Some Aspects of Mohist Interpretation of “Heaven”

Abstract

This article examines the question of the ontological status of ‘Heaven’ in Mo­hist teachings (5th–3rd centuries BC). The reconstructions of the Mohist under­standing of ‘Heaven’ (‘Heaven’ as personal deity, as natural force or community of spirits) that have been proposed in modern philosophical sinology are all based in the original source, but logically fit with each other poorly. They are an­alyzed based on the material of Mozi, ch. 4, 26–28 etc. The analysis shows both strong and controversial points of these interpretations (the question of the an­thropomorphism of ‘Heaven’: from the point of view of their philosophical op­ponents, the Mohists undeniably humanize ‘Heaven,’ but from their own point of view, it is more correct to talk about ‘heavenization’ of people; the question of ‘karmic’ nature of ‘Heaven’s actions: the Mohists often describe these actions as reactive and regular, however, the textual material allows one to conclude that they rather think within the framework of ‘legal providentialism’, i.e. when the will of a deity is an ‘administrative’ law, implemented by the ‘apparatus’ of the ‘heavenly’ government of spirits, it is not ontological law; the question of the degree of identity of ‘Heaven’ and other representatives of the spiritual world: the Mohist ‘Heaven’ can have its representatives in the spiritual world, but mostly the name ‘Heaven’ is interchangeable with the name ‘Supreme Sov­ereign’; the question of correctness of understanding ‘Heaven’ as ‘Nature’: de­spite the classical view that ‘Heaven’ in ancient Chinese philosophy is a syn­onym or personification of ‘Nature’, for Mohists this does not seem to be the case, since they do not include ‘man’ in the ‘heavenly’ realm). The conclusion is made that these reconstructions can be reconciled with each other if one accepts the pragmatically oriented nature of Mohist theology. The hypothesis is made that Mohist ‘Heaven’ is a kind of an ‘umbrella term’ that arose from the synec­docheal expansion of the meaning of a location (‘sky’) on the things that/who in­habit it or govern it (and from inside it)