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1. According to theHan History, Cheng-gong Sheng was theauthor of five scrolls (pian) of writings, presumablyfocusing on names. Liu Xiang (79–8 B.C.) thought that he lived at thesame as the son of Li Si, prime minister to the Qin emperor. Hiscontemporary Huang Gong, who wrote four scrolls, was a scholar of Qinknown for his songwriting. Mao Gong, author of nine scrolls, was fromthe state of Zhao and served with Gongsun Long as a retainer to theLord of Pingyuan. Of Huan Tuan nothing is known. None of the writingsof these men have survived.

2. On the similarities and dissimilarities between the School of Namesand the sophists, see Reding (1985) and Graham (1989).

3. Antonio Cua (1985) was among the first to point out the similaritiesbetween Chinese disputation and legal reasoning. See also Garrett(1993) and Harbsmeier (1998: 286–87).

4. All citations toXunzi will be by section numbers inKnoblock’s three-volume translation (1988, 1990, 1994).Citations toThe Annals of Lü Buwei will be by sectionnumber, appending the page number in Knoblock and Riegel (2000). Alltranslations from these and other texts are my own and are usuallyslightly different from those in the English editions cited forcomparison. The passages referred to here are atXunzi 5.6and 5.9 andThe Annals of Lü Buwei 4.3/123.

5. Yang Zhu represented a form of ethical egoism. About Yang Zhu himselfwe know little. He wrote no recorded texts, though he is mentioned ina variety of sources and is said to have had an audience with King Huiof Liang (370-319 B.C.). Mencius identifies him with the doctrine ofacting “for oneself,” so that to benefit the world hewould not sacrifice even a single hair from his body (7A:26). TheHuainanzi, a Han dynasty anthology, summarizes Yang’sdoctrines as “Keep the natural dispositions whole, protect thegenuine, do not get tangled up with things” (Book 13, “FanLun Xun”).

6. Graham seems to have been the first to argue explicitly for thisexplanation (2003/1978: 172–173).

7. See Graham 2003, Canons A66–67, B15. The explanation ofjianbai presented here is based on Graham (2003: 170-76).Graham’s account of the theoretical role ofjian bai isone of the many significant breakthroughs in his work on the laterMohists. For an alternative account of thejian bai sophism,see Makeham (1989), but compare Graham (2003: 176).

8. There is an extant text called theDengxizi, comprising twovery short books. However, as Chinese scholars recognized as early asthe Ming dynasty (1368–1644 C.E.), it is a later forgery, anincoherent jumble of ideas and phrases plucked from a variety ofsources. It concerns mainly political and social issues, having littlerelation to the reputed concerns of the disputers or to themesassociated with Deng Xi in genuine Warring States texts. Of the earlysources on Deng Xi, probably only theZuo Commentary can beconsidered reliable, since the text treats him as a minor figuretoward whom it has no axe to grind. The one-line entry on him wasprobably written long after his lifetime, however.

9. The short extant text in two books attributed to Yin Wen is a laterforgery, probably from the 3rd century C.E. See the detailed study byDaor (1974) and the discussion in Harbsmeier (1998).

10. Graham rightly points out that Hui Shi explains what adanis by citing analogue and differentia, not genus and differentia(1989: 81). But he characterizes Hui Shi’s example as a“definition,” when in fact a fascinating aspect of thestory is how the Chinese theoretical scheme employs no notion of(intensional) definition. (By our lights, Hui Shi’s response canof course considered a nominal or extensional definition.) Thequestioner simply asks what the features ofX are like, andthe informant offers an analogy to show “whatX islike.”

11. This account is inevitably indebted to Hansen (1992), Graham (1989),and a range of Chinese commentators cited in the Qing dynastyZhuangzi Jishi of Guo Qingfan and the modern editions editedby Chen Guying,Zhuangzi Jinzhu Jinyi, rev. ed. (Taipei:Commercial Press, 2000), and Wang Shumin,Zhuangzi Jiaoquan(Taipei: Academia Sinica, 1988). I have not attempted to credit thesesources one by one except for places where my own view was influencedvery directly by another writer’s. The monistic interpretationof the ten theses defended below was first proposed by Hu Shih (1922).

12. The word translated here as “unit,”ti, is alsothe Mohist technical term for a part of a whole (Canon A2).“Units” can in turn be treated as wholes, from which wecan separate out further parts.

