Does anyone know anything about the Legalists and Mohists?

China was an important school with the rule of law as its core during the Warring States Period. Its ideological pioneers can be traced back to Guan Zhong and Zi Chan in the Spring and Autumn Period. The actual founders were Li Kui, Wuqi, Shang Yang, Shen Dao and Shen Buhai in the early Warring States Period. Han Fei at the end of the Warring States period was a master of legalist thought. The representative works of Legalists include The Book of the Lord of Shang and Everything goes wrong. Although there are different views within the Legalists, they all advocate "law" to govern the country. Qi legalists advocated paying equal attention to law and etiquette, putting morality first and giving birth to law by Tao. Legalists in Qin Jin advocated severe punishment and strict law, opposed the preaching of propriety, justice and benevolence, emphasized law, skill and potential, and rewarded the battle of farming, making Qiang Bing a rich country and integrated with the world. Generally speaking, Shang Yang attaches importance to "law", ignoring "technique" and guiding "potential". Han Fei integrates law, technique and potential, absorbs Taoist thought and systematizes the theory of rule of law. Politically, he advocated strengthening the centralization of monarchy, cutting off private forces, "teaching by law", rewarding and punishing heavily, and rewarding agricultural warfare. In the view of history, he put forward the viewpoints of "repairing the past and meeting unexpectedly" and "Time waits for no one, but changes when prepared". Philosophically, "Tao" is the general law of the development of all things, and "reason" is the special law of individual things, which emphasizes that people must follow objective laws to carry out activities. In epistemology, he put forward a "reference" method to test whether people's words and deeds are correct with the actual effect of "action". Legalists' theory of rule of law played an important role in the feudal reform during the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Even Qin Shihuang unified the six countries and established a centralized feudal country, which became the ruling thought of the Qin Dynasty. After the Western Han Dynasty, legalists were absorbed by Confucianism and brought into the theoretical system of combining morality with punishment, and independent legalists gradually disappeared.

★★★★★★★★ The main representative of Legalism ★★★★

■ Han Fei (about 280 ~ 233 years)

China was a philosopher and the main representative of Legalism in the Warring States Period. Koreans, born in a famous family, spread Xunzi's works to the State of Qin and were praised by Ying Zheng, the king of Qin. Later, Reese, Yao Jia and Chen Qin were framed and imprisoned and forced to commit suicide. His works are preserved in the book Han Feizi. The highest category of Han Fei's philosophical thought is Tao. He reformed the concept of Lao Zi's Tao, making it have objective material content. It is believed that Tao is the basis of the occurrence and development of all things in the world, embodied in various things, restricting the four-season changes of nature and social personnel, and is an objective law embodied in the process of the occurrence, development and extinction of objective things. Han Fei also emphasized the exertion of people's subjective initiative and advocated the transformation and utilization of nature to serve mankind. Han Fei has made great contributions to dialectics. He initiated the theory of contradiction. Han Fei believes that the so-called contradiction is two aspects of opposition, and contradiction and opposition are universal. He listed the opposite categories, such as "short length, size, Fiona Fang, firm and crisp, light and heavy, white and black". It is pointed out that there are many forms of contradiction. Han Fei believes that the status of both sides of the contradiction is not fixed and can be transformed under certain conditions. He believes that in the conditions that lead to the transformation of contradictions, of course, internal factors play a decisive role, and the role of external factors can not be ignored. In epistemology, Han Fei advocates that knowledge is the reflection of objective things. He emphasized the purpose and function of knowledge, and believed that all remarks must be targeted and opposed to exaggeration that was divorced from reality. Han Fei's contribution to epistemology also lies in his viewpoint of "experience". He believes that whether people's words are reliable or not and whether their views are correct should be verified not only according to the actual situation and actual effect, but also by means of analysis and comparison. Han Fei's social history has two remarkable characteristics: first, it emphasizes the evolution of society, pays attention to the present reality, and opposes the retro ism of "the past is not the present"; On the other hand, he paid more attention to the role of material factors in social and historical development, and tried to explore the material reasons that caused social changes.

Han Fei discussed the logic of form and name from his political thought. In Han Fei's view, to realize the rule of law, the first problem is to define the legal concept and determine the legal standards. Han Fei's logic of form and name is an important part of pre-Qin logic. His thoughts of "judging names" and "distinguishing points" have certain theoretical significance. His reference thought promoted the development of ancient inductive logic, while the theory of contradiction enriched the theory of logical laws. However, because Han Fei interweaves his logical thoughts with his political thoughts, it greatly affects his further discussion on the form of thinking. Han Fei's philosophical thought also has great limitations. His theory of contradiction absolutes contradiction and opposition because it overemphasizes the struggle of opposites. In epistemology, while emphasizing the function and purpose of cognition, he showed a narrow pragmatic tendency. On the historical view, he insisted on the heroic historical view that emperors decided the social and historical process, and despised the role of the masses.

