White Horse Is Not Horse

Early Chinese philosophy works seem to focus more on ethical values, but not with the language or the structure of the philosophy itself. However, Gongsun Longzi is one of the leading figures of the movement of questioning the adequacy of language in Chinese philosophy. He uses paradoxes that are contrary to common sense as a line of reasoning which eventually leads to important ethical implication. The discussion “On the White Horse” Gongsun Longzi brought up was an example of unexpected philosophy at that time.

First, the question is how can a white horse not be a horse? The first way to interpret this paradox is through the fact that “White Horse” and “Horse” lead to the inclusion of different sets of objects. Gongsun Longzi argues that “White Horse” and “Horse” are two distinct terms that each refers to a different group of objects. However, the paradox is that “white horse” is “horse” because it is a subset of the big set of objects “horse” and “horse” can also include other subsets such as “yellow horse”, “brown horse”, or “red horse”. (p.364-365)

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