The School of Names
 

 

 

Introduction

The competition amongst philosophical schools that we have seen taking place during the Warring States period has been almost entirely motivated by questions of how best to identify or follow the Dao; other philosophical issues, such as the goodness or badness of human nature, or the metaphysical status of the Dao, or etc. have been very much in the background, considered only in so far as they contribute to the solution of those principal questions; and many other topics that we consider (or considered) fundamentally important in philosophy are essentially absent – the existence of God, the nature or possibility of change, what the world is made of, etc. – presumably because they lacked an obvious connection to those principal questions.

 Nevertheless, the period did see a brief and abortive interest in the rather abstract subject of the nature and limits of language and argument. This interest seems to have arisen not because being clear about those natures and limits was obviously relevant to the pursuit of the Dao, but because language and argument were the means by which the various schools competed amongst each other for primacy in Dao-related matters. The fact that language and argument were the only tools used for persuasion, and the fact that so far no position had proven universally persuasive, suggested that perhaps there was a problem with those tools, (though other possibilities shouldn’t be ignored: perhaps the true position on the Dao just hadn’t yet been found, or perhaps there was no true position, etc.)

 Those who were involved in this new study came to be known collectively as the ‘School of Names’ (名家, Míngjiā.) Earlier they were simply the biàn zhě (辯者,) or ‘disputers.’ They are also called by us now Dialecticians, or Sophists if we are being ungenerous. In any case, the first thing to note is that there was no such school, strictly speaking: it is an invention of Han dynasty historians. In trying to make sense of the early period of philosophy they conceived of there being just a few – actually, just six – discrete schools into which each of the philosophers could be placed: Confucian, Daoist, Mohist, Yin-yang, Legalist, and Names. For the most part these schools were defined in terms of a coherent or at least connected doctrine and usually supposed that there were acknowledged relations of masters and followers. The ‘School of Names,’ however, did not have acknowledged masters and followers and propounded no characteristic doctrines: a philosopher is said to be a member of that school when his interests are those described. This being the case, and people being capable of having interest in more than one set of questions, the boundaries of the school are somewhat fuzzy and in fact the name is also applied to some amongst the later Mohists who discussed the same  topics.

 In their investigations into the difficulties of language and argument and what those difficulties might tell us about the possibility of discovering the Dao, or what they might even say about how the world was organized, the Dialecticians came to be associated with the setting of linguistic paradoxes – in much the same way that the Eleatics of Ancient Greece delighted in setting puzzles for their audiences. If you have ever tried to nut out how an arrow in flight can move, how Achilles can beat the tortoise, or whether the Cretan can be a liar, you will understand the frustration that their paradoxes provoked. And since these paradoxes seemed to be ‘merely’ verbal trickery with no practical consequences in the ‘real world’ it was all too easy for their targets to dismiss them as frivolous and irrelevant.

 It is one of the great sorrows of the history of philosophy in China that the works of these Dialecticians is not preserved and we know them very largely through the mockery of their enemies. Thus a number of their paradoxical conclusions are preserved – to be held up to ridicule – but the reasons they gave for them or the meanings they attached to them are quite missing. In what follows, we shall present the best known of these strange claims and shall see if they can be made to yield anything philosophically significant.
 

Hui Shi

The Dialectician Hui Shi (Huizi) (惠施, 370-310 BC) is mentioned in several ancient works, like the Hanfeizi and the Xunzi that have been mentioned before, but especially in the Zhuangzi. In that work he is presented as a friend of Zhuang Zhou and a foil for his jests. In c. 17 it is claimed that he was the chancellor to king Hui of Wei, which, if true, would make him one of the more successful of the classical philosophers – at least until he had to flee that state to avoid falling into the power of the rising Qin state. Other texts paint an unflattering portrait of arrogance and frivolity and wilful error, but that is probably no more than ad hominem abuse intended to prevent his arguments being considered seriously.

The Ten Theses

In c. 33 of the Zhuangzi, amongst many other bizarre claims attributed to the Dialecticians, are Ten Theses attributed to Hui Shi:

Hui Shih was a man of many devices and his writings would fill five carriages. But his doctrines were jumbled and perverse and his words wide of the mark. His way of dealing with things may be seen from these sayings:

1.       "The largest thing has nothing beyond it; it is called the One of largeness. The smallest thing has nothing within it; it is called the One of smallness."

