Gongsun Longzi (including the White Horse Dialogue)

The only substantial surviving text of the School of Names, the early Chinese thinkers who argued about language, logic and reference. Of the 14 chapters once listed, six survive: a biographical opening and five short dialogues and essays, parts of which some scholars think are later. The best known, the White Horse Dialogue, defends the claim that 'a white horse is not a horse'. Gongsun Long argues that 'horse' names a shape and 'white' names a colour, so the compound names something different from 'horse' alone: if you ask for a horse, a yellow or black one will do, but not if you ask for a white horse. 'On Pointing and Things' explores how words point to things. 'On Hard and White' asks whether the hardness and whiteness of a stone are separate, since one is felt and the other seen. 'On Understanding Change' asks whether a pair still contains its parts, and 'On Names and Actualities' discusses how names should match realities.

It shows that early Chinese philosophy had its own debates about meaning and reference, and the white horse paradox is still a sharp puzzle about how general terms and their combinations work.