When A White Horse Is Not A Horse (Chinese: 白馬非馬; pinyin: Báimǎ fēi mǎ; Wade–Giles: Pai-ma fei ma; literally "white horse not horse"), also known as the White Horse Dialogue (Chinese: 白馬論; pinyin: Báimǎ Lùn; Wade–Giles: Pai-ma Lun; literally "white horse discourse"), is a famous paradox in Chinese philosophy. Gongsun Long wrote this circa 300 BCE dialectic analysis of the question Can it be that a white horse is not a horse?.
Read more about When A White Horse Is Not A Horse: The Original Text, Difficulties of Interpretation, Interpretive Context
Famous quotes containing the words white and/or horse:
“For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.”
—John Frederick Nims (b. 1913)
“We read that the traveller asked the boy if the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had. But presently the traveller’s horse sank in up to the girths, and he observed to the boy, “I thought you said that this bog had a hard bottom.” “So it has,” answered the latter, “but you have not got half way to it yet.” So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but he is an old boy that knows it.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)