Pointing, Dao, and Determinacy: Gongsun Long's Philosophy of Directness and the Boundary between Premise and Content
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2026
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| contents | <p>Abstract</p> <p>This paper offers a reconstructive interpretation of key chapters of the Gongsun Longzi in order to move beyond the long-standing view that Gongsun Long is merely a sophist or a player of logical paradoxes. I argue that the central notion of zhi 指 should not be understood primarily as ordinary reference, naming, or a cognitive operation. Rather, it should be understood as a state of directness functioning as the premise for the emergence of content. On this reading, the problem running through the Gongsun Longzi is not simply the relation between name and thing, but the distinction between what can be directly established as content and what is only a later synthesis, as well as the distinction between content and its premise. This framework yields a unified reading of ‘white horse is not horse,’ ‘two has no one,’ the Jian Bai Lun, and ‘pointing is not pointing.’ I further argue that Laozi’s dao and ming stand on the same side as zhi: they are not contents but premises. Accordingly, ‘being and non-being generate each other’ should not be read as a metaphysics of non-being as root, but as a relation among content-slices such as the named and the unnamed, the pointed and the unpointed, the thing and the unthing. More broadly, the essay proposes that Gongsun Long is best understood not as an isolated paradox-maker but as a rare thinker in the Chinese tradition who makes directness logically manifest.</p> |
| format | Recurso digital |
| id | zenodo_https___doi_org_10_5281_zenodo_19433351 |
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| publishDate | 2026 |
| publisher | Zenodo |
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| spellingShingle | Pointing, Dao, and Determinacy: Gongsun Long's Philosophy of Directness and the Boundary between Premise and Content Logos <p>Abstract</p> <p>This paper offers a reconstructive interpretation of key chapters of the Gongsun Longzi in order to move beyond the long-standing view that Gongsun Long is merely a sophist or a player of logical paradoxes. I argue that the central notion of zhi 指 should not be understood primarily as ordinary reference, naming, or a cognitive operation. Rather, it should be understood as a state of directness functioning as the premise for the emergence of content. On this reading, the problem running through the Gongsun Longzi is not simply the relation between name and thing, but the distinction between what can be directly established as content and what is only a later synthesis, as well as the distinction between content and its premise. This framework yields a unified reading of ‘white horse is not horse,’ ‘two has no one,’ the Jian Bai Lun, and ‘pointing is not pointing.’ I further argue that Laozi’s dao and ming stand on the same side as zhi: they are not contents but premises. Accordingly, ‘being and non-being generate each other’ should not be read as a metaphysics of non-being as root, but as a relation among content-slices such as the named and the unnamed, the pointed and the unpointed, the thing and the unthing. More broadly, the essay proposes that Gongsun Long is best understood not as an isolated paradox-maker but as a rare thinker in the Chinese tradition who makes directness logically manifest.</p> |
| title | Pointing, Dao, and Determinacy: Gongsun Long's Philosophy of Directness and the Boundary between Premise and Content |
| url | https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.19433351 |