Reading Notes about Fung Yu-lan’

Reading Notes about Fung Yu-lan’s A Short History of Chinese Philosophy: Part VIII, The School of Names

Many people consider the Ming chia or the School of Names as sophists or dialecticians. Although they are similar in some degree, but there are also differences between these two schools. Some other people consider this school as the logicians. Although indeed the School of Names were good at logics, but these two school they are not quite the same. To avoid confusion, therefore, it is better to call this school as the School of Names but not the sophists, dialecticians or logicians. This appellation, as Mr. Fung says, “help to brings to the attention of Western one of the important problems discussed by Chinese philosophy, namely that of the relation between ming (the name) and shih (the actually).”[1] The School of Names mentions that when we consider the relationship between ming and shih, we are always apt to be led into paradoxical problems.

Some members of the School of Names were good debaters, who can give varying interpretations in different cases at will. They were good at changing right into wrong and wrong into right, or making which impossible into possible and possible into impossible. Their activities made no standards of right and wrong. In this sense the School of Names is similar to sophists or dialecticians. As the words said in the book of Han-fei-tzu that: “When discussions on ‘hardness and whiteness’ and ‘having no thickness’ appear, the government mental laws lose their effect.” The doctrine of “hardness and whiteness” is one of Gong-sun Long, and that of “having no thickness” is one of Hui shi. And these two thinkers represent the two tendencies of the School of Names.

The doctrine of Hui Shi emphasizes the fact that the shih or actual things are changeable and relative, while that of Gong-sun Long emphasizes the fact that the ming or names are permanent and absolute. Mr. Fung considers that: “the contrast between ming and shih in ancient Chinese philosophy is something like that between subject and predicate in the West.”[2] His such saying may be not accurate. In my opinion, the word “ming” in Chinese philosophy is not like the word “predicate” but similar to “eidos”, “form” or “concept” in western philosophy, and represents the substance or essence of things. While the word “shi” is similar to the word “material” or “matter” in the West. For example, the fact that dinosaurs have been extinct means that the matter or material of dinosaurs is changeable, while the concept or eidos of this creature is permanent.

Hui Shi, as we know, was Zhuang Tzu’s good friend. In fact their theories were some times similar. It is said in the book of Zhuang-tzu that Hui Shih had some interesting statements for example: “The greatest has nothing beyond itself, and is called the Great One. The smallest has nothing within itself, and is called the Small One.” As Mr. Fung explains that: “these two statements constitute what are called analytical propositions.” Because the concepts “greatest” and “smallest” are both just logical assumption. In the actual world, it is hard for us to find the greatest thing and the smallest thing. While according to the theory of Kant, the statement that any actual things(for example the Heaven or Earth) are the greatest, due to that it is an assertion about experience, is a synthetic proposition. Mr. Fung gives us a very nice explanation that: “We cannot through actual experience decide what is the greatest and what is the smallest of actual things. But we can say independently of experience that which has nothing beyond itself is the greatest, and that what has nothing within itself is the smallest.”[3] In the opinion of Hui Shih, the actual things are all changeable and relative. Therefore his philosophy may be called a theory of relativity. His sayings as “The heavens are as low as the earth; mountains are on the same level as marshes” and “The sun at noon is the sun declining; the creature born is the creature dying” show clearly his such position.

There is a statement in the book of Zhuang-tzu that: “Great similarity differs from little similarity. This is called little-similarity-and-difference. All things are in one way all similar, in another way all different. This is called great-similarity-and-difference.” This argument was known as the “argument for the unity of similarity and difference.” Mr. Fung makes an explanation for this that: we say that all men are human beings, and such is a great-similarity-and-difference; while we say that all men are animals, and such is a little-similarity-and-difference; because being a human being implies being an animal.[4] This statement in Zhuang-tzu results to a famous Chinese idiom “Da Tong Xiao Yi” or “great-similarity-and-little-difference,” which I think while according to Mr. Fung’s explanation should be “Xiao Tong Da Yi” or “little-similarity-and-great-difference.”

Gong-sun Long, an other main leader of the School of Names, was famous for his argument of “A white horse is not a horse.” We know that Hui Shih, according to the sayings above, emphasized the relativity and changeability of actual things. While Gong-sun Long emphasized the absolute and unchangeableness of names. In his opinion, “horse”, “white” and “white horse” are three different concepts, the concept “horse” is different from the concept “white horse”, that is to say, the “horseness” is distinct from “white-horseness,” or we can say, the horse as such is distinct from the white horse as such. Gong-sun Long had no interest in actual things. The only thing on that he regarded is the distinction between the universal.

Besides the argument of “A white horse is not a horse,” he has another argument of “hardness and whiteness” that: when we see a stone is white, the seeing cannot give us the feeling of touching; while when we touch a stone and feel it is hard, the touching cannot give us seeing. That is to say, the hardness and whiteness are separated from each other. As Aristotle says in his book of De Anima that: every sense organ has a special kind of perception, and its special kind of sensible object, therefore there is no so-called “common sense.” In the opinion of Gong-sun Long, when we have a hard and white stone, hard, white, and stone are two but not three. Such hardness and whiteness which are both independent universals are quite independent of the existence of physical stones or other objects that are hard and white.

General speaking, the School of Names discovered a word that “lies beyond shapes and features”, that is, the word of ming. This is a metaphysical word, and cannot be an object of experience. Contrary, “being that lies within shapes and features” is the actual, the shih. Finally, the discovery made by the School of Names will be fully applied by the Taoists.

[1] Fung Yu-lan. A Short History of Chinese Philosophy. The Free Press, 1948,p.80.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.,p.85.

[4] Ibid.