One of the Demon Warriors' Rebels, the floating pot space - Gongsun Long

Gongsun Long (320-250 BC), the legendary character Zibing, was a native of Zhao during the Warring States Period of China, who was once a disciple of Pingyuan Jun and a representative of famous families, famous for his arguments such as "white horses are not horses" and "Lijian Bai".

His main work is "Gongsun Longzi", there are 14 articles in the Western Han Dynasty, it is divided into three volumes in the Tang Dynasty, 8 articles are lost in the Northern Song Dynasty, and only 6 articles remain so far, a total of one volume, which is preserved in the Ming Dynasty "Daozang".

After the Song Dynasty, some people doubted its authenticity, believing that the present "Gongsun Longzi" was compiled by the Jin Dynasty on the basis of fragmentary materials, and to a certain extent, it lost the original face of the pre-Qin "Gongsun Longzi".

The first chapter of "Gongsun Longzi", "The Mansion", describes his life deeds. The second chapter, "The White Horse", proposes that "white horses are not horses" and discusses the relationship between concepts of equality and inclusion, which has something in common with modern set theory.

The third chapter, "The Theory of Referring to Things", proposes that "things are not referentials" and discusses the relationship between the real world and subjective concepts. Chapter 4, "The General Debate", proposes "Chicken Foot Three", and Chapter 5, "The Theory of Solidity", proposes "Leaving Solidity", which discusses the relationship between objects and their properties. Sixth, "Theory of Truth and Truth".

Along with Gongsun Long is another family Hui Shi.

According to the "Historical Records, the Biography of Zhongni's Disciples", one of Confucius's disciples, also called Gongsun Long, Zishi, was fifty-three years younger than Confucius.

The traditional materialist dialectic view holds that Gongsun Long is a representative of sophistry, proposing the interrelationship between the "individual" and the "general" in logic, but exaggerating the distinction between them. Breaking the link between the two is a metaphysical system of thought.

The princes and families generally regarded Gongsun Long as a sophistry, but it seemed that they could not win the debate. The first chapter of "Gongsun Longzi", "The Tomb of the Palace", records the story of Confucius's descendant Kong Chuan's attempt to refute Gongsun Long's but failed.

"Zhuangzi, the World Chapter" said that Gongsun Long "decorates the heart of people, changes people's intentions, can win people's mouths, can not convince people's hearts" in "Xunzi, Bugou Chapter" believes that the gentleman does not value the eloquence of famous masters such as Hui Shi, because it is not polite. It's not that a gentleman can't refute the arguments, but he doesn't argue with them.

"Xunzi and Correct Names" believes that the white horse non-horse theory is "this confusion lies in the use of names to confuse the truth".

It is recorded in the "Zizhi Tongjian" that Zou Yan believed that Gongsun Long was "annoying the text to be fake, the decoration to be Xiangdu, and the clever to move the phase." Attracting people is not unexpected. This is so harmful", so he did not debate with Gongsun Long.

Zhou Changzhong's New Treatise on Gongsun Longzi compares Gongsun Long's thought with Western philosophy, arguing that Gongsun Long "constructed a fairly rich philosophical theory of language itself", which was not inferior to Aristotle.

Zhang Yuanshan believes in the book "The Code of Fables". Gongsun Long created a precedent for the rational school in China. But none of the schools of thought understood his point.

"Gongsun Longzi": "Han Shuyi Wenzhi" records 14 articles of "Gongsun Longzi". Now there are only 6 articles, the first of which is the deeds and life of Gongsun Long, which is recorded by later generations. The remaining five are recognized as the works of Gongsun Long.

Among them, the theory of "white horses are not horses" put forward in the "Treatise on White Horses" and the two propositions of "leaving Jianbai" put forward in "The Theory of Jianbai" are the essence of Gongsun Long's thought. Except for the above two. There are also the Theory of Referential Objects (which discusses the relationship between the concept or name of a thing and the thing itself), the Theory of Change, which discusses the change of movement, and the Theory of Names and Reality (which discusses names and substances).

Regarding the annotations of Gongsun Longzi, there are Xie Xishen of the Song Dynasty, Gongsun Longzi Notes of Chen Li of the Qing Dynasty, and various commentaries of close people.

"White horses are not horses": is a well-known logical problem. It is close to the problem of co-existence in ancient Greek philosophy. The story of "On the White Horse" goes something like this:

During the Warring States period, a city had a decree that horses were not allowed to leave the city.

