct only up to a point. When things are "so,"
> there is that by which they are "so." Their being
> "so" is the same, but that by which they are
> "so" isn't necessarily the same. When people accept
> things, there is that by which they accept them. Their accepting them
> is the same, but that by which they accept them isn't
> necessarily the same. Hence expressions in analogies, paralleling,
> "pulling," and "pushing" become different as
> they proceed, become dangerous as they change direction, fail when
> taken too far, and leave their roots as they flow, and so one cannot
> fail to be cautious and cannot invariably use them. Thus statements
> have many methods, separate kinds have different reasons, and so one
> cannot look at only one side.
> 



Whether something is "so" (*ran*
Ran )--that is, whether some term is correctly predicable of
it--depends on "that which makes it so," in effect
the satisfaction conditions for the term. Things may be similar in
some respects without fulfilling the satisfaction conditions for the
same term. Linguistic expressions may be similar in structure while
having dissimilar satisfaction conditions. Hence we must be cautious
in using the techniques of disputation. Any guidance provided by
similarities between things or parallels between expressions must
always be checked against our know-how concerning the
"reasons" (*gu* Gu , the grounds or
criteria) for using various expressions.



The Mohists appear to have been particularly concerned about
potentially misleading formal parallels. We can illustrate their
worries by considering a series of examples that contrast parallels
they accept with others they reject. Recall that they affirm the
parallel utterances "white horses are horses, riding white
horses is riding horses" and "black horses are horses,
riding black horses is riding horses." As they see it, this sort
of parallel could provide analogical grounds for also affirming
"Jane is a person, caring about Jane is caring about
people" and presumably also "neighbors are people, helping
neighbors is helping people." This category of cases the Mohists
call "this and so," (*shi er
ran* Shi Er Ran ) because the first part of
the utterance correctly states that something is "this"
(*shi* Shi ) with respect to some kind name (as
white or black horses are "this" with respect to
'horse'), while the second part correctly states that some
action is "so" (*ran* Ran ) with respect
to some predicate (as riding white or black horses satisfies the
predicate 'riding horses'). Cases of the "this and
so" kind (*lei* Lei ) can be offered as
analogical parallels to support other "this and so"
utterances on the grounds that they present the same kind of case.




Now consider the utterance "carts are wood, riding carts is
riding wood." Structurally, this is parallel to the examples
about horses. Yet the Mohists reject this utterance, presumably
because they think the predicate "riding wood" is a
nonsense phrase that is never "so," since nothing
satisfies it. The correct utterance to make in this case is
"carts are wood, riding carts is *not* riding
wood." Rather than "this and so," then, the cart
example is of the kind "this but not so" (*shi
er bu ran* Shi Er Bu Ran ).
As with "this and so," parallels between "this but
not so" utterances can be drawn to support further "this
but not so" utterances. For example, "carts are wood,
riding carts isn't riding wood" might be cited as a
parallel to support "boats are wood, getting in boats
isn't getting in wood" and "houses are brick, living
in houses isn't living in brick." Since paralleling
reliably guides utterances only when used in cases of the same kind,
however, dialecticians must carefully distinguish between cases
properly treated as "this and so" and those properly
treated as "this but not so." Otherwise, they may draw
faulty parallels, such as thinking that, since helping neighbors is
helping people, living in houses is living in brick. 



The underlying aim of the second half of the "Lesser
Selection" is to clear up such confusion and by so doing lay the
groundwork for defending Mohist positions. (Two positions mentioned
specifically are those on capital punishment for bandits and on the
rejection of
 fatalism.)
 Toward this end, the text identifies five kinds of cases in which
"expressions" (*ci* Ci ) are used
differently. The first two are "this and so" and
"this but not so"; the others are "not this but
so," "one universal and one not," and "one
this and one not this." An effective way to illustrate the
Mohists' approach here is to consider their defense of capital
punishment, which turns on the distinction between the first two kinds
of cases. Mohist communities prohibited murder, punishing it by
 death.[34]
 They also apparently advocated capital punishment for, or at least
lethal self-defense against, the roving gangs of robbers who
terrorized small communities and traveling merchants. The
"Lesser Selection" implies that they were accused of
inconsistency for these positions. Robbers are people, so killing
robbers is killing people. If killing people is wrong, isn't
killing robbers wrong? Moreover, Mohist ethics advocates caring
inclusively about all people. Since robbers are people, caring about
robbers is caring about people. Killing them seems inconsistent with
caring about them. 