2.       "That which has no thickness cannot be piled up; yet it is a thousand li in dimension."

3.       "Heaven is as low as earth; mountains and marshes are on the same level."

4.       "The sun at noon is the sun setting. The thing born is the thing dying."

5.       "Great similarities are different from little similarities; these are called the little similarities and differences. The ten thousand things are all similar and are all different; these are called the great similarities and differences."

6.       "The southern region has no limit and yet has a limit."

7.       "I set off for Yueh today and came there yesterday."

8.       "Linked rings can be separated."

9.       "I know the centre of the world: it is north of Yen and south of Yueh."

10.    "Let love embrace the ten thousand things; Heaven and earth are a single body."

With sayings such as these, Hui Shih tried to introduce a more magnanimous view of the world and to enlighten the rhetoricians.[1]

At first sight these don’t seem very philosophically promising, and of course, we don’t have the explanations of Hui Shi himself to give them context or meaning. On the assumption that there is a meaning to them, various interpretations have been suggested. Of course any reasonable interpretation will have to satisfy a few obvious criteria: it has to be plausible that the interpretation could have been intended by the author – for example, it can’t have the theses stating obvious absurdities, and it can’t depend upon a degree of philosophical sophistication far beyond or beneath the level known to have been reached at the time; it should integrate the theses making them coherent as a group; it should be consistent; it should respect what the theses actually say while making allowance for poor phrasing by the original authors, mischaracterization by the recorders, or simple errors in remembrance.[2] An interpretation which seems reasonable in these terms is presented here, but it is far from the only possibility.

What The Ten Theses Mean

There’s no reason to believe that the theses are presented by Zhuangzi in any deliberate order, but they do seem to fall into three groups dealing with distinct matters. The first two theses seem to be concerned with technical matters of the theory of space.

  1. If we suppose that the largest thing has something beyond it, then if we added that to the largest thing we would make something larger than the largest thing. The One of largeness is the whole universe. We do not doubt that the whole universe exists.
    Similarly, if the smallest thing had anything within it then that thing would be smaller than the smallest thing. The smallest thing, or the One of smallness, we would have to think of as being a dimensionless point. There must be a smallest thing, therefore the dimensionless point exists.
    This is an important claim for mathematical considerations, and we know that the Chinese (the later Mohists in particular) did have a notion of the dimensionless point and saw it as somehow fundamental to the consideration of all spatial dimensions. In what way ‘fundamental’ is not known, but they may have held that all other dimensions were constructed from points.
  2. If it is supposed that a line, say, is constructed from dimensionless points (just as we are taught in our own primary schooling,) then we have a problem in understanding how any accumulation of things of zero length can give rise to something with a length of a thousand li. If it turns out that such a construction is impossible, then the possibility of spatial dimensions is rendered once more a mystery.

The next seven theses seem to be concerned with matters of relativism, conventionalism, etc., and the impossibility of using the evidence of what can be said about the world as a guide to what is true of the world.

  1. Terms like ‘high’ and ‘low’ are strictly relative. We are used to this when we say that ‘Heaven is higher than Earth’ but when we say ‘Heaven is high’ we need to say high in relation to what. It’s like saying that ‘Dumbo is a small elephant’ or ‘Jerry is a big mouse’ they make sense if we understand that ‘small’ is in reference to other elephants or ‘big’ is in reference to other mice, but without those references the terms are meaningless. With respect to what is Heaven high or Earth low? With respect to where the observer is standing? But where is the observer? Different observers are going to be justified in making different judgements. If I am in Heaven then it is at my level and if I am on Earth then it is at my level. It is possible for different people to say that Heaven or Earth is at their level and in fact all statements about the heights and lows of Heaven and Earth can be true.
    The point of this might be to say that none of our judgements of such qualities have justifications in the way things really are.
  2. From the moment one is born one is moving towards ones death. To be moving towards ones death is to be dying. Therefore from the moment one is born one is dying. The same applies to the sun: from the moment it reaches its highest point it is moving towards the Western horizon. It is setting. In fact, this would be just as true, and more like its pair in the thesis, if we spoke of the sun setting from the moment it rose.
    The point of this observation seems to be that our temporal distinctions amongst events are conventional and have no justification in the ways things really are.
  3. ‘The ten thousand things’ just means everything. It’s easy to see that anything is similar in some respect to any other thing – at the very least they are similar in both being things. But it’s also clear that anything is different from any other thing – otherwise they would be the same thing. So everything is similar and everything is different. The similarities and differences that account for multiple things existing in the world are the Great similarities and differences.
    On the other hand, we group together things that have a lot of similarities (like ‘dogs’ for example) to form a class of things, and we distinguish them from other classes of things (like tables, for example) by the differences that we see. These similarities and differences are less than the Great similarities and differences: we call them the Small similarities and differences.
    The point of this may be to minimize the significance of the classifications that we make amongst the 10,000 things by suggesting that they are merely conventional and not reflective of reality.
  4. That ‘the South has no limit’ was apparently a saying of the time[3] and simply meant that as far as was known there was no end to the South, no natural ocean or desert or mountain frontier. But even if that were the case the South could not be limitless because it would then be infinite in extent and would have to include all the regions of the world. (If it didn’t contain all the regions of the world then there would be limits between the South and them.) On the other hand, the fact that we want to distinguish the South from other regions does not indicate how those limits should be set. Perhaps once again the point is being made that our divisions of the world are arbitrary and not grounded in reality.
  5. Indexical terms – like the terms ‘this’ and ‘that,’ or like the relative terms mentioned above –are notoriously difficult to handle in semantic analysis. In this case it was true to say, when I left home, that ‘Today I set off for Yueh;’ but it is equally true to say now, having arrived and reflecting upon the journey, that ‘Yesterday I came there.’ The problem is that I can’t arrive before I leave and yet the two true sentences indicate that I did.
    The point of such a paradox may have been to demonstrate that these sorts of indexical terms, which allow contradictory statements to be true, cannot properly describe the world, and therefore statements using ‘this,’ ‘that,’ ‘now,’ ‘then,’ ‘here,’ ‘there’ etc. to make distinctions amongst things in the world cannot be true (or trusted.)
  6. The matter of the linked rings has been the hardest to make sense of, but if we wished to continue the general theme of relativism and conventionalism in language we could say that the claim is that from one point of view two interlocked rings are a single thing in as much as it is true that where one part goes the other part must go too; but from another point of view the interlocked rings are, as we say, rings (plural,) two separate things. Thus plurality or unity is a matter of perspective and not a matter of how the world really is.
  7. For each person the centre of their world is just where they are, thus some who are north of the Northern state of Yen will find the centre there, and some south of the Southern state of Yueh will find it there. This is just another version of the problem of indexicals that we say in the 7th thesis and with the same significance.

The last of the theses gives us a practical consequence that must follow from accepting the preceding seven theses.

  1. If we are not justified in supposing that language accurately represents the way that the world really is, and if we are not justified in supposing that the divisions of the world that language describes are the real divisions of the world, and if we are perhaps not justified in believing then that there are any divisions that we can know of, then our attitude to the ten thousand things must be completely impartial. How could we justify preferring some things to others? That would be to suppose a real division.

One might have thought that this demonstration of the significance of their investigations for ethical practice might have gained the Dialecticians some credit in the eyes of the other schools, but unhappily it was not so.

[1] Zz 33 (Watson, B. (1968) The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 374)

[2] The reason these conditions are given at some length is that they apply to a great deal of what historians of philosophy study. It’s worth reminding oneself of this from time to time.

[3] Fung Yu-Lan (1964) A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, NY: Macmillan, p. 86


Gongsun Long

 

Gōngsūn Lóng (公孙龙, c. 320-250BC) is the most famous of the Dialecticians. He is another one whose life and character can be glimpsed only dimly in mentions by other authors – once again, particularly in the Zhuangzi, where he appears at one point boasting of his achievements:

When I was young I studied the ways of the early kings, and now that I am an adult I understand what is required of the human ideal and propriety. I reconcile similarities and differences; I differentiate hardness from whiteness. I can find true what is commonly denied; I can establish what is normally inadmissible. I struggled through the knowledge of all philosophers, and I know to exhaustion the arguments of all. In my opinion I have attained penetration in its highest form.[1]

When we learn that there is a text called the Gongsun Longzi purporting to be the writings of that philosopher, we might hope to be able to appreciate these achievements with some justice. Unfortunately, though he was said to have written 14 books, the GsLz only contains 5; and of these it is now thought that only 2 and a bit even come from the right period. Thus we probably only have ‘The White Horse’ and ‘Pointing at Things’ from his own hand; which is something more than for poor Hui Shi, but not much after all.

The White Horse

The White Horse Dialogue (白馬論, Bái Mǎ Lùn) is famous (or infamous) in Chinese philosophy because the conclusion, that ‘a white horse is not a horse’ is so absurd that it must be rejected, and yet attempts to explain where the arguments go wrong seem to flounder. The problem seems to be that any interpretation which makes an argument seem like it could be presented in good faith seems to rely either upon an implausible degree of philosophical sophistication or an equally implausible degree of philosophical naiveté – or both in turns. For this reason it’s not uncommon these days to treat the dialogue as a merely rhetorical display or as a joke or some other non-philosophical thing.

There are a series of arguments presented, but I think just one is enough to get the flavour of the whole thing; so let’s look at the argument based on the observation that if one desired a white horse one would not be satisfied by being presented with just any horse:

Requesting a horse, a brown or a black horse may arrive; requesting a white horse, a brown or a black horse will not arrive. By making a white horse the same as a horse, what is requested [in these two cases] is the same. If what is requested is the same, then a white horse is no different to a horse; if what is requested is no different, then how is it that in one case brown and black horses are acceptable, and in the other they are not? Acceptable and unacceptable are clearly in opposition to each other. Thus brown and black horses are also one in that one can reply that there is a horse, yet one cannot reply that there is a white horse. It is clear indeed that a white horse is not a horse.[2]

Since asking for a white horse is not the same as asking for a horse (and vice versa) clearly a white horse is not a horse. I think we can see the problem quite easily and so it’s hard for us to take the claimed ‘argument’ seriously. We immediately see that the argument is a fallacy based on a confusion about claims of class membership and identity – though whether Gongsun Long was really confused on this point or trying to make some other point by exploiting it is hard to say. Just to be clear though, when we say X is Y, sometimes we mean X is a Y, and sometimes we mean X and Y are the same thing. Usually we can rely upon context to distinguish the meanings, but since there is no necessary syntactic distinction (especially in Chinese which doesn’t use articles in the way that English does,) it is possible in some cases to be in doubt about which interpretation is intended. It is also possible to pretend that there is therefore no fixed rule of interpretation by which to make the distinction, and therefore there is no distinction, and so on.

It is possible that there is a more serious question at issue here concerning whether names refer unequivocally to things. You may recollect that one of the things that Confucius insisted upon was that things should be given their right names, and this having been done all good things would follow. It was taken as uncontroversial that there was a correct name for everything and that a name for anything always referred in the same way to that thing. The Mohists,[3] however, noted that the phrase ‘niu ma’ meaning ‘ox(en) and horse(s)’ had exactly the same syntactic form as ‘bai ma’ meaning ‘white horse.’ In the first phrase the reference is got by adding the referents of the two names, but in the second phrase the set of things being referred to is actually smaller than the referents of either ‘white’ or ‘horse.’ In the first phrase, the referents of the two names are unchanged, while in the second phrase they are treated differently. Happily, this was a problem which they managed to solve, but just because these things are obvious to us now doesn’t mean we should minimise the achievement of those who managed to get our ideas sorted out in those early days

[1] Zz 17 (Ware, J. B. (tr.) (1963) The Sayings f Chuang Chou, NY: Mentor. Other translations make him appear to be boasting of his sophistries, but this translation seems to suit the context better.

[2] BML 6 (Sturgeon, D. (tr.) at https://ctext.org/gongsunlongzi/bai-ma-lun)

[3] Mz B66
 

Conclusion

The Greeks managed to find a way to limit the damage that these sorts of paradoxes could do to confidence in the philosophical use of language and went on to develop more sophisticated theories of logic and argument. The Chinese never did; or at least, we have no record of any such. The School of names was a dead end and represents an unfortunate lost opportunity for Chinese philosophy.