Gongsun Long (250 BC), courtesy name Zibing, was a Chinese philosopher, writer, and member of the School of Names, also known as the Logicians, of ancient Chinese philosophy. Gongsun ran a school and received patronage from rulers, advocating peaceful means of resolving disputes amid the martial culture of the Warring States period. His collected works comprise the Gongsun Longzi () anthology. Comparatively few details are known about his life, and much of his work has been lostâÂÂonly six of the fourteen essays he originally authored are still extant.
In book 17 of the Zhuangzi, Gongsun speaks of himself:
<blockquote>When young, I studied the way of the former kings. When I grew up, I understood the practice of kindness and duty. I united the same and different, separated hard from white, made so the not-so and admissible the inadmissible. I confounded the wits of the hundred schools and exhausted the eloquence of countless speakers. I took myself to have reached the ultimate.</blockquote>
He is best known for a series of paradoxes in the tradition of Yin Wen and Hui Shi, including "white horses are not horses", "when no thing is not the pointed-out, to point out is not to point out", and "there is no 1 in 2". These paradoxes seem to suggest a similarity to the discovery in Greek philosophy that pure logic may lead to apparently absurd conclusions.
Although not done justice by English translation, professor Zhenbin Sun considers Gongsun LongâÂÂs work on ming-shi, or name and reality, the most "profound and systematic" of the School of Names. As Gongsun Long enjoys the favor or rulers, his work also concerns social order. Other interpretations have been put forward by Fung Yu-lan and Chad Hansen, among others.
This work has been viewed by some as a serious logical discourse, by others as a facetious work of sophistry, and finally by some as a combination of the two.
He was also responsible for several other essays (), as short as 300 characters.