School of Names

The School of Names, or School of Forms and Names,^[1] is a school of thought of Chinese philosophy that grew out of Mohist logic. Sometimes termed Logicians or Sophists modernly, Han scholars used it in reference to figures earlier termed Disputers in the Zhuangzi, as a view seemingly dating back to the Warring States period (c. 479 – 221 BC). Rather than a unified movement like the Mohists, it represents a social category of early linguistic debaters. Some arguments in later Mohist texts would appear directed at their kind of debates. Figures associated with it include Deng Xi, Yin Wen, Hui Shi, and Gongsun Long.^[2] A Three Kingdoms era figure, Xu Gan, is relevant for discussions of names and realities, but was more Confucian and less relativist.

Including figures referenced by the Zhuangzi, some likely served as a bridge between Mohism and the relativism of Zhuangzi Daoism. Hui Shi is noted for relativism, but also "embracing the ten thousand things". But he may not have had much connection with Gongsun Long. They would have had backgrounds ranging from Mohist and Confucian to Daoistic. Gongsun Long is familiar with both Mohism and Confucianism, and is not always a relativist. He uses Confucianism to defend the White Horse Dialogue, believed in kindness and duty, and has a rectification of names doctrine aimed at actualities and social order rather than relativism. Willing to argue either side of an issue, they were taken as sophist by their critics, but some arguments were not necessarily intended to be paradoxical, even if their logic is heterodox by mainstream Mohist standards.

A contemporary of Confucius and the younger Mozi, Deng Xi, associated with litigation, is taken by Liu Xiang as the originator of the principle of xíngmíng, or ensuring that ministers' deeds (xing) harmonized with their words (ming).^[3] A primary concern of the bureaucratically oriented Shen Buhai and Han Fei, some of their administrators would have had a concern for relations in the bureaucracy,^[4] but with Gongsun Long as example, most were still likely more socially or philosophically oriented than the late, stringent Han Feizi; it cannot be assumed that many were familiar with Shang Yang, if even Shen Buhai was.

The earliest literary occurrence for xingming is in the Zhan Guo Ce, in reference to what would become known as the School of Names, amongst other more modern terms. The philosophy of the Logicians is often considered to be akin to those of the sophists or of the dialecticians. Joseph Needham notes that their works have been lost, except for the partially preserved oeuvre of Gongsun Long, and the paradoxes of Chapter 33 of the Zhuangzi.^[5] Needham considers the disappearance of the greater part of Gongsun Long's work one of the worst losses in the ancient Chinese books, as what remains is said to reach the highest point of ancient Chinese philosophical writing.^[1]

One of the few surviving lines from the school, "a one-foot stick, every day take away half of it, in a myriad ages it will not be exhausted", resembles Zeno's paradoxes. However, some of their other aphorisms seem contradictory or unclear when taken out of context, for example, "dogs are not hounds". As with the Legalists, Sinologist Kidder Smith highlights the mixed posthumous reception received by the school of names. Already opposed by the Later Mohists in their own era for their paradoxes, many of them, despite being remembered as sophists, would also have been administrators, with Hui Shi a prime minister, while Gongsun Long was a diplomat and peace activist, as typical of the Mohists. Shen Buhai under the "Legalists" may not have even been familiar with Shang Yang's doctrine, but likely was familiar with "school of names" type debates on language and the correlation between the names and realities of things, with language useful in administration.^[6][7]

In the Han dynasty secretaries of government who had charge of the records of decisions in criminal matters would come to be called called xingming. The Han-era scholars Sima Qian (c. 145 – c. 86 BC) and Liu Xiang (77–6 BC) attribute it to the doctrine of Shen Buhai (400 – c. 337 BC).^[8] Shen actually used the older, more philosophically common equivalent, ming-shi, or name and reality, linking the "Legalist doctrine of names" with the debates of the school of names.^[9][10] Such discussions are also prominent in the Han Feizi.^[11]

Ming ('name') sometimes has the sense of "speech", so as to compare the statements of an aspiring officer with the reality of his actions—or of "reputation", again compared with real conduct (xing 'form' or shi 'reality').^[12] Two anecdotes in the Han Feizi provide examples—member of the School of Names Ni Yue argued that a white horse is not a horse, and defeated all debaters, but was still tolled at the gate. In another, the chief minister of Yan pretended to see a white horse dash out the gate. All of his subordinates denied having seen anything, save one, who ran out after it and returned claiming to have seen it, and was thereby identified as a flatterer.^[13]

Shen Buhai's personnel control, or rectification of names such as titles thereby worked for "strict performance control" correlating claims, performances and posts.^[14] It would become a central tenet of both Legalist statecraft and its Huang–Lao derivatives. Rather than having to look for "good" men, mingshi or xingming can seek the right man for a particular post, though doing so implies a total organizational knowledge of the regime.^[15] More simply though, it can allow ministers to "name" themselves through accounts of specific cost and time frame, leaving their definition to competing ministers. Claims or utterances "bind the speaker to the realization a job". This was the doctrine favoured by Han Fei, with subtle differences. Favouring exactness, it combats the tendency to promise too much. The correct articulation of ming is considered crucial to the realization of projects.^[16]

• History of logic