Carlo Emil N. BoadoAugust 3, 2015 Chinese Philosophy Rev. Fr. Genaro Jijune Herramia

The School of Names (ming jia) is the traditional Chinese label for a diverse group of Warring States (479221 B.C.E.) thinkers who shared an interest in language, disputation, and metaphysics. They were notorious for logic-chopping, purportedly idle conceptual puzzles, and paradoxes such as Today go to Yue but arrive yesterday and A white horse is not a horse. Because reflection on language in ancient China centered on names (ming, words) and their relation to stuff (shi, objects, events, situations), 2nd-century B.C.E. Han dynasty archivists dubbed these thinkers the School of Names, one of six recognized philosophical movements.

Before the Han dynasty, the social group of which these thinkers were a part was known as the bian zhedisputers or dialecticiansbecause they spent much of their time in disputation (bian, also discrimination or distinction drawing), a form of dialectical persuasion and inquiry aimed fundamentally at distinguishing the proper semantic relations between names and the things or kinds of things to which they refer. Disputers is thus probably a more appropriate English label for Hui Shi, Gongsun Long, and the others than is the School of Names, though it refers not specifically to these figures but to the broader class of scholars to which they belonged. (Name-distinguishers or distinction-disputers would be even more accurate, though these terms are too clumsy to adopt as English equivalents.) The disputers flourished for about a century and a half as wandering political advisors, counseling rulers throughout pre-unification China. They disappeared with the onset of the Qin dynasty (221 B.C.E.), partly because the political and intellectual climate of the new empire was hostile to their purely theoretical, occasionally flippant inquiries, and partly because with unification their political services became obsolete.

Main ThemesEarly texts regularly associate the disputers with four themes: 1. The same and different (tong yi) 2. hard and white (jian bai) 3. Deeming so the not-so, admissible the inadmissible (ran bu ran, ke bu ke) 4. the dimensionless (wu hou)

What are uniting the same and different, separating hard from white, and making so the not-so and admissible the inadmissible? Given the limited evidence, we cannot be completely sure what these phrasesalong with the dimensionlessallude to. But most likely they denote types of sophisms or paradoxes, not specific statements or doctrines. And early texts, especially the Mohist Dialectics, do give us enough information to make reasonable conjectures about the general issues they involve.

1. Same and DifferentAs we saw above, same (tong) and different (yi) are central concepts in ancient Chinese theories of language, knowledge, and disputation, as represented by the Mohists and Xunzi. According to the Mohists, sameness can refer to at least four types of relations: identity; part-whole relations; being distinct but inseparable features of the same object, such as the hardness and whiteness of a white stone; and kind relations, or being part of the extension of the same term. This last variety of sameness is probably most important for our purposes here. General terms, or names for kinds (lei), are regarded as denoting all things or stuff (shi) that is the same in some respect, such as all horses or all oxen. Speakers can use language to communicate because they are familiar with the kinds of similar things that words refer to, and thus upon hearing a word know what the thing referred to is like. The relations of same and different determine what counts as correct matching of names and stuff and thus what knowledge is. Disputation is fundamentally a process of debating whether the thing in question is this (shi) or not-this (fei), the same as or different from some paradigm or analogy. The issue of how to distinguish same from different is thus pivotal to Chinese philosophy of language, epistemology, and disputation.

2. Hard and WhiteIn later Mohist thought, hard-white or as hard to white (jian bai) is a technical term for the relation between two things or two features of a thing that are inseparable and mutually pervasivethat is, they completely coincide throughout the same spatial location. The paradigm of such features is the hardness and whiteness of a completely white stone. Another example is the length and breadth of an object (B4). Features that are as hard to white fill or pervade each other (B15). Thus they are in a sense two, but unlike a pair of shoes, one cannot be taken away from the other (B4). The relation of as hard to white contrasts with that between two measured lengths, which cannot everywhere overlap without merging to form only a single length, instead of the original two, and with that between any two mutually exclusive features, such as being an ox and being a horse. No single object can be both an ox and a horse, but an object can be both hard and white.

