Mòbiàn 墨辯

 (literally ‘Mohist disputation’). A designation for the dialectical writings preserved in the Mòzǐ. The term already appears in Lǔ Shèng’s Mòbiàn zhù xù, where it refers to the four Jīng and Jīngshuō chapters. In twentieth-century scholarship, however, Mòbiàn acquired a broader significance. Liáng Qǐchāo helped draw attention to the neglected dialectical writings; Hú Shì interpreted them as part of the development of logical method in ancient China; Wǔ Fēibǎi sought to reconstruct them as a coherent logical system; and Tán Jièfǔ argued that Mòbiàn constituted an independent discipline comparable to Indian yīnmíng and Western logic. Through these and later studies, Mòbiàn became a central concept in modern discussions of Chinese logic and the intellectual legacy of the Mohists.