On the Philosophical Thought of Sun Tzu's Art of War

Sun Tzu's Art of War is an excellent model of national culture, which has a far-reaching impact on China culture. His brilliant achievements and outstanding contributions in classical military theory are inseparable from his simple materialism and dialectics. This paper makes a multi-faceted perspective on Sun Tzu's Art of War from a philosophical point of view. Materialist atheism, simple dialectics and simple dialectical development view in Sun Tzu's art of war occupy an important position in the history of China's dialectical thinking development, and have a profound and far-reaching impact on the philosophy and culture of China and even the world.

Keywords: Sun Tzu's Art of War; Dialectics; materialism

Sun Tzu's Art of War is a famous military monograph written by Sun Wu, a native of Qi State in the late Spring and Autumn Period. It is the earliest and most outstanding military masterpiece in ancient China, and occupies an important position in the military history of China and even the world. But the Art of War is not only a military work, but also contains rich philosophical thoughts. China's ancient thinkers' abstract thinking, simple overall thinking and dialectical thinking are all reflected in this military monograph. Because Sun Tzu's Art of War summarizes the laws of war in a highly abstract way, the strategic ideas put forward in Sun Tzu's Art of War can be applied not only to the field of military activities, but also to other fields of human social life such as politics, diplomacy, economy and enterprises. The strategic and tactical issues expounded in Sun Tzu's The Art of War are permeated with profound philosophical thoughts. Therefore, The Art of War is not only of great significance in military strategists' thoughts, but also occupies a decisive position in the field of philosophy. The Art of War, in particular, occupies an important position in the field of China's classical philosophy. It laid the foundation of China's classical philosophy in world outlook, epistemology and methodology, and had a far-reaching influence on China's materialist philosophy.

First, materialism atheism.

In ancient China, the slave owners' theory of destiny ruled people's minds for a long time. In Shang Dynasty, divination was the main method, but in Spring and Autumn Period, divination was still widely used to decide conquest. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, with the shaking of slave owners' political rule, the opposition and struggle between destiny and anti-destiny in philosophy, and the opposition and struggle between religious idealism and atheism materialism were very fierce. With the emergence of academic prosperity, people finally challenged the long-term dominant "fate". Among them, Sun Wu stood at the forefront of the times, and his thorough anti-destiny spirit was beyond the reach of thinkers who "sit and talk". The most valuable thing about Sun Wu's thought of fighting is that he can get rid of the superstitious thought of predicting the outcome of the war at that time and make a war plan from reality. Sun Wu's theory of the law of war cognition is based on simple materialism, opposing theism, using superstitious means such as divination to predict fortunes and the victory or defeat of war, and clearly putting forward the idea of "knowing victory", believing that the victory or defeat of war can be predicted. "Prophets should not be taken from ghosts and gods, nor should they be like things, nor can they be measured, but should be taken from people and know the enemy's feelings." (See Notes on Jason Wu's Seven Books on the Art of War, People's Liberation Army Press, August 1986. The original texts of Sun Tzu's Art of War quoted below are all from this book. Sun Wu made a clear materialistic explanation of "heaven": "heaven, yin and yang, cold and heat, time system." This is incompatible with religious theology, which regards "heaven" as a personified god. In the war, he strongly opposed using superstitious methods to predict victory or defeat, advocated "forbidding good fortune to solve doubts" (Nine Places), and "taking things from ghosts and gods is not desirable, unpredictable, and taking things from people, we should also know the feelings of the enemy" (Using Time), which showed complete atheism. Not only that, Sun Wu completely denied the destiny, abandoned the decision-making form of divination, and creatively realized the transformation from divination decision-making to "knowing the enemy's situation" decision-making in the military field. Sun Wu believes that the victory or defeat of the war depends on five factors: "Tao, Heaven, Earth, General and Law", which is explained as follows: "Tao brings people together. Heaven, yin and yang, cold and heat, time system. People living on land are far and near, dangerous and easy, wide and narrow, dead and alive. General, wisdom, faith, benevolence, courage and strictness. Legalism, music system, official road, the main use. " The five factors, whether politics (Tao), nature (heaven and earth), people and economy (general and regular), are all objective things. Sun Wu emphasized: "These five things will be unknown. Those who know will win, and those who don't know will be invincible." Other than that, it is not credible. Obviously, Sun Wu advocated proceeding from reality and adopting a materialistic attitude towards the conditions and results of war. His materialistic stance is very firm and distinct, which is of epoch-making historical significance in decision-making. Sun Wu believes that the nature of heaven is material, and the movement of celestial bodies is regular and can be understood and utilized. "The four seasons are impermanent, the days are short and the months are long, and the months die and the months live" ("Virtual Reality"), all of which are in motion change. Natural climate and geographical location can make it serve the military struggle. In Fire Attack, he has many ancient and precious expositions on the utilization of the weather, such as "the wind is long during the day and stops at night". If it blows all day, the wind will weaken until it stops at night, so it is not appropriate to launch a fire attack that night. He also found that when the moon is in the four positions of the stars, there must be strong winds and fire attacks can be taken. This view of using the objective laws of nature to serve the war irrefutably shows that Sun Wu's world outlook is materialistic. It can be seen that in terms of world outlook, Sun Wu believes that the world exists objectively and is not transferred by human will. At the same time, in concrete practice, Sun Tzu's Art of War holds that the winning and losing factors of war exist objectively and war has its own laws. As long as the commander exerts his subjective initiative, he will surely win.