Separating hard and white, then, is treating mutually pervasive features as if they were separable or detachable, like two spatially distinct objects or two removable physical parts of a whole. (As Graham points out (2003: 173), in contexts where hard and white is mentioned alone, with no reference to separating the two, the phrase is probably just a metaphor for logic-chopping or hair-splitting debate in general.) A plausible example of separating hard and white is Gongsun Long's treating the color of a white horse as a thing separable from the shape, as when the text reads, The white is not the horse. A white horse is a horse together with white (White Horse Discourse).

3. So and Not-SoSo (ran) is frequently used to indicate that a predicate is true of a thing. It can also mean the case or how things are. According to Mohist Canon A71, something is so when its features are similar to a model for a certain kind of thing. Admissible (ke) refers to statements that are semantically or logically possiblethat is, free of logical or pragmatic contradiction. In contexts concerning action, admissible refers to what is permissible by moral, social, prudential, or other standards. So making so the not-so, admissible the inadmissible refers to collapsing or reversing conventional distinctions governing language use, judgment, morality, and courtesy. The practical upshot is roughly the same as that of uniting same and different, but the latter refers to kind relations between objects, making so the not-so to speech and action. Making admissible the inadmissible was the trademark of Deng Xi, the earliest figure associated with the School of Names, who became famous for his doctrine of both sides admissible (liang ke).

Preventing the not-so from being treated as so is precisely the point of correcting names:

4. The DimensionlessThe fourth theme, the dimensionless (wu hou, literally lacking thickness), is more obscure, mentioned only once in the Xunzi and once in the Annals of L Buwei. The dimensionless probably refers to a geometric point. According to the Mohists, the dimensionless does not fill anything (A65). A starting point (duan) is the dimensionless tip of a solid object (A61). Allusions to the disputers sometimes contrast the dimensionless with the dimensioned (you hou, having thickness), which the Mohists explain as having something it is bigger than (A55). The dimensionless is probably associated with the disputers because of Hui Shi's paradox that The dimensionless cannot be accumulated, yet its size is a thousand miles. (Points cannot be accumulated, yet a great girth or length is the sum of the points that constitute it.) In passages referring to the disputers and their sophistries, the dimensionless probably alludes to any paradox arising from the concept of a geometric point or an infinitesimal.

Proponents

1. Deng XiDeng Xi (d. 501 B.C.E.) was China's earliest renowned lawyer and rhetorician. He has been called the founding father of the Chinese logical tradition (Harbsmeier 1998: 286), though this is probably an overstatement, since we lack evidence that he undertook any explicit study of argumentation or that he influenced the theories of the Mohists or Xunzi. As Harbsmeier (287) rightly points out, however, Deng Xi epitomizes the roots of Chinese disputation in legal rhetoric. He establishes a link between disputation and litigation that continues throughout the classical period. Indeed, his reputation as a legal and political gadfly may have contributed to later authoritarian thinkers' attitude that litigators disrupt social order and should be banned.

Xunzi alludes to Deng Xi's thought in three places, each time pairing him with Hui Shi, though the men were from different states and lived about 200 years apart. This incongruity suggests that the pair are being used iconically to represent a certain general intellectual style or orientation. Thus the sophistries Xunzi ascribes to them may not be their invention, or at least not Deng Xi's. Xunzi describes them as fond of dealing with strange doctrines and playing with bizarre expressions (6.6), of which he gives these examples (3.1):

Mountains and abysses are level.Heaven and earth are alongside each other.Qi [on the east coast] and Qin [in the far west] are adjacent.Enter through the ear.Exit through the mouth.Hooks have whiskers.Eggs have feathers.

The first two of these are similar to paradoxes attributed to Hui Shi in Under Heaven (Zhuangzi, Book 33); we will discuss them in the section on Hui Shi. The seventh is also listed in Under Heaven, but not attributed to Hui Shi there. This suggests that the list of paradoxes associated with him was still fluid at the time of Xunzi's writing. The third is similar to the spatial paradoxes of Hui Shi, also to be discussed below. The sixth is obscure; some commentators emend hooks to a similar graph for old women. The fourth and fifth are puzzling, since they are not obviously paradoxes or sophisms. Commentators often combine them into a single sentence, but in the text all seven seem to be independent, three-word sentences.

