Lecture13 School of Names Oct 20 Chinese Philosophy Lectures杜兰大学中国哲学课堂教学PPT.ppt

PHIL 2931 School of Names Schedule School of Names People Theory Influence People Hui Shih 惠施 (A friend of Chuang Tzu) (around 350-260 B.C.) Kung-Sun Lung 公孫龍 (around 284-259 B.C.) Debaters Fung pp. 80-83 Names in other schools Confucianism: Retification of Names Daoism: Dao is un-namable School of Names? Hui Shih’s Theory of Relativity “Ten Points” in the chapter “The World” in Chuang Tzu (the book) If we call a thing great, because it is greater than something else, then there is nothing in the world that is not great. The qualities and differences of actual concrete things are all relative and libale to change Relative- examples The heavens are as low as the earth, mountains are on the same level as marshes. The south has no limit and yet has a limit I know the center of the world. It is north of Yen 燕 and south of Yüeh 越 Fung pp. 83-87, Chan pp.233-235 Kung-Sun Lung’s Theory of Universals A lot of ‘paradoxes’ A white horse is not a horse 白馬非馬 (Three arguments) The separateness of hardness and whiteness 離堅白 (see comment in Chan p.241: A comment on Fung’s explanation) Discourse o Chih and Wu 指物論 Fung pp. 87-91 (Chan pp.235-237; 240-242; 237-238) Influence Unlike other schools of thoughts in China, School of Names is the one that care a lot about logic, language, etc. (Later Mohists were affected by them) A unique school to provide some debates in philosophy of language and logic It is not developed further. Modern logic is much advanced and universal (e.g., set theory)