In response, the "Lesser Selection" contends that the
critics are mistaken to claim that killing robbers is killing people
and caring about robbers is caring about people. In the Mohists'
view, these are in fact cases of the kind "this but not
so": robbers are people, but killing robbers is *not*
killing people, and caring about robbers is *not* caring about
people. The "Lesser Selection" employs paralleling
(*mou* Mou ) to give the following explanation of
the Mohist stance: 



> 
> 
> Jill's parents are people; [but] Jill's serving her
> parents isn't serving people [it is not being employed as a
> servant].
>   
> 
> Her brother is a handsome man; [but] caring about her brother
> isn't caring about a handsome man [it is not sexual attraction].
>   
> 
> Carts are wood; [but] riding carts isn't riding wood.
>   
> 
> Boats are wood; [but] getting in boats isn't getting in wood.
>   
> 
> Robber-people are people; [but] there being many robbers isn't
> there being many people;
>   
> 
> there being no robbers isn't there being no people. 
> 
> 
> 
> How do we clarify it?
> 
> 
> 
> Detesting there being many robbers isn't detesting there being
> many people;
>   
> 
> desiring there be no robbers isn't desiring there be no people.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> All the world accompany each other in together deeming these right
> (*shi* Shi ). If it is like this, then although
> robber-people are people,
>   
> 
> caring about robbers isn't caring about people [it is not
> practicing inclusive care];
>   
> 
> not caring about robbers isn't not caring about people [it is
> not failing to practice inclusive care];
>   
> 
> killing robber-people isn't killing people.
> 
> 
> 
> There's no difficulty in this. These cases and those previous
> ones [the preceding, purportedly uncontroversial examples] are the
> same kind. The world accepts those without condemning themselves; the
> Mohists accept these but the world condemns them....These are
> cases of "this but not so."
> 
> 
> 



On the grounds of parallelism with (supposedly) uncontroversial
utterances that "all the world" purportedly agree are
right, we are expected to affirm that killing robbers is not killing
people and that not caring about robbers--being unconcerned for
their benefit--is not failing to care about people. Since we
acknowledge other, parallel "this but not so" cases, the
text asserts, we should accept these as well. Just as lacking robbers
isn't lacking people, working on behalf of one's parents
isn't working as a servant, and riding carts isn't riding
wood, executing robbers isn't murdering people and not caring
about them isn't failing to practice inclusive care. 



In contemporary terms, of course, we could reconstruct the passage as
offering a somewhat bizarre analogical argument for the conclusion
that "killing robber-people isn't killing people."
The Mohists themselves do not understand it that way, however. They do
not see the passage as presenting a series of premises for the
one-sentence conclusion "killing robber-people isn't
killing people." They see it as laying out a series of
syntactically parallel utterances to illustrate that utterances like
"robber-people are people, [but] killing robber-people
isn't killing people" and "robber-people are people,
[but] caring about robbers isn't caring about people" fit
into an accepted pattern of statements describing a familiar kind of
situation in which, although *x* is *y*, *Fx* is
not deemed an act of the kind *Fy.* 



The text gives no further, substantive explanation of this stance. The
Mohists simply declare that the robbers case is "this but not
so," rather than "this and so," and thus despite the
obvious formal similarity between "riding black horses is riding
horses" and "killing robber-people is killing
people," drawing parallels (*mou* Mou )
between them is misleading. Previously, of course, the text explained
that expressions of different kinds rest on different grounds
(*gu* Gu , reasons). On the Mohists' behalf,
then, we can conjecture that the grounds (*gu*) that
justify applying the predicate 'killing robbers' diverge
from those for 'killing people', such that when
'killing robbers' is "so," 'killing
people' is "not so." Killing people is murder, the
unjustified killing of innocents; killing robbers is the morally
justified, legally sanctioned execution of guilty criminals. Similar
considerations would apply to the predicates 'caring about
people' and 'caring about robbers'. For example, to
the Mohists, caring about people entails concern for all
people's benefit; perhaps they hold that since robbers harm
others, caring about them is incompatible with concern for all
people's benefit.



Still, what makes killing robbers a case of "this but not
so" rather than "this and so"? Indeed, what is the
basis for the entire fivefold taxonomy of cases? The Mohists answer
neither question
 explicitly.[35]
 Nor do they offer a principled or systematic diagnosis of the
failures of syntactic parallelism. They simply stipulate that killing
robbers belongs with the other examples under "this but not
so." A critic might respond that the entire "this but not
so" group looks suspiciously ad hoc. Why isn't
Jill's caring about her good-looking brother an instance of
caring about a handsome man? Granted that sibling affection is
different from sexual attraction, it is still care, in this case
directed at a man who happens to be handsome. Similarly, granted that
executing criminals is different from murder, it is still an event in
which people are killed. The Mohists could probably have found a more
compelling way to do justice to the distinctions at stake than by
insisting on the apparently paradoxical claim--later attacked by
Xunzi--that although robbers are people, killing robbers
isn't killing people. One promising alternative consistent with
their program might have been to distinguish between different kinds
of killing. They could have pointed out that 'killing
people' refers generally to all kinds of actions in which one
person causes another to die. These include a range of more specific
kinds of actions, among them intentional, morally wrong killing of the
innocent (murder) and community-sanctioned, morally justified killing
of criminals (execution). Thus killing robbers could be an action of
the kind *killing people* without being of the kind *morally
wrong killing.* 



