Sun Tzu

c. 544 - c. 496 BCE · Chinese · Strategic & Political Philosophy, Philosophy of War, Ethics of Conflict

The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting.

Topics Sun Tzu addresses

• the art of war
• strategy
• deception as the way of war
• winning without fighting
• subduing the enemy whole
• knowing the enemy and knowing yourself
• foreknowledge and intelligence
• the use of spies
• the five constant factors
• the Way (Tao) in warfare
• shih (strategic configuration and momentum)
• formlessness and adaptation
• the general and the sovereign
• the virtues of the commander
• calculation before battle
• the economy of war
• the swiftness of victory
• avoiding protracted war
• terrain and its uses
• the indirect approach
• weak points and strong
• the moral law and the unity of the people
• discipline and reward and punishment
• attack by stratagem

Converse with Sun Tzu on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Sun Tzu's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.