Patterns of Reasoning Shared Across Cultural Divides

Normative Arguments in the Classical Age of Greece and the Warring States Period of China

Abstract

In this paper, a selection of arguments encountered in a pair of canonical classical Greek and Chinese literary and philosophical works are analyzed and compared. The works in which the passages selected for analysis occur are the Histories of Herodotus and the Fei Gong section in the Mozi. The present research focuses on three respective passages in these canonical classical Greek and Chinese works containing early examples of normative argumentation of an internally critical kind (‘internal critique’). So-called deontic logic is then applied in order to formally analyze the argumentative content of the selected sections. It is shown that each of the Herodotean and Mohist examples of internal critique may be assigned a formally equivalent Chinese vis-à-vis Greek partner. Based on these similarities, the question of the origins of internal critique in the ancient Greek and Chinese cultural spheres is reconsidered.