Mozi: Basic Writings

Mozi (fifth century B.C.) was an important political and social thinker and formidable rival of the Confucianists. He advocated universal love--his most important doctrine according to which all humankind should be loved and treated as one's kinfolk--honoring and making use of worthy men in government, and identifying with one's superior as a means of establishing uniform moral standards. He also believed in the will of Heaven and in ghosts. He firmly opposed offensive warfare, extravagance--including indulgence in music and allied pleasures--elaborate funerals and mourning, fatalistic beliefs, and Confucianism.


About the Author
Burton Watson is one of the world's best-known translators from the Chinese and Japanese. He received the PEN translation prize in 1981. His translations include The Lotus Sutra, The Vimalakirti Sutra, Ryokan: Zen Monk-Poet of Japan, Saigyo: Poems of a Mountain Home, and The Columbia Book of Chinese Poetry: From Early Times to the Thirteenth Century, all published by Columbia. This book presents Watson's renowned translation of a Chinese philosophy classic in pinyin romanization for the first tim