The Gongsun Longzi and Other Neglected Texts: Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives

Editors:
Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo and Wolfgang Behr

Publisher:
De Gruyter

Publication date:
April 2020

Abstract:
The Gongsun Longzi is often considered the only extant work of the Classical Chinese “School of Names”, an early intellectual tradition (trad. dated to the 4th cent. B.C.) mainly concerned with logic and the philosophy of language. The Gongsun Longzi is a heterogeneous collection of five chapters that include short treatises and largely fictive dialogues between an anonymous persuader and his opponent, which typically revolve around a paradoxical claim. Its value as a testimony to Early Chinese philosophy, however, is somewhat controversial due to the intricate textual history of the text and our limited knowledge about its intellectual backgrounds. This volume gathers contributions by leading specialists in the fields of Classical Chinese philosophy, philology, logic, and linguistics. Besides an overview of the scholarly literature on the topic and a detailed account of the reception of the text throughout time, it presents fresh insights into philological and philosophical problems raised by the Gongsun Longzi and other closely-related texts equally attributed to the “School of Names”.

Table of Contents:
The Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ and Other Neglected Texts – Aligning Philosophical and Philological Perspectives: An Introduction
Rafael Suter, Lisa Indraccolo and Wolfgang Behr

I. HISTORY
TRADITIONS OF SCHOLARSHIP IN CHINA
1. The Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ: A Historical Overview
Wang Ping and Ian Johnston

2. Notes on the Relationship between the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ and the Dialectical Chapters of the Mòzǐ
Ian Johnston and Wang Ping

3. The ‘Discourse on the White Horse’: A Concrete Analytical Philosophy of Language – with a Coda on the Authenticity of the Received Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Zhōu Chāngzhōng

II. PHILOSOPHY
CONTEMPORARY ANALYTIC APPROACHES
4. Reference and Ontology in the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Yiu-ming Fung

5. How Gōngsūn Lóng’s Double-Reference Thought in His “White Horse Not Horse” Argumentation Can Engage with Fregean and Kripkean Approaches to the Issue of Reference
Bo Mou

PHILOSOPHICAL READINGS OF THE GŌNGSŪN LÓNGZǏ
6. Place as a Category in the ‘Treatise on Name and Reality’ (Míngshí lùn名實論)
Dennis Schilling

7. A New Interpretation of the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ’s ‘Zhǐwù lùn’ (Discourse on Pointings and Things) and ‘Míngshí lùn’ (Discourse on Names and Actualities)
Liú Tǐshèng

8. A New Interpretation of ‘Báimǎlùn’ (Discourse on White and Horse)
Jiāng Xiàngdōng

III. PHILOLOGY

PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE AND TERMINOLOGY
9. Logically Significant Words in the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Thierry Lucas

10. Linguistic Affinites of the Yǐnwénzǐ Text in the Light of Basic Corpus Data
Lukáš Zádrapa

11. Gōngsūn Lóng and the Zhuāngzǐ: On Classifying (Declassifying) Things Zhǐ (Qí) Wù Lùn 指〔齊〕物論
Ernst-Joachim Vierheller

12. Buddhist Murmurs? – Another Look at the Composition of the Gōngsūn Lóngzǐ
Rafael Suter