Second, the simple dialectical thought

Simple dialectical thought is the core of Sun Tzu's Art of War. Sun Wu's dialectical thought involves many contradictions in the military field, such as the number of people, strength, attack and defense, advance and retreat, strangeness, reality, mobility, pedantry, courage, chaos control, victory and defeat. Analyzing the contradiction of things and emphasizing the "two-point theory" is Sun Tzu's guiding ideology to consider and deal with problems, which embodies Sun Tzu's dialectical thinking in the art of war. He said: "It is the care of the wise that will be mixed with interests. Doping is also credible, and doping can also be solved. " (9 changes) This is a key for him to understand and solve various contradictions in the war. He saw that the opposing sides in the war, whether attacking or defending, strong or weak, resting or resting, odd or right, virtual or real, near or far, are interdependent, and their interests are related and can be transformed. For example, the enemy's defense is due to the fact that "the front is the back, the back is the front, the left is the right, and the right is the left;" Everything is ready, everything is ready "("Reality "), it is impossible to be perfect, there are always weaknesses and omissions. Therefore, if we avoid reality and attack its emptiness, the enemy's active position will be transformed into a passive position. Therefore, Sun Wu said positively: "The enemy will be desperate if he can escape, hungry if he can be full, and moving if he can be safe." This simple idea, which touches on the transformation of contradictions, is undoubtedly a sharp ideological weapon and has important progressive significance for countries and armies that use weak enemies to strengthen, use few enemies to strengthen and use small enemies to strengthen. War is a movement, and contradictions in war are developing and changing. Sun Wu compared these changes to "infinite as heaven and earth, inexhaustible as rivers" ("potential articles"). He pointed out in "The Situation": "Chaos is born of governance, timidity is born of courage, and weakness is born of strength." Governance and chaos, courage and timidity, strength and weakness are not fixed, but changing. "Relying on governance and laziness will lead to chaos; If you are brave and arrogant, you will be afraid; Rely on the strong and slack off, you will be weak. In other words, everything can develop in the positive direction or change in the opposite direction. Because of this, Sun Wu warned the generals not to be lazy, arrogant and slack. At the same time, because war is a field full of contingency, Sun Wu's method of observing problems also reflects the way of thinking of exploring the essence through phenomena. In his "March", he has such a sentence: "When the trees move more, they will come; Those who have many obstacles in the grass are suspicious; Birds rise and fall; If the beast is terrible, it will cover it. "The" tree moving ","grass obstacle ","bird rising "and" animal fear "mentioned here are all phenomena on the battlefield, but" coming ","doubt "and" crouching "are the essence of the enemy's situation. This penetrating phenomenon, grasping the essence, also embodies Sun Wu's dialectical thinking. In On War, Sun Wu explained that war is a double-edged sword. No matter which outcome wins or loses, the process of war requires both sides to invest a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources. After all, war is not a business and there is no win-win situation. If one side wins, the other side is bound to fail. Therefore, the winner can use the resources of the enemy country to make up for all kinds of resources lost in the war and gain a lot of political benefits, so he will be stronger. The loser not only loses a lot of resources, but also loses political interests such as national territory and even sovereignty, so it will be even weaker. So strategically, Sun Tzu advocated the greatest victory at the least cost, and on this basis, he put forward the strategic thought of "conquering the enemy without fighting". In essence, it is based on military strength and achieves its own goals through a series of non-military means such as "cutting" and "breaking off diplomatic relations". This strategic thought of total victory constitutes an important part of China's traditional strategic culture and has become the ideal realm pursued by future fighters. No matter what kind of war a country is engaged in, it must "win without fighting", otherwise, the country will face the doom of destruction. It is precisely because the outcome of the war is so important that we need to talk about grand strategy in this process, that is to say, we can't decide each other's fate by accidental luck. Sun Wu has a cloud: "Therefore, soldiers are slow to learn, and they have not seen wisdom for a long time. "Therefore, it is necessary to have high-quality generals who are proficient in fighting and have rich operational experience to direct the war. Just like Sun Wu said, "Know the general of one soldier, know the life of the people and know the master of the country". This is exactly Sun Wu's dialectical thought of fighting.