One day, Gongsun Long, a diner of Zhao Pingyuanjun, was about to leave the city with a white horse. The soldiers guarding the gate said to him, "No horse shall go out of the city. 」

Gongsun Long had a plan in mind to distort the fact that the white horse was not a horse, hoping to convince the soldiers.

Gongsun Long said, "A white horse is not a horse. Because the white horse has two characteristics, one is white, and the other is that it has the appearance of a horse, but the horse has only one characteristic, that is, it has the shape of a horse. How can a white horse with two characteristics be a horse with only one characteristic? So a white horse is not a horse at all. 」

The foolish soldiers could not cope with it, so they had to let it go.

Gongsun Long's argument is as follows:

White horses have two characteristics: 1 has the characteristics of a horse and 2 has white characteristics. And horses have only one characteristic: 1 has the characteristics of horses. Therefore, a white horse with two characteristics is not the same as a horse, so a white horse is not a horse.

White horses are not horses is sophistry. At first glance, his argument seems plausible, that what is defined by two characteristics should not be the same as what can be defined by one characteristic.

However, people have always thought that "a white horse is a horse", just as "a black cat is a cat", "a woman is a man", and "an apple is a fruit", it is impossible to read this story that a white horse is not a horse.

If Gongsun Long's theory is correct, then it is not a yellow dog that is not a dog, an apple is not a fruit, and even a black man, a white man, a man, a woman, and a child is not a human being. Where is the problem?

From the point of view of set theory, the concept of a horse can be seen as a set of all horses. The concept of a white horse can be seen as a collection of all white horses. The phrase "a white horse is a horse" can be interpreted in two ways:

1 The concept of a white horse is equivalent to the concept of a horse. That is, the set of white horses and the set of horses are equal.

2 The concept of the white horse is subordinate to the concept of the horse. Every white horse is a horse. That is, the set of white horses is a subset of the set of horses.

The concepts of a white horse and a horse are different. In this sense, "white horses are not horses". But the white horse is indeed a subset of the horse, that is, the white horse belongs to the horse. So "a white horse is a horse". Gongsun Long cleverly exploited the ambiguity of the phrase "a white horse is a horse".

"Lijian Bai", also known as Jianbaishi, is a school of thought of famous Chinese scholars during the Warring States Period, which is different from the contract, and the representative figure is Gongsun Long, who separates Jianbai from Bai.

At the beginning of this argument, the question is asked, is it okay to divide "hard, white, and stone" into three parts? Gongsun Long thinks that there is nothing to discuss if they are separated, so it is not possible, so is it okay to divide them into two? Gongsun Long thinks that it is okay.

Gongsun Long replied: Shi Wujian can get white, so it is two points, and Shi Wubai can get hard, so it is also two points. (Hard, white, and stone, but it is not possible.) Said: Second, but? Said: Yes. Said: What is it? Said: If there is no firmness, it will be white, and its actions will be two, and if there is no whiteness, it will be two. ）

Then he argues that the eye cannot see the firmness of the stone, but can only see the whiteness of the stone, so there is "no firmness" (the one who cannot see the firmness of the stone, but gets the whiteness of the stone, there is no firmness), the hand cannot touch the whiteness of the stone, but can only touch the firmness of the stone, so there is "no whiteness" (the whiteness of the stone is not clear, but the firmness of the stone, the firmness of the stone, and the whiteness), when seeing the whiteness, the firmness is not felt, and when the whiteness is not seen, the firmness is felt, and the result is separated, and it is inferred that the "firmness and whiteness" in the "stone" are not connected with each other, so they are separated from each other. (Get its whiteness, get its firmness, see it without seeing it, don't see it, don't see it from each other, so it's gone).

This argument concretely analyzes the peculiarities of the ways in which the various senses perceive things, and holds that the properties of the things that people feel and come into contact with can only be absolutely separated.

Principle - Gongsun Long has object A, which has two properties: B and C. If one of B and C is to be discussed, they are properties of A, so A cannot be separated from B or C. But B and C can be separated.

Common Misconception – It was later thought that Gongsun Long's separation of the senses from the senses was a wrong method of argumentation. However, the senses and senses are superficially equal, but the sights and touches are different, but they are in the middle of the trap of hard whiteness, which does not refute Gongsun Long's argument.

Some people think that to be away from the white is to deliberately separate everything completely. This is wrong, because "Hard, white, and stone, but no." is a crucial premise. (To be continued......)