13. The paradox is distinct from a sorites paradox, which is based onreiteration of minute, insignificant changes, not infinitesimals. Butthere is a rough similarity between them. In both cases, a sum ofbasic units, no matter how many, is insufficient to produce asignificant difference. Yet a significant difference exists andsomehow must be constituted by the basic units.

14. Hansen (1992: 262–63) and Graham (1989: 79) both follow Hu. Reding(1985) defends a different interpretation.

15. Hui Shi’s “one unit” monism does not imply that thedifferentiated world of perceptual experience is delusory, nor thatindividual things are all formless blobs of protoplasm that can fusetogether. It arises from thinking of the cosmos according to the modelof a whole and its parts. Because distinctions between the parts canbe drawn in innumerably many ways, it seems that arbitrary humanconvention is the only basis for distinguishing the parts one wayrather than another—for instance, for distinguishing differentkinds (lei) of things or “stuff” (shi)one way rather than another. Without our cognitive activity,individual things in themselves belong to neither one kind noranother, nor are they even “things” (wu). Rather,they are simply parts of a whole constituted by the cosmos andeverything in it.

As an analogy, consider how we conceive of the human body. We canrecognize distinctions between the various parts of the body, such asthe arms, legs, and torso, or we can treat the body as a single whole,forgetting for the moment any distinctions between its parts. Someonecould argue that arms, legs, and so on are distinct from each otherand from the body only in the sense that for some purposes we isolatethem conceptually. In reality, they are all just (parts of) the body.The “Great One” or “one unit” idea is that inan analogous way, the entire cosmos is a whole constituted by itsmyriad parts, and the parts exist as various individuals and kindsonly because our cognitive activity divides them off from the whole.

Of course, we can distinguish different types of criteria foridentifying parts. Consider, for instance, the differences betweenthese sorts of parts: (a) a discrete individual part that is detachedfrom anything else, such as my body, which is unconnected to otherbodies; (b) an intuitively distinct part of my body, such as my rightindex finger; (c) a random chunk of my body, such as a squarecentimeter of flesh near the center of my left calve; (d) the part ofmy body consisting of the fusion of my left ring finger, right eye,and spleen. The principles by which we might classify such differentsorts of parts are a matter of discussion and controversy incontemporary metaphysics (see the entry onmereology). They obviously have an important bearing on the grounds for HuiShi’s monism, since it may well be the case that arbitrary humanconvention isnot the only basis for drawing distinctionsbetween things and kinds of things.

16. An alternative interpretation of the text that avoids thisinconsistency would be that thesis 10 does not assert that the“one unit” view is exclusively or absolutely correct, butmerely recommends it as an ethical stance.

17. Graham’s conclusions, first published in 1957 and reprinted inhis (1990), have been widely accepted by European and Americanscholars but almost completely ignored by scholars writing in Chinese.His arguments are not unassailable. In philology knockdown argumentsare rare, and he perhaps overstates the force of some of his evidence.But the parallels between the dubious parts of theGongsunLongzi and the MohistCanons andExplanationsare extensive. They incorporate even phrases with scribal errors thatpresumably had not yet occurred during the lifetime of the historicalGongsun Long, since the later Mohist texts should be roughlycontemporaneous with him. Given the parallels, it would be amiraculous coincidence if these parts of theGongsun Longzihadnot been assembled from bits of the Canons. When we thenconsider the nonsensical, banal content of the three questionabledialogues, by far the best explanation of Graham’s observationsis that they are forgeries. For a range of other views on the text,see the essays collected in Suter, Indraccolo, and Behr, eds. (2020).For an intriguing development of Graham’s view, along with that ofthe Chinese scholar Shen Youding, see Suter (2020).

18. In the version of the story found in theAnnals (1.4),Confucius is one-upped by Laozi, who alone demonstrates the highestlevel of impartiality. A Chu man loses his bow and says, “A Chuperson lost it, a Chu person will find it. Why bother looking forit?” Confucius comments, “Omit the ‘Chu’ andit’ll be admissible.” Laozi rejoins, “Omit the‘person’ and it’ll be admissible.”

