El argumento MOU como alternativa a la concepción formalista tradicional de la inferencia

Abstract

In this paper I will show the features of the so-called mou argument, which was described by the later Mohist, a chinese philosophy school of the 3rd century BC. The mou argument is a comparative argument which is based on similarities between the statements' syntactic, semantic and pragmatic features. We will see that the later Mohist set up a five-sort typology of relations of implication between statements using this argument. I will defend that the later Mohist approach is a point of view which, starting from an analogical conception of argumentation, allows us to analyze relations of implication between statements using pragmatical elements of language and not only the traditional formal connection of logical consecuence.

Keywords: Analogical arguments, Later Mohist, mou argument, pragmatics.