III.
A short, well-known text written by Gongsun Longzi, “On the
White Horse,” provides an illustration of this aporia by logically
demonstrating that a white horse is not (the equivalent of) a horse. Gongsun
writes, “‘Horse’ is that by means of which one names the shape. ‘White’ is that
by means of which one names the color. What names the color is not what names
the shape. Hence, I say that a white horse is not a horse.”[i] Though
playful, this text must be understood as more than a mere word game. Gongsun’s
discourse problematizes the equivalence of the horse as a relational category
with the horse as an ontological singularity by posing the descriptor “white”
in opposition to the biological existence of the horse.
In what follows, I will use the linguistic problematic posed
by Gongsun as an indirect point of departure with which to examine subsequent
Confucian and Daoist discourse. Gongsun’s purely linguistic construction of language
exposes the conceit of the Confucian doctrine of the rectification of names,
which proposes an originary relation that triangulates signification, reality,
and sovereign power. Conversely, Zhuangzi develops and radicalizes Gongsun’s
insights into language in a project that has profound ramifications for the
relation of humans to animals.[ii]
This will lead to a concluding discussion of these philosophical perspectives
as they relate to (and might inform) the contemporary discussion of
human-animal relation and the notion of “animal rights” more generally.
[i]
Gongsun Longzi, “On the White Horse,” trans. by Bryan W. Van Norden, in Readings in Chinese Philosophy, ed. by
Philip J. Ivanhoe and Bryan W. Van Norden (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), 364.
[ii] Zhuangzi
seems to explicitly reference “On the White Horse” in the second chapter: “To
use a horse to show that a horse is not a horse is not as good as using something
other than a horse [非馬, literally
“non-horse”] to show that a horse is not a horse” (The Book of Chuang Tzu, trans.
by Martin Palmer [New York: Penguin, 1996], 13).
