The Art of War: philosophical and geopolitical aspects

Abstract

This essay is an attempt to capture some fundamental and often neglected aspects of this masterpiece, the Sun Zi Bingfa, as well as its underlying, subtle and fully matured psychology, solid epistemological démarche, geopolitical immanence and metaphysical refrained pregnancies. The essay also studies the text in its historical context and the intimate, genealogical ties with other texts of the Chinese Military Canon (dianji, 典籍), most particularly that of his descendant, the Sun Bin Bingfa. Various key concepts of Chinese mind, which find also their way into the Art of War, are here picked up and revealed as belonging to the core worldview of the text. A synchronic cut is made as to cast light on the contemporary applications of that ancient Chinese Science/Art, most particularly in the field of geopolitics. An inside-the-text concise excursus brings forth the importance of the so-called 36 Stratagems within the general framework of the Chinese military mind. The Art of War as a metaphor of inner war is also not disregarded.