Differentiating Between Concrete and Transcendental Worlds: The School of Names and Neo-Daoism

The distinction between name (ming) and substance (shi) is usually something Chinese philosophers did not touch upon because it was a metaphysical discussion--it meant that names had a life of their own apart from their substance.  During the Warring States period, the art of debate reached a height in China, as there seemed to be ample opportunities for private tutors in debates and arguments.  What was similar to the Greek sophists developed in China, who specialized in winning a debate irrespective of moral rules.  It was during this period of time that metaphysics developed in China, although it was not in a position to rival Confucian learning that developed into mainstream culture.  The discussion of the School of Names (so called because they recognized names--concepts, and contents as two separate things) is partly a result of the contrast between Chinese philosophy (largely ethical) and Western philosophy (largely logical) that many Chinese scholars made in the 20th century.  It is their way of weighing Chinese philosophy against Western philosophical standards.  The very fact that Fung Yu-lan, a prominent 20th century Chinese philosopher, elaborated on the School of Names and its connection with the neo-Daoists, neither of which received much attention in Chinese historical writings, was because of his search for a more cognitive tradition (in contrast to an ethical one) in Chinese philosophy.  In doing so, Fung restored some importance to the School of Names and the neo-Daoists that they always deserved but never quite got in Chinese history because they were at variance with Confucian thinking. 

The initial Chinese sophists during the Warring States Era were lawyers and focused on what twists and turns they could make of names.    There were two trends in the School of Names: one, to emphasize the changeable and relative nature of actual things, and the other, the intension (meaning all the possible things a word could describe) of names and word tricks based on the meaning of words. 

Representatives of the School of Names:

Hui Shi (350-260 B.C.): from the state of Song/Sung, was an expert on making twists and turns with names and taking advantage of the relative nature of concrete things.  His writings were recorded in Zhuang Zi/Chuang Tzu's "The World."  Using stories such as the Yellow River (Fung, 84) to illustrate the relativity between big and small things in the world, Fung goes on to contrast comparisons between concrete things (such as the sizes of the Yellow River and the sea), and the unstable nature of those comparisons, in contrast to the names, which are permanent and unchanging , such as the definitions of great, and small. (Fung, 85)  Everything is relative, therefore everything can be different, or similar, depending on what criteria one uses toward the comparison. 

Kung-sun Lung: (284-259 B.C.) Kung-sun (this was his last name, one of a handful Chinese last names that have two syllables and two characters; the majority of Chinese last names are single character ones) was famous for his statement: a white horse is not a horse.  Kung-sun made his argument by focusing on the internal nature of words, such as "horse," and "white." 

• The intension (meaning all the possible things a word could describe) of horse denotes one kind of animal, and the intension of white denotes color.  The intension of white + horse then denotes one kind of animal plus one kind of color.  Since the intension of white horse is different from the intension of a horse (with undesignated colors), a white horse (a horse with white color) is not a horse (a horse with no designated colors). (Fung, 87-88)  When the statement: "a white horse is not a horse" is made, the focus is on the pure concept of horse, and the pure concept of white horse.  Not that a white horse does not have all the features of a horse, such as four hoofs, a mane, and all other characteristics of a horse, but that the intension of a white horse is not the same as the intension of horse. 

• Also,  following the same logic of tracking the intensions of names, the word "white" in "white horse" and "whiteness" are two different words, as the intension of the former is specified to designate a horse, while the intension of "whiteness" does not specify what is white.

• "Separating Whiteness and Hardness": A third famous statement made by Kung-sun Lung is the separateness of the "hard" and "white" natures of a hard white stone (Fung, 89).  When one experiences such a stone, one knows it is white by seeing, and it is hard by sensing.  Therefore the two natures of the stone can be separated.  From the point of view of the nature of  knowledge, hardness and whiteness are universal concepts that exist independent of actual hard or white objects. 

Because in the Chinese language there are no inflections (no affixes to words), nor articles (the), a word such as horse has to stand in for both actual horses and a universal concept of horse.  Kung-sun Lung refers to them as pointers, meaning they have to designate something abstract and universal.

This separation between name and content contributed to a transcendental nature of Dao/Tao to Daoism/Taoism.  This transcendence was the contribution of the School of Names and the writings of people such as Kung-sun Lung.  It also led to a Daoist reinterpretation of Confucius

Reinterpreting Confucius with Daoist Transcendence. 

