Mozi and Yang Zhu from Heretics to Philosophers: Caught in a New Web? The Genealogy of "Chinese Philosophy" in Three Major Steps.

Before the introduction of philosophy in China, the two figures Mozi and Yang Zhu were treated as the stereotypical heretics in the Chinese tradition: Mozi (5th c. BCE) was the extreme altruist without respect for family priorities; Yang Zhu (4th c. BCE) was the extreme egoist without any sense of political responsibility. Since their rehabilitation as “Chinese philosophers” in the 20th century, they have been portrayed with newly coined neologisms, as founders of schools, and associated with writings and with consistent doctrines, that are presented as valuable for the Chinese nation and the whole world. One century after their liberation from an age old orthodoxy, they find themselves caught in another web, confined within the frames of a rather stringent discipline, namely that of “Chinese philosophy.” Some scholars have questioned this interpretation of master-texts and have argued for a return to indigenous frames of interpretation. Without taking a stance between westernization and indigenization, this project diminishes the constraints of the philosophical frame by making it visible. It documents the genealogy of “Chinese philosophy” through these two figures in three major epochs: its incubation in the dynastic era (16-19th c), its birth in the Republican era (early 20th c), and its turbulent growth in the Communist period (mid 20th c.). With this visibility, the project opens possibilities of a less controlled and more varied approach to early Chinese texts.