19. We will follow the traditional order of the text. Many interpreterstranspose and reconstruct parts of the text in response to suspectedtextual corruption. The translation that follows is indebted in placesto both Graham (1989) and Harbsmeier (1998).

20. This argument can also be read as treating white and horse as twoparts of a whole, as Graham suggests (1989). But doing so does notreally enhance the explanatory value of our interpretation, nor makethe argument more cogent. If we say that white horse is a whole withtwo parts, one named by ‘white’ and one by‘horse’, it’s not clear how that helps us get from‘naming the color is not naming the shape’ to ‘whitehorse not horse’. The natural thing for the text to say, on apart-whole reading, would be that ‘white’ is not‘horse’.

21. Harbsmeier also points out that by using the example of seeking ahorse, instead of having a horse, the sophist has created anintensional context, making it that much easier to show that“white horse” and “horse” are notintersubstitutable and thus not identical (1998: 306).

22. Following Wu Feibai and Harbsmeier (1998: 307, n2).

23. Noting that Gongsun Long cites Confucius in the anecdote about theKing of Chu, Hansen (1992) suggests that he is proposing a languagereform as a defense of the Confucian theory of “correctingnames.” This strikes me as far-fetched, given that Gongsun wasnotorious for twisting people’s words and that his ethicalsympathies seem to have lain more with the Mohists than theConfucians. Probably he cites Confucius as an authority in theanecdote because Kong Chuan was a descendant of Confucius.

24. Though the text mentions Hui Shi, it does not associate the paradoxeswith him, leaving it unclear whether the writer attributes them to himspecifically. Another point to note is that the text’s awarenessof Gongsun Long’s sophisms suggests that it is contemporaneouswith him. We cannot be sure of Gongsun Long’s dates, so thisobservation supports no firm conclusions about chronology. But itseems likely that Gongsun Long was active mainly in the first half ofthe 3rd century B.C., in which case “Equalizing Things”may not be from the hand of the historical Zhuang Zhou, who issupposed to have lived during the 4th century. Graham notes thechronological difficulty but does not consider the possibility that“Equalizing Things” may not be the work of Zhuang Zhou(1989: 179).

25. The author thanks Chad Hansen for insightful comments on an earlierdraft of this article, many of which have been incorporated into thepresent version.

26. According to theBie Lu, by Liu Xiang, this is a comment byZou Yan (ca. 250 B.C.) in reaction to Gongsun Long’s frivolousdisputation that “a white horse is not a horse.” (SeeShi Ji, Book 76.) Versions of the passage are also found inthe 2nd-century B.C.Hanshi Waizhuan and in theDengxizi, a text of later, uncertain date that contains ahodgepodge of material from various sources. The close parallelsbetween the three versions suggest that all are borrowing from awidely circulated source of earlier date, probably 3rd century B.C.For an alternative version of the passage, see Graham (2003),20-21.

27. A “starting point” (duan) is the basis for adistinct way of using a general term. As Xunzi explains,‘honor’ has two “starting points,” honor withrespect to moral standing and honor with respect to social status. Soa person can be morally honorable while having low social status orsocially honored while being morally disgraceful. See John Knoblock,Xunzi: A Translation and Study of the Complete Works, Vol. 3(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), section 18.9.

28. Different groups of thinkers developed different answers to thesequestions. The Mohists advocated a form of realism. Things are alreadydivided into different “kinds” (lei) by thenatural world itself, independent of human activity. Whether differentobjects (shi) are similar or different is determined bywhether they are inherently similar, and thus “of the samekind.”Xunzi developed a nuanced pragmatic view. Some kind distinctions aredetermined by how features of the natural world interact causally withhuman sense organs. Because we all have similar sense organs, wenaturally tend to distinguish things similarly, allowing us to agreeon how to use names in consistent ways. Other distinctions aredetermined by social conventions established by political leaders.These are justified by their utility in bringing about a stable,flourishing society. Some passages in theZhuangzi go further toward pragmatism, implying that there is no need tocorrect names in the first place, and attempting to do so ispointless, since the task is impracticable anyway. Attempts toimplement such rigid standardization will only lead to worthlesssquabbling and interfere with our ability to cope with change, performpractical tasks successfully, and live a carefree, happy life.

29. See Brooks (1996). Brooks’s is probably the most informativehistorical study of Hui Shi, and I have benefited from many of hisobservations.