Someter Al Enemigo Sin Librar Combate

Abstract

This article intends to investigate the meaning of war in a Chinese text wrote more than 300 years ago: The Art of War, by Sun Tzu. The essay uses Mao Tse Tung difference between "just wars" and "unjust wars", to ask about the origin of the "just war" concept in classical Chinese thinking. In the first place, the article finds signs of this origin in Mo Tzu's opposition to the "unjust consequences" of war. It then analyses to a greater extent the concept of "the good" understood as the characteristic of an "intelligent General". Finally, it shows how Lao Tzu's formulations in the Tao Te Ching were used by the author of The Art of War to express a sense of the" good" in the General's intelligent behavior. In a parallel way, the article explores the problem of "ways of thinking": first, establishing a relation between the beginning of ideas about war in China and Karl Jaspers' concept of "axis time", and secondly, proposing the study of the Chinese classics' language as a way of symbolic expression, following Susanne Langer ideas. The conclusion is an invitation to research these ideas' development on their transposition to a Japanese context a thousand years later.

Keywords

• War
• China
• Sun Tzu
• just war
• tactics
• strategy