This is roughly the approach that
 Xunzi
 adopts in handling a related issue. He contends that a general term,
such as 'honor' or 'disgrace', can have two or
more distinct uses, grounded in different bases or "starting
points" (*duan* Duan ). The different uses can be
specified by compounding (*jian* Jian ) names in a way
that narrows their extension. He argues, for instance, that there are
two kinds of honor and disgrace, "moral honor and
disgrace" and "status honor and disgrace." A person
could be honored with high status while in fact being morally
disgraceful or held in disgrace while in fact being morally
 honorable.[36]
 The Mohists could similarly distinguish two kinds of killing people,
"moral killing" and "immoral killing."



Why don't they? Part of the explanation, of course, may be
simply that this route didn't occur to them. Writing after the
Mohists and probably building on their work, Xunzi (or his
ghostwriter) seems to have improved on their semantic theory in this
 respect.[37]
 Unlike the Mohists, who as we saw distinguish only
 three sorts
 of names--reaching, kind, and personal--Xunzi distinguishes
many possible levels of general terms (*gong
ming* Gong Ming ), specifically explaining that,
among general terms, a "compound" name (such as
'moral killing') and a "single" name (such as
'killing') can both refer to the same thing, the single
name being more general. Xunzi's approach might help to resolve
some of the Mohists' concerns about name compounding.



But there may be another, deeper explanation as well. The Mohists seem
never to have moved fully beyond the one-name-one-thing view. The idea
that each unit of language should denote some discrete kind
(*lei* Lei ), or part of reality, lingers in their
treatment of the robbers example. Their study of name compounding
showed that the extension of most phrases is not determined merely by
summing the extensions of their component words. Unlike the case of
'oxen-and-horses', 'white horse' does not
denote the sum of all white things and all horses. The semantics of
phrases or "expressions" (*ci* Ci )
requires a separate explanation of its own, beyond our explanation of
the semantics of names (*ming* Ming ). Yet the
robbers example shows the Mohists treating phrases the same way they
handle names, attempting to pin down a one-to-one referential relation
between 'killing robbers' or 'caring about handsome
men' and distinct kinds of *shi* Shi  (stuff,
situations). They still seem to assume that the key to distinguishing
kinds correctly and reliably lies in specifying the discrete kind of
*shi* denoted by each expression. Specifying one-to-one
reference relations in this way, so as to eliminate uncertainty or
ambiguity in distinguishing the things denoted by each name, is
precisely what texts such as the
 *Analects*,
 *Xunzi*, and *The Annals of Lu Buwei* call
"rectifying names" (*zheng ming*
Zheng Ming ). So, as Hansen observes (1992, 251), in the
"Lesser Selection" the Mohists are in effect aiming to
rectify phrases, instead of only names. They stipulate, for instance,
that 'killing people' be used to refer only to a certain
kind of *shi* (stuff, event, situation), distinct from
that denoted by 'killing robbers'. The simple
one-name-one-thing view has no room for referential ambiguity or for
terms of different scope, some of whose extensions fall within others.
It holds that the extensions of different phrases must be
distinct--as, on a commonsense interpretation, those of
'killing robbers' and 'killing people' are
not--or confusion and error will result. But this view has
counterintuitive consequences, and there are more compelling
alternatives, as we have seen. To more fully exploit the resources
provided by their approach to semantics, the Mohists needed to break
with the one-name-one-thing model more decisively. 


## 8. Concluding Remarks



In later Mohist philosophy, we see ancient Chinese thinkers making
remarkable advances in ethics, philosophy of language, epistemology,
and informal logic. In each of these areas, the Mohists develop
credible, even brilliant theories and discover philosophical problems
that they grapple with vigorously, if not always fully successfully.
Their ethical theory is a tremendous achievement: history's
first explicit form of indirect consequentialism, grounded in a
conception of benefit or welfare as what produces happiness. Their
naturalistic semantic theory and epistemology offer an intriguing,
non-mentalistic approach to language, mind, and knowledge, one that
deserves further attention today. They pioneer the study of logic in
China and develop an interesting theory of analogical argumentation,
though making only limited progress in exploring cogency in analogical
extension. And this is not to mention their investigations in
metaphysics, mechanics, optics, and geometry. Regrettably, the
Mohists' multifaceted inquiries came to an end as their movement
faded away during the first century of the former Han dynasty (206
B.C.E.-8 C.E.). Interest in issues inspired by language arose
again among a few intellectuals during the later Han (25-220
C.E.) and the Wei-Jin period (220-589 C.E.), but in ethical
theory, language, logic, and epistemology, later Chinese thinkers
never surpassed the achievements of their classical forebears.