Third, a simple and dialectical view of development.

Sun Wu put forward a simple and dialectical view of development in Sun Tzu's Art of War, pointing out that everything is constantly changing. He described it as "the image of a husband and a soldier is water" and "the water is impermanent and the soldiers have no constant potential". War, like running water, is always in a dynamic state. There is no fixed form of water, and there is no fixed mode of war. It is always changing. The morale of the army is "vigorous during the day, lazy during the day and low morale", which changes with time. The demand for all kinds of materials and the time that the war depends on are constantly changing. "The five elements are impermanent, the four seasons are impermanent, the days are short and long, and the months are dead and alive." In a word, war and things related to war, everything is changing, everything is flowing, change is absolute, and unchangeable things do not exist. The reason for the development and change of things lies in the struggle between the two sides of internal contradictions. War is made up of two contradictory sides, without which there is no war. The contradictory struggle between the two sides is the fundamental reason for promoting the development of the war. Sun Wu believes that since the war is constantly changing, the general should be good at improvising and decide our changes according to the changes in the enemy's situation. "Nine changes" expounded this problem. "Anyone who knows the power of nine changes must know the way to use troops; Those who will not benefit from the nine changes, although they know the terrain, cannot benefit from the ground; I don't know the technique of nine changes. Although I know five benefits, I can't be used by others. " Only by grasping the internal contradictions and struggles of the war according to the ever-changing war situation can the commander promote the transformation of the war in a direction beneficial to himself and unfavorable to the enemy. Sun Wu also pointed out the problem of "degree" of things' development and change. There is a certain limit to the development of things, and the degree is the joint point of the development of things. If you exceed a certain limit, things will go the other way. Sun Wu's attitude towards foot soldiers illustrates this truth. When talking about the love for pawns, he pointed out that "pawns are like babies, you can take them to deep streams;" Treat a chess piece like a son so that you can die with him. Thick can't be used, love can't be used, chaos can't be cured, and arrogance can't be used. " He emphasized the care and love for the foot soldiers and let them go through fire and water; But if it exceeds a certain "degree" and turns love into arrogance, it will cause endless troubles and even be unable to be used in combat.