■ mohists

One of the main schools of China's ancient philosophy. It was produced in the Warring States Period. This school was founded by Mo Zhai (see Mozi), hence its name. Mohism is a disciplined academic group, and its leader is called "Mozi". Its members must carry out Mohism when they go to various countries to be officials, and their salaries must also be dedicated to the group. Mohist school is divided into early and late periods, and its early thoughts mainly involve social politics, ethics and epistemology. In the later period, Mohism made an important contribution to logic.

Mohism in the early period had a great influence in the early Warring States period, and it was also called a prominent school with Confucianism. Its social ethics takes universal love as the core, advocates "the two are easy to change" and opposes the social hierarchy concept emphasized by Confucianism. It puts forward "mutual love and mutual benefit" and regards Shang Xian, Shang Tong, frugality and funeral as the way to govern the country. He also opposed the annexation war at that time and put forward the idea of self-destruction. It advocates non-destiny, ambition and knowing ghosts. On the one hand, it denies the destiny, while at the same time acknowledging the existence of ghosts and gods. In the early stage, Mohist school put forward a cognitive method based on experience, which advocated "seeing by hearing" and "taking facts and naming them". Three tables are put forward as a method to test the correctness of understanding.

The inheritance of Mohism in the later period is unknown, and there are two or three schools. It inherited the early Mohist social ethics and made great achievements in epistemology and logic. The late Mohist school not only affirmed the role of sensory experience in cognition, but also acknowledged the role of rational thinking in cognition, which overcame the empiricism tendency of the early Mohist school. It also clearly defines the basic categories of ancient logic, such as reason, reason and class, distinguishes three concepts, such as "Da", "Class" and "Private", and studies the forms of judgment and reasoning, which occupies an important position in the history of ancient logic in China.

The main ideas of Mohism are concentrated in the book Mozi, among which six works, such as Shang Jing, Xia Jing, Shangshuo, Xiashuo, Daqu and Xiaoqu, are also called Mohist Debates, which are generally considered to be written by Mohism in the later period.

★★★★★★★★ The main representative of Mohism ★★

■ Mozi

China was a thinker in the early Warring States and the founder of Mohism. The surname is inexplicable.

Modern scholars generally believe that Mozi was born around 476 BC and died around 390 BC. Mozi's birthplace is also controversial. Biographies of Historical Records of Mencius and Xun Qing said that he was a "Doctor Song", while Lu Chunqiu certainly thought that he was a native of Lu, and some said that he was originally a native of Song and later lived in Lu for a long time. Mozi claimed that "there is nothing in the throne today, and there is no agricultural difficulty under it", which seems to belong to the "scholar" class at that time. Mozi "worked hard day and night, taking self-suffering as the extreme", and wandered among vassal States for a long time to publicize his political views.

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

There are profound internal contradictions in Mozi's world outlook. On the one hand, he emphasized "non-fate" and "respect for power" and thought that it was not "fate" but "power" that determined people's different experiences. On the other hand, Mozi affirmed the role of "Heaven" and "Ghost". He described "Heaven" as a personality god with will, and preached that "those who obey the will of God will be rewarded". "Those who go against God's will" will be punished. He believes that "loving each other and benefiting each other" means "obeying God's will" and "opposing evil and stealing from each other" means "violating God's will".

Politically, Mozi put forward the ideas of "universal love", "mutual non-aggression", "Shang Xian", "Shang Tong", "frugal use", "frugal burial" and "unhappy". The core of his social and political thought is "being different", and "breaking without breaking" is his concrete action program. He believes that as long as everyone "loves each other and benefits each other", there will be no bullying, arrogance, ignorance and mutual attacks between countries in society. He sharply exposed and criticized the evils brought by the rulers' waging war and the luxury and enjoyment in ordinary customs and habits. In the principle of employing people, Mozi advocated meritocracy, opposed cronyism, and advocated that "officials are impermanent and expensive, and the people are not cheap." He also advocated that from the emperor, governors to chiefs at all levels, we should "choose the best people in the world and use them" to act as; And the people should obey your majesty, so as to share the righteousness of the world.

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

The philosophical thoughts that influenced Mozi reflected the duality of the small working class liberated from patriarchal slavery. The rational factors in his thought were inherited and developed by later materialist thinkers, and the dross of his mysticism was also absorbed and utilized by theologians after Qin and Han Dynasties. Mozi, as the founder of mohists in pre-Qin Dynasty, had a great influence in the history of China philosophy.

Mozi gave a lot of lectures, but he didn't write anything himself. Shang Xian, Shang Tong, fraternity, non-attack, salvation, funeral, celestial record, Ming ghost, Le Fei and Fei Ming are all records of his disciples' thoughts and speeches. This is an important basis for studying Mozi's thought.