China & East Asia · c. 380–250 BCE
School of Names
The relation between names and reality is puzzling, and careful argument and paradox can show how language carves up the world.
How do names relate to the things they name?
In an age of fierce debate between schools, a group of “disputers” (bianzhe) specialised in argument itself. Hui Shi, a statesman of Wei and Zhuangzi’s friend, posed paradoxes about space and time, and Gongsun Long argued that “a white horse is not a horse”.
A name that picks out a combination, such as “white horse”, is not identical with a name that picks out a broader kind, such as “horse”. Close analysis of terms shows that our judgements of sameness and difference depend on which aspect, and which scale, we attend to.
- “A white horse is not a horse.”
- Sameness and difference are relative to the level of comparison.
- Love all things; heaven and earth are one body.
Dismissed for centuries as hair-splitting sophistry and quickly marginalised, it is now studied as early Chinese logic and philosophy of language.
Thinkers
c. 370–310 BCEHui ShiWei statesman, logician and Zhuangzi’s debating partnerc. 320–250 BCEGongsun LongDisputer famous for “a white horse is not a horse”Key texts
Where it came from
Borrowed fromMohismLater Mohists and the disputers worked on the same problems of names, kinds and argument; the Mohist canons seem to rebut some disputers’ theses, though who influenced whom is not recorded.
Its answers to the big questions
Logic & languageCan words grasp the truth?“A white horse is not a horse”: how names pick out things is itself a puzzle.On the record
The “All Under Heaven” chapter of the Zhuangzi, which preserves Hui Shi’s paradoxes, is listed as Zhuangzi’s work of c. 250 BCE.
Since Guo Xiang, only the Inner Chapters have been associated with Zhuangzi himself; “All Under Heaven” is chapter 33, in the Miscellaneous group, and probably dates from the first decades of the Han dynasty. Hui Shi’s own writings are lost.
Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “School of Names” · Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “Zhuangzi”
Mohism is linked to the School of Names as a borrowing: the Mohist canons answer paradoxes like “a white horse is not a horse”.
The later Mohist Dialectics contain passages that seem to rebut the disputers’ ideas, and the Zhuangzi’s “All Under Heaven” shows Mohist sects debating the same “hard and white” and “same and different” themes. Who influenced whom is not recorded; the line marks shared problems.
Sources: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “School of Names”