2. Yin WenUnder Heaven portrays Yin Wen and Song Xing as tireless crusaders devoted to saving the world by advocating non-aggression, a life of few, easily satisfied desires, and a tolerant, unbiased frame of mind. To promote these doctrines, they traveled the world, persuading the high and instructing the low. In relations with others, to save people from fighting they taught that to be insulted is no disgrace, and to save the world from war, they taught forbid aggression and put troops to rest. (As the name suggests, the Warring States era was marked by frequent, catastrophic wars.) Concerning the self, they held that the inherent desires are few and shallow, a doctrine that, if true, would remove many potential reasons for conflict. Their starting point in dealing with things was avoiding enclosures, or psychological barriers due to prejudice or dogmatic commitment which tend to result in biased or one-sided judgments. Such enclosures are frequently also a source of conflict, since they may prevent one from appreciating all relevant features of a situation or understanding others' point of view. Yin Wen and Song Xing emphasized that the heart itself has a kind of conduct, independent of external conduct. In their anti-war stance and emphasis on benefit, they display affinities with Mohist thought: If something was of no advantage to the world, understanding it was not as good as abandoning it. But the doctrines of tolerance and avoiding bias are genuinely novel, and are probably the reason Song Xing is singled out for praise in the Zhuangzi (Book 1).

The Annals of L Buwei depicts Yin Wen in an audience with King Min of Qi (r. 300284 B.C.E.), defending the doctrine that to be insulted is not disgraceful. (Again, we should keep in mind that the details of the story may be mostly later invention.) The anecdote vividly illustrates several of the main techniques by which the disputers conducted their craft. Yin Wen identifies distinguishing features for calling things by a certain name and employs models and analogies to persuade the king. The context of the passage is a discussion of correcting names. Because he failed to correct his own use of names, King Min knew enough to be fond of officers but not how to distinguish the sort of people properly referred to as officers. (Shi, officer, was a social rank similar to knight, but by this era it had lost most of its martial connotation.) Yin Wen proposes that officers are distinguished by four types of conduct: they are filial in serving their parents, loyal in serving their ruler, trustworthy toward friends, and brotherly toward neighbors. The king agrees, indicating also that this is just the sort of person he would appoint as a government official. Yin Wen asks whether the king would still appoint such a person supposing that, on being insulted in public, he did not fight. The king replies that to be insulted is a disgrace; he would not appoint a disgraced person.

Yin Wen said: Though when insulted he does not fight, he has not strayed from the four types of conduct. Not straying from the four types of conduct, this is not losing that by which he is an officer. If, not losing that by which he is an officer, in the one case the King would appoint him an official, in the other case not, then is what we earlier called an officer indeed an officer?The King had no response.

Yin Wen said, Suppose there is a man here, when governing his state, if people do wrong he condemns them, if people do no wrong he condemns them; if people commit a crime he punishes them, if people commit no crime he punishes them. Then would it be admissible for him to despise the people for being hard to govern?

The King said, Not admissible.

Yin Wen said, The King's command says: One who kills another dies, one who injures another is maimed. The people, fearing the King's command, dare not fight even when deeply insulted; this is fulfilling the King's command. Yet the King says, Not daring to fight when insulted, this is a disgrace. Now to call it a disgrace, it's this that's called condemning it. In the one case to appoint a person as an official, in the other not, this is deeming it a crime. This is the King punishing someone when he has committed no crime.

The King had no response. (16.8/402)

King Min is presented as an example of someone whose use of names, such as officer, is incorrect: name and form do not fit. As a result, those he calls worthy are unworthy, what he calls good is depraved, and what he calls admissible is perverse. Interestingly, the text employs terminology that dovetails with later Mohist semantic theory and epistemology. It explains that the King did not know the reason or basis for deeming people officers, using the same term as the Mohistsguand alludes to his poor ability to classify or sort (lun) things into kinds, which in later Mohist epistemology is the mark of understanding. Though the Annals story does not make this point explicitly, we can link the King's erroneous sorting to Yin Wen's doctrine of avoiding enclosures. The King's judgments about officers are enclosed by his dogmatic conviction that to be insulted is a disgrace and that an officer must answer challenges to his honor with violence.

3. Hui ShiHui Shi (fl. 313 B.C.E.) is a complex figure, familiar and indistinct by turns. He is mentioned in at least eight early texts. Only two, the Xunzi and the Zhuangzi Under Heaven essay, give any information about his philosophical views, and they merely attribute a series of theses to him without recording his arguments. For a review of biographical information about him, see the supplementary document.

