ABSTRACT
Very little is known about Mozi (Mo Tzu, fl. 470-391 B.C.E.; his personal name was Di). However, the fact that he frequently uses analogies from the crafts, such as carpenter’s squares, compasses, and plumb lines, suggests that he came from the artisan class. He studied Confucianism but came to vehemently oppose it for what he saw as its aristocratic elitism, preoccupation with ritual, overelaborate musical performances, and advocacy of partiality instead of equal concern for all. The text Mozi appears to be the product of a common oral tradition, given the extremely repetitive structure of the argumentation and the fact that different versions of the same essay sometimes have very close but never identical phrasing. The ten essays propound ten central doctrines. The three versions of each essay (some of them missing) may correspond to three different sects of Mohism (Graham 1978, 35-36). Taken together, however, the chapters provide a reasonably consistent portrait of Mozi’s philosophy.
