What if the philosophy of Mozi was the dominant philosophy in China?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohism#Meritocratic_government
Meritocracy, consequentialism, and indiscriminately caring for all people are some of the central aspects of its beliefs.
With this movement it does seem to me there had been a certain kind of philosophical, scientific development that kind of, sort of reminds me of ancient Greece.
I realize the ramifications of this could be enormous. Would it accelerate Chinese science and development? Another interesting question is whether it could spread elsewhere. Chinese inventions did spread in the rest of the world and help accelerate inventions there, this philosophy if succesful in China could perharps succesfully find root and be adapted elsewhere as well or rather, have people influenced by its ideals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohism#Meritocratic_government
Meritocracy, consequentialism, and indiscriminately caring for all people are some of the central aspects of its beliefs.
It does seem however that in this philosophy utility is not seen that much in the arts such as music.Unlike hedonistic utilitarianism, which views pleasure as a moral good, "the basic goods in Mohist consequentialist thinking are... order, material wealth, and increase in population"
With this movement it does seem to me there had been a certain kind of philosophical, scientific development that kind of, sort of reminds me of ancient Greece.
I do see a link between material utilitarianism and wanting and trying to develop the sciences and it does seem that they did have their contributions to the sciences.The Logicians
One of the schools of Mohism that has received some attention is the Logicians school, which was interested in resolving logical puzzles. Not much survives from the writings of this school, since problems of logic were deemed trivial by most subsequent Chinese philosophers. Historians such as Joseph Needham have seen this group as developing a precursor philosophy of science that was never fully developed, but others[who?] believe that recognizing the Logicians as proto-scientists reveals too much of a modern bias.
Mathematics
The Mohist canon of the Mo Jing described various aspects of many fields associated with physical science, and provided a small wealth of information on mathematics as well. It provided an 'atomic' definition of the geometric point, stating that a line is separated into parts, and the part which has no remaining parts (i.e. cannot be divided into smaller parts) and thus the extreme end of a line is a point.[7] Much like Euclid's first and third definitions and Plato's 'beginning of a line', the Mo Jing stated that "a point may stand at the end (of a line) or at its beginning like a head-presentation in childbirth. (As to its invisibility) there is nothing similar to it."[8] Similar to the atomists of Democritus, the Mo Jing stated that a point is the smallest unit, and cannot be cut in half, since 'nothing' cannot be halved.[8] It stated that two lines of equal length will always finish at the same place,[8] while providing definitions for the comparison of lengths and for parallels,[9] along with principles of space and bounded space.[9] It also described the fact that planes without the quality of thickness cannot be piled up since they cannot mutually touch.[10] The book provided definitions for circumference, diameter, and radius, along with the definition of volume.[11]
Siege engineers
One consequence of Mohist understanding of mathematics and the physical sciences combined with their skills as artisans was that they became the pre-eminent siege engineers of pre Qin unification China, capable of both reducing defences and holding cities. In keeping with their belief in furthering peace, small cadres of mohist siege engineers would offer their services to city states at risk of being swallowed up by larger neighbors. On occasion the knowledge that Mohists were helping to prepare a city's defences was enough to dissuade attack.
I realize the ramifications of this could be enormous. Would it accelerate Chinese science and development? Another interesting question is whether it could spread elsewhere. Chinese inventions did spread in the rest of the world and help accelerate inventions there, this philosophy if succesful in China could perharps succesfully find root and be adapted elsewhere as well or rather, have people influenced by its ideals.
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