We have no direct evidence of Hui Shi's views on language and meaning. But as Graham points out (1989: 81), a story preserved in a Han dynasty text suggests that he may have held a view similar to that of the Mohists (Canon B70) (see the entries on Mohism and the Mohist Canons). Language enables us to communicate by indicating that the objects referred to are similar to things we already know, the kinds of objects conventionally denoted by those words.

As we would expect from mainstream Chinese theories of language and disputation, Hui Shi is accustomed to explaining things by appeal to analogies. Indeed, his answer to the king is itself an analogy, or at least an illustrative example (the Chinese word for analogy, pi, refers to both). We can also notice from the story that in seeking to learn about something unknown, one does not ask for a definition of the object, but for a description of what its features are like. The standard response is to cite a familiar analogue and then point out the differences between the unknown object and the familiar one. Communication proceeds not by knowing meanings, but by knowing how to distinguish similar from different kinds of things.

The Ten ThesesThe ten theses revolve around the theme that distinctions are not inherently fixed, but relative to a perspective, and thus can be redrawn or collapsed as we like simply by shifting perspectives. Several of the paradoxes focus on negating commonsense distinctions, in particular spatial and temporal ones, partly by appeal to the relativity of comparisons and partly by appeal to indexicals (Hansen 1992: 262). (A high mountain is not high when seen from space; if I walk southward, a spot that is south of me now will in seconds be north of me.) The fifth thesis, on the same and different, seems to provide a key to several, perhaps all of the others. It indicates that on some scale or another, anything can be deemed the same or different.

The theses are presented in Under Heaven as follows:

Hui Shi had many directions (fang, also methods). His books filled five carts; his dao (way) was contrary; his sayings did not hit the mark. Intending to tabulate things, he said:

1. The ultimately great has no outside, call it the Great One. The ultimately small has no inside, call it the Small One.2. The dimensionless cannot be accumulated, its size is a thousand miles.3. Heaven is as low as earth, mountains are level with marshes.4. Just as the sun is at noon, it is declining. Just as things are alive, they are dying.5. The same on a large scale but different from what is the same on a small scale, this is called same and different on a small scale. The myriad things all being the same or all being different, this is called same and different on a large scale.6. The south has no limit yet has a limit.7. Today go to Yue but arrive yesterday.8. Linked rings can be disconnected.9. I know the center of the world. It is north of Yan [the northernmost state] and south of Yue [the southernmost].10. Universally care for the myriad things. Heaven and earth are one body.

Hui Shi took these to be of great significance. He displayed them to the world to let the disputers know of them, and the disputers of the world enjoyed them with him.

The theses are obscure enough that, especially without knowing Hui Shi's original arguments, any close interpretation is speculative. Different readers are bound to arrive at different conclusions. With the possible exception of theses 1, 5, and 10, there is simply not enough contextual information to offer an authoritative argument for any interpretation, though at least some readings can be ruled out for failing to cohere with any recognized issues or theories in early Chinese philosophical discourse. Here we will offer a tentative explanation of each thesis grounded in the philosophical context sketched in Background and Overview above. The theses divide fairly naturally into four groups, which we will discuss one by one.

Group 1: Basic Principles

The first group comprises theses 1, 5, and 10, which state philosophical doctrines about ontology and ethics, not paradoxes, and which are relatively easy to understand. All three deal with the plurality of possible ways to distinguish things, either as the same or different or as parts of a whole, ranging from the smallest possible partthe infinitesimalto the largest possible whole, the Great One, which includes everything in the cosmos.

Group 2: Infinitesimals and Part-whole

The second group concerns infinitesimals and part-whole relations. Like all seven of the remaining theses, these are paradoxes. Thesis 2 is fairly clear. Geometrical points are dimensionless. The sum of two points is still a point; hence points cannot be added one to another to form an object with thickness or length. Yet anything with dimensions is somehow constituted by points and divisible into them.

Group 3: Spatial Relations

The third group are based on spatial relations, including comparisons of size. Thesis 3, the only one also attributed to Hui Shi in the Xunzi, can be taken to illustrate the idea that things deemed different on one scale can be deemed the same on another. By some perspective or standard, such as that of the infinitely vast Great One, the difference between the height of the sky and the earth or mountains and marshes may be insignificant. From that perspective, the differences between mountains and marshes may be only what thesis 5 calls differences on a small scale, while the two count as the same on a large scale. Thesis 6 is especially obscure. Thesis 6, along with 7 and 9, all focus on indexicals.

Group 4: Temporal Relations

The fourth group deal with temporal relations. Thesis 4 is paradoxical but easily intelligible. Just as, from one perspective, the sun is at its highest, from another perspective, it is beginning to set. Just as things are living and growing, they are also coming closer to death. Again, the plurality of perspectives threatens to collapse the distinction between two apparent opposites, living and dying. In comparison with thesis 4, thesis 7 is extremely obscure. Clearly, it attempts to collapse the difference between today and yesterday or present and past. Interestingly, this paradox combines spatial and temporal relations, since in addition to the distinction between today and yesterday, there is the spatial movement from here to Yue (a state in the south).

4. Gongsun LongGongsun Long (c. 320250 B.C.E.) was a retainer to the Lord of Pingyuan (d. 252 B.C.E.) in the northern state of Zhao. Anecdotes about him are found in the Zhuangzi and The Annals of L Buwei, in which he is depicted advising King Hui of Zhao (r. 298266 B.C.E.) against war (18.1, 18.7) and in disputation with Kong Chuan, a descendent of Confucius, at the home of the Lord of Pingyuan (18.5). He is mentioned in Under Heaven as a leading disputer and in the Han dynasty Records of the Grand Historian (Book 74) as undertaking disputation about the hard and white and the same and different. Intriguingly, the Annals depicts him citing the Mohist principle of all-inclusive care (jian ai) to King Hui. Together with his anti-war stance, this suggests that he was influenced by and may once have numbered among the Mohists. The Xunzi does not criticize him by name but does cite a version of his white horse sophism in a list of incorrect uses of names (22.3).

The Han History lists Gongsun Long as the author of fourteen scrolls of writings. The extant text called Gongsun Longzi comprises only five short dialogues and an introduction, which is obviously of relatively late date. A. C. Graham has argued persuasively that three of the dialogues are not Warring States texts, but much later forgeries pieced together partly from misunderstood bits of the Mohist Dialectics. Probably only the White Horse, the essay Pointing at Things, and a bit of another dialogue are genuine pre-Han texts. We will look at the first of these below (the second is treated in a supplement at the end of this section).

The Gongsun Longzi has inspired a vast exegetical literature in both Chinese and European languages. In the case of the White Horse dialogue, the text is generally clear enough. (Pointing at Things, on the other hand, appears to be intentionally obscure.) The scholarly controversy concerns what theory and implicit premises to ascribe to the writer so that the arguments come out as cogent defenses of a reasonable position. As Graham says, the interpretive obstacle is the difficulty of finding an angle of approach from which the arguments will make sense.The arguments are clear, yet the first seems an obvious non sequiturand the rest seem to assume an elementary confusion of identity and class membership (1989: 82). Introducing his own interpretation, he says, No one has yet proposed a reading of the dialogue as a consecutive demonstration which does not turn it into an improbable medley of gross fallacies and logical subtleties (1990: 193). Building on Harbsmeier's insight that the historical context of Gongsun Long's disputations has been insufficiently appreciated, we should suspect that these remarks signal interpretive charity gone too far. Given what information we have about Gongsun LongHarbsmeier's considerations, the general reputation of the disputers for flippant wordplay, the denunciation of Gongsun Long in the Under Heaven essay, and most important, the fact that his contemporaries took his most famous claim to be patently falsewe should expect these texts to be a medley of gross fallacies and logical subtleties, roughly a Chinese analogue to the subtle, fallacious, and deeply amusing arguments of Lewis Carroll.

None of this means that interpreting White Horse is pointless. We can learn about the serious practice of disputation by studying what is in effect a spoof of disputation, just as an anthropologist can learn about a culture by studying its humor. But we should not expect the Gongsun Longzi to present rigorous arguments or defend well-developed theses of philosophical substance. In this case, interpretive charity directs us not to look for true claims supported by sound reasoning, but for whimsical claims defended by bewildering, even madcap arguments.

White Horse is Not HorseThe White Horse Discourse has spawned nearly as many interpretations as there are interpreters. One early, influential interpretation took its theme to be denying the identity of the universals horse and white horse (Fung 1958, Cheng 1983). There is now a fairly broad consensus, at least among European and American scholars, that the text is unlikely to concern universals, since no ancient Chinese philosopher held a realist doctrine of universals. Other interpretations have taken it to deal with kind and identity relations (Cikoski 1975, Harbsmeier 1998), part-whole relations (Hansen 1983, Graham 1989), how the extensions of phrases vary from those of their constituent terms (Hansen 1992), and even the use/mention distinction (Thompson 1995).

A satisfactory interpretation must fit into the discursive context established by the Mohists, Xunzi, and The Annals of L Buwei, cohere with the concerns we identified in discussing the background (Section 1) and main themes (Section 2) of the disputers' inquiries, and take into account what other early texts tell us about Gongsun Long. Since we know he was an intellectual prankster, we cannot assume the texts will present cogent arguments for a well-reasoned philosophical position. If we find them presenting plainly intelligible but specious arguments, we should take these at face value, rather than seek esoteric explanations. Given the context of pre-Han thought, we should expect the text to toy with the problem of distinguishing same from different, potentially touching on identity, part-whole, and kind relations. And given the disputers' association with the theme of hard and white, we should expect that the text might attempt to treat inseparable features of things as if they were separable parts. A number of interpretations have the potential to meet these requirements, including interpretations involving part-whole relations, scope ambiguity, kind relations, and identity relations. To decide between them, then, we need to look at the details of the text. White Horse contains five arguments for its thesis that White horse is not horse. We may find that some interpretive approaches work better for some of the five, some for others.

Argument 1. Horse is that by which we name the shape. White is that by which we name the color. Naming the color is not naming the shape. So white horse is not horse.At first glance, it is not at all clear how the premises are expected to support the conclusion. Here we should recall that the argument is probably intended to be perplexing and open to various interpretations, the better to confuse and mystify the audience. With this caveat in mind, one plausible reading is that white horse names both the color and the shape of white horses, not only the shape. So white horse names something different from what horse names. Hence white horse, the extension of white horse, is not the same as (identical to) horse, the extension of horse.

This argument can also be understood as separating hard and white, in that the shape and color of white horses, which are in fact inseparable, are treated as two separate things.

Argument 2. If someone seeks a horse, then it's admissible to deliver a brown or a black horse. If someone seeks a white horse, then it's inadmissible to deliver a brown or a black horse. Suppose white horse were indeed horse. In that case, what the person seeks in those two cases would be one and the same. What he seeks being one and the same is the white one not being different from horse. If what he seeks is not different, then how is it that the brown or black horse are in the one case admissible and in the other inadmissible? Admissible and inadmissible, that they contradict each other is clear. So brown and black horses are one and the same in being able to answer to having horse but not to having white horse. This confirms that white horse is not horse.

Argument 3. Horses indeed have color; thus there are white horses. Supposing horses had no color, and there were simply horses and that's all, how could we pick out the white horses? So white is not horse. White horse is horse combined with white. Is horse combined with white the same as horse? So I say: White horse is not horse.White is not horse because horse alone doesn't pick out the white ones; only white does. The sophist takes it as obvious that horse combined with white is not simply horse. Here he is separating hard and white, in that he explicitly treats white and horse (that is, the shape of the animal) as two things that are combined to form something more than, and different from, a horse. The argument again turns on construing White horse is horse as the claim that the kind white horse is identical to the kind horse.

Argument 4. Since you take having white horse to be having horse, we can say having horse is having brown horse, is that admissible? Not admissible. Taking having horse to be different from having brown horse, this is taking brown horse to be different from horse. Taking brown horse to be different from horse, this is taking brown horse to be not horse. Taking brown horse to be not horse while taking white horse to be having horse, this is flying things entering a pond, inner and outer coffins in different places. These are the most contradictory sayings and confused expressions in the world.

Argument 5. White does not fix what is white. As to white horse, saying it fixes what is white. What fixes what is white is not white. Horse selects or excludes none of the colors, so brown or black horses can all answer. White horse selects some color and excludes others; brown and black horses are all excluded on the basis of color, and so only white horse alone can answer. Excluding none is not excluding some. Therefore white horse is not horse.