Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-5lx2p Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-01T08:47:18.812Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

TWO SYLLOGISMS IN THE MOZI: CHINESE LOGIC AND LANGUAGE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 November 2018

BYEONG-UK YI
BYEONG-UK YI*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Toronto and Department of Philosophy, Kyung Hee University
*
*DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO TORONTO, ON M5R 2M8, CANADA and DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY KYUNG HEE UNIVERSITY SEOUL 130-701, SOUTH KOREA E-mail: b.yi@utoronto.caURL: http://philosophy.utoronto.ca/directory/byeong-uk-yi/
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines two syllogistic arguments contrasted in an ancient Chinese book, the Mozi, which expounds doctrines of the Mohist school of philosophers. While the arguments seem to have the same form, one of them (the one-horse argument) is valid but the other (the two-horse argument) is not. To explain this difference, the article uses English plural constructions to formulate the arguments. Then it shows that the one-horse argument is valid because it has a valid argument form, the plural cousin of a standard form of valid categorical syllogisms (Plural Barbara), and argues that the two-horse argument involves equivocal uses of a key predicate (the Chinese counterpart of ‘have four feet’) that has the distributive/nondistributive ambiguity. In doing so, the article discusses linguistic differences between Chinese and English and explains why the logic of plural constructions is applicable to Chinese arguments that involve no plural constructions.

Keywords

01A2503A0503B6003B65Chinese logicthe MoziMozi (Mo Di)MohismcategoricalsyllogismBarbaraPlural Barbarasingular/pluraldistributive/collectiveequivocationplural logicmass noun thesissemanticsChinese count noun
Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Symbolic Logic , Volume 12 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 589 - 606
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Symbolic Logic 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Church, A. (1956). Introduction to Mathematical Logic (revised and enlarged edition). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Dobson, W. A. C. H. (1974). A Dictionary of the Chinese Particles. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, C. (2007). Language and ontology in early Chinese thought. Philosophy East & West, 57, 420–456.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, C. (2015). Mohism. In Zalta, E. N., editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (winter 2015 edition). Available at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2015/entries/mohism/.Google Scholar
Fraser, C. (2017). Mohist canons. In Zalta, E. N., editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (winter 2015 edition). Available at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/mohist-canons/.Google Scholar
Fung, Y.-L. (1948). A Short History of Chinese Philosophy (Bodde, E., editor). New York, NY & London, UK: Free Press.Google Scholar
Fung, Y.-L. (1952). A History of Chinese Philosophy, Vol. 1 (second edition). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Translated by Bodde, D..Google Scholar
Fung, Y.-M. (2007). A logical perspective on ‘discourse on white-horse’. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 34, 515–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Graham, A. C. (1978). Later Mohist Logic, Ethics, and Science. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, C. D. (1983). Language and Logic in Ancient China. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Hansen, C. D. (1992). A Daoist Theory of Chinese Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Harbsmeier, C. (1998). Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 7, Pt. 1: Language and Logic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, I. (2000). Choosing the greater and choosing the lesser: A translation and analysis of the Daqu and Xiaoqu chapters of the Mozi. Journal of Chinese Philosophy, 27, 375–407.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kim, Y.-W. et al. (editors) (2011). Plurality in Classifier Languages. Seoul: Hankookmunhwasa.Google Scholar
Linnebo, Ø. (2017). Plural quantification. In Zalta, E. N., editor. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (summer 2017 edition). Available at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/plural-quant/.Google Scholar
McKay, T. (2006). Plural Predication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mo, D. (2006). The Mozi. In Chinese Text Project. Available at http://ctext.org/mozi.Google Scholar
Mo, D. (2010). The Mozi: A Complete Translation. New York, NY: Columbia University Press. Translated and annotated by Johnston, I..Google Scholar
Mo, D. (2013). The Book of Master Mo. London: Penguin Books. Translated and edited with notes by Johnston, I..Google Scholar
OED (2006). Plural, adj. and n. In Oxford English Dictionary (online third edition). Available at https://www.oed.com/viewdictionaryentry/Entry/146191.Google Scholar
Oliver, A. & Smiley, T. (2016). Plural Logic (second edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plato (1982). Hippias Major. Indianapolis, IN & Cambridge, UK: Hackett. Translated by Woodruff, P..Google Scholar
Rayo, A. (2002). Word and objects. Noûs, 36, 436–464.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robins, D. (2010). The later Mohist logic. History and Philosophy of Logic, 31, 247–285.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tan, J. (1964). Mobian Fawei [in Chinese: Analysis of Mohist Dialectic]. Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju.Google Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (1998). Numbers and relations. Erkenntnis, 49, 93–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (1999). Is two a property? Journal of Philosophy, 96, 163–190.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2002). Understanding the Many. New York, NY & London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2005). The logic and meaning of plurals, part I. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 34, 459–506.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2006). The logic and meaning of plurals, part II. Journal of Philosophical Logic, 35, 239–288.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2009). Chinese classifiers and count nouns. Journal of Cognitive Science, 10, 209–225. Reprinted in Kim et al. (2011), pp. 245–264.Google Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2011a). Afterthoughts on Chinese classifiers and count nouns. In Kim, et al. (2011), pp. 265–282.Google Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2011b). What is a numerical classifier? Philosophical Analysis, 23, 195–258. Partially reprinted in Kim et al. (2011), pp. 1–51.Google Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2014). Numeral classifiers and the white horse paradox. Frontiers of Philosophy in China, 9, 498–522.Google Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2016). Quantifiers, determiners, and plural constructions. In Carrara, M., Moltmann, F., and Arapinis, A., editors. Unity and Plurality: Logic, Philosophy, and Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 121–170.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (2018). White horse paradox and semantics of Chinese nouns. In Mou, B., editor. Philosophy of Language, Chinese Language, Chinese Philosophy. Leiden: Brill, pp. 49–68.Google Scholar
Yi, B.-U. (forthcoming). Numeral classifiers and plural marking: The paranumeral account. In Kim, Y.-W., Lee, C., and Yi, B.-U., editors. Numeral Classifiers and Classifer Languages. New York, NY & London, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar