Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
A:
“Is it correct to say that a white horse is not a horse?”
B:
“It is.”
A:
“Why?”
B:
“Because 'horse' denotes the form and 'white' denotes the color. What
denotes the color does not denote the form. Therefore we say that a white
horse is not a horse.”
A:
“There being a horse, one cannot say that there is no horse. If one cannot
say that there is no horse, then isn't [it] a horse? Since there being a white
horse means that there is a horse, why does being white make it not a
horse?”
B:
“Ask for a horse, and either a yellow or a black one may answer. Ask for a
white horse, and neither the yellow horse nor the black one may answer. If
a white horse were a horse, then what is asked in both cases would be the
same. If what is asked is the same, then a white horse would be no different
from a horse. If what is asked is no different, then why is it that yellow and
black horses may yet answer in the one case but not in the other? Clearly
the two cases are incompatible. Now the yellow horse and the black horse
remain the same. And yet they answer to a horse but not to a white horse.
Obviously a white horse is not a horse.” (Chan 1963, 235-36)
If the meticulous sophistry of this irritating passage tries the
patience of the modern Western reader, he or she can imagine what
the Eastern Zhou Chinese would have thought of it. To them it seemed
the height of indulgence, irresponsibility, and frivolous extravagance.
Here was the Eastern Zhou facing all manner of social, political, and
military challenges, and all Gongsun Long and his ilk could do was
discuss whether or not a white horse is a horse. What discernible rel-
evance did this gobbledygook have to the task of righting the world?
True philosophers should concern themselves with human affairs
and not with vacuous pedantry. The Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi said
of the Logicians and their contrived arguments that they might out-
debate people but that they could never convince them that they
“turned men's minds and altered their ideas,” and that they “were
able to subdue people's tongues but not to win their hearts” (deBary
1960, 84). The Chinese had too much common sense and too many bet-
ter things to do than spend their time on this kind of sophistry.
TECHNOLOGICAL INNOVATIONS
Pre-imperial China, and the Eastern Zhou era in particular, will
probably always be best known for the rise and fall of its feudal politi-
cal structure and its cultural and intellectual efflorescence. There were,
