Mohism

Time, in the Mohist frame, is the linear historical medium within which the welfare of the people is to be secured and within which the example of the sage-kings of antiquity remains practically authoritative. The first of Mozi's three tests appeals to historical precedent; the second to present observation; the third to future consequence. The framework's reading as substantival follows: time is real, oriented, and the medium within which welfare-producing or welfare-destroying practices accumulate their effects. The Mohist's consequentialist analysis of social practice — the calculation of the costs and benefits of expensive ritual, offensive war, partisan affection — assumes that consequences extend across time and that prudent judgement must trace them.

Space, for Mohism, is the inhabited territory of the Warring States — the cities, fields, and roads across which the welfare of the people must be secured. The Mohist communities specialised in defensive warfare, travelling between besieged cities to assist in their protection; the technical sections of the Mozi include detailed prescriptions for the construction and defence of fortifications. The framework's reading of space as substantival and locally configured follows: space is real, finite, and the medium within which political welfare is materially produced and protected. The Mohist ideal of impartial care extends across spatial boundaries — all under Heaven, regardless of state or kin-locality — but its practical realisation requires attention to actual places.

Matter is substantival and the real medium of welfare or harm: food, shelter, clothing, defensive walls, and the bodies of the people are what political analysis must finally track. The Mohist polemic against luxury — the elaborate funerals and musical performances of the Confucian ritualists — proceeds from the conviction that material resources spent on display are materially withdrawn from the people's basic provision. The framework's reading as substantival follows: matter is real, finite, and the proper subject of welfare-oriented allocation. The Mohist communities' practical work on defensive engineering, agricultural improvement, and meritocratic appointment all proceed from this seriousness about the material conditions of life.

Persons are equal recipients of impartial concern. The Confucian emphasis on graded affection is rejected as the source of social conflict; partiality is the chief moral vice.

Energy, in the Mohist analysis, is the practical capacity for work — the labour of the artisan, the farmer, the soldier defending the city walls — to be channelled toward the welfare of all under Heaven. Mozi's polemics against expensive funerals, elaborate music, and offensive warfare proceed from a strong sense that human and material energy are finite and that their waste on practices that produce no benefit for the people is itself an injustice. The framework's reading as substantival follows: energy is real, conserved, and rationally allocable across welfare-producing tasks. The Mohist communities of engineers and defensive specialists organised themselves around this disciplined deployment of energy, and the technical sections of the Mozi (the so-called Mohist canons) record their practical work on optics, mechanics, and fortification.

Information, in the Mohist tradition, is the disciplined knowledge that enables sound moral and political judgement. The Mohist canons preserve early Chinese contributions to logic, definition, and the analysis of argument — including the three tests (san biao) by which Mozi proposed to evaluate doctrines: their basis in past sage-kings, their accord with what people sense and observe, and their practical utility when applied. The framework's reading as substantival follows: there is real information about welfare, about Heaven's will, and about effective practice, and the Mohist intellectual programme is to articulate and transmit it. The school's logical work was eclipsed under the Han but has been recovered by modern comparative philosophers as a distinctive early-Chinese analytic tradition.