600-700 years after Confucius, in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-220 A.D.), there was a revival of Daoism, but this round, Confucius was more venerated than Lao Zi by the neo-Daoists.  Only, Confucius was interpreted along Daoist lines.  The Daoist advocacy of do-nothing was applied to Confucius.  Since the world admired by the Daoists was the primordial, non-differentiated, "empty" world (here, empty refers to an un-differentiation of objects in the world, not that the world was really empty), the highest virtue for the neo-Daoists was for a sage to attain the stage of emptiness, and what was more, forget about this emptiness (indicating the distinction between the sage and the undifferentiated world was erased so the sage was no longer conscious of any difference between himself and the empty world)  Confucius only talked about being, and not non-being, because, to these Daoists, Confucius forgot that his mind, and the world, were empty, and he could not use non-being as a subject of instruction. (Fung, 219)   

Dao/Tao is "nothing"

Two neo-Daoists stood out in their new explanation of "nothingness" and Dao in the Three Kingdoms Era (220-265 A.D.), a period of time when three kingdoms coexisted after the disintegration of the Han Dynasty, and the ensuing Jin/Chin Dynasty (265-420 A.D.) when the Kingdom of Wei conquered the other two kingdoms and reunified China.  Hsiang Hsiu (Xiang Xiu) (221-300) and Kuo Hsiang/Guo Xiang (d.312 A.D.) further elaborated on the idea of Dao to mean nothing apart from the natural movements/changes of everything in the universe.  When Lao Zi and other Daoists talked about non-being, they meant an undifferentiated universe.  Hsiang Hsiu and Kuo Hsiang (Fung simplified them into Hsiang-Kuo)  said there was no separate Dao governing an undifferentiated universe, and thus Dao was really nothing, meaning non-existence.  The universe spontaneously changed following no particular Dao.

n. Partly lighted shadow on the skirts of a total shadow. ~al a. [L paene almost, umbra shade]

Hsiang-Kuo's argument Hsiang and Kuo were against the traditional arguments that traced the myriad things in the universe to one original source: Just as penumbra was produced by shadow, shadow by bodily form, and form by creator.  Instead, they argued that everything was self-producing.  (Fung, 221)  And there was no separate Dao or rules governing the creation of everything in the universe.  Everything depends on other things in the universe to exist: when certain conditions exist, certain things are produced.  But things are not caused by one particular thing in the universe.  (Fung, 222)

Implications of Hsiang-Kuo's arguments

• A forward look at society and change, with no emphasis on preserving traditional systems and values: When things change, they do not follow the rules of the past; thus past rules cannot serve as reference for the future.  Deliberate preservation of past rules was called "do something" (yu-wei), while letting tradition fade and adopt new practices as they come was called "do-nothing" (wu-wei). (Fung: 224-225)  (Question: How were Lao Zi and Confucius reinterpreted here?)

• An optimism that everything in the world is governed by rules specific to themselves, conditioned by things that make them possible [Lin's example: mold grows only in a humid environment; fish cannot live without water], and new social systems with their intrinsic rules will come when the circumstances are right, and because they are conditioned by certain other happenings in the world, their rules of existence are not determined by humans.  Humans are to follow these rules, instead of altering them. (224-225)

• The world presented by Hsiang-Kuo is a highly relativistic one where things are governed by rules specific to them, including individual humans.  Therefore sages are sages because the sagely attributes come naturally to them (Fung, 225) [example: a gifted pianist plays well because of his/her very sensitive nature and good cognitive skills; if he/she did not play musical instruments, write novels or find another outlet for self-expression, the sensitivity might become a deficiency in him/her as they get hurt too easily.  Similarly, a gifted politician, if his/her energies are not put into politics, may be considered simply a sharp or glib-tongued water mouth in real life.  Therefore people do certain things well because they are developed in certain attributes and use them effectively.  The attributes themselves are neutral and can work both ways.  Since people possess different attributes, it is not necessary nor feasible to imitate others, sages notwithstanding.] In this sense, to Hsiang-Kuo, everything is equal in the world (because they are non-comparable), and every one should be happy and enjoy their own attributes that are unique to themselves.

Conclusion:

Hsiang Hsiu and Kuo Hsiang developed a transcendental approach to knowledge, values, and all phenomena in the world.  Their high relativism cultivated a highly irreverent/anti-establishment (to borrow a modern term) attitude that defied a singular approach to truth and any attempt at establishing orthodoxy.  The transcendental dimension they added to Daoism facilitated the introduction of Buddhism into China, something we will discuss in later sessions.