Language and Philosophy in China Sinologists largely agree that Chinese philosophy has no obsession with abstraction, universals, or forms characteristic of the Western Platonic Realist view of the one-many problem. Hung-sun Lung is typically interpreted as the exception. We used to suppose that his "white-horse paradox" ("white-horse not horse") represent a classical Chinese counterpart of Platonism. The locus classicus of this “standard” interpretation of Gongsun Long is in the work of the best-known contemporary historian of Chinese philosophy, Feng Yu-lan. The Feng Yu-lan interpretation is consciously Platonist. Feng suggests that the Chinese terms ma 'horse' and pai 'white' are being used to designate abstract objects: horseness and whiteness. Hence the paradoxical statement should be read as "white-horseness is not horseness". Many were skeptical of Feng's Platonizing interpretation, but few have offered more plausible alternative interpretive theories. Thus the abstract view of Gongsun Long's enterprise has come to be widely accepted, even if without much enthusiasm. I will argue that there is no Platonic Realism in ancient China (nor other theories of abstract sets or classes) and that Gongsun Long does not constitute an exception. Further, I will argue that the nonabstract orientation of philosophy can be (partially) explained using the strategy outlined above. The grammatical features of Indo-European languages that explain the impetus of Platonism in philosophy of language are absent in Chinese. Absent those motivations, I suggest, there would be less reason to suppose that Chinese thinkers must have postulated metaphysical curiosities such as abstract or mental objects. Essentially, I contend that a one-many paradigm for stating philosophical questions goes along with a count noun (nouns to which the many-few dictotomy applies) syntax. Chinese language, during this classical period, tends toward a mass noun syntax (based on nouns to which the much-little dictotomy applies). Mass nouns suggest a staff ontology and what I call a division or discrimination view of the semantic function of words (terms and predicates). The grammatical explanans tends to illuminate an extensive difference in "metaphysical" orientation; rather than one-many, the Chinese language motivates a part-whole dichotomy. And I argue that it helps explain not only the absence of Platonism, but, in turn, of mentalism and conceptualist philosophies of mind. These philosophical developments are based on the abstract scheme for dealing with meaning (e.g., conceptualism) and are even less to be expected in Chinese thought. This study also draws from modern philosophy for its hermeneutic method. Chapter 1 presents an argument for justifying interpretations as we justify scientific theories, that is, as inference to the best explanation. Informally, the point is that the best way to justify an interpretation (or a philosophical view) is just to lay it out as completely and carefully as possible, then to highlight the advantages of the view one supports over the known rivals. It will be treated as a drawback that an interpretation attributes a discredited Western traditional theory to a thinker in the absence of any adequate explanation of what could have motivated the doctrine. The tendency of interpreters to "discover" such views in Chinese thinkers seems to be connected with their own acceptance of a culture-invariant interest in the perennial Western philosophical issues. Believing that the problems are the genuine problems of philosophy and that they just "make sense", one charitably attributes the same insight to the Chinese thinker at the barest textual hint, thinking, "What else could this mean?" The insights of modern philosophy, in questioning these traditional issues, tend, therefore, to expand rather than restrict the coherent ways of assigning meanings to philosophical texts. I accordingly regard the introduction of the discipline of philosophy into the study of Chinese thought as a liberating move. It gives the best hope of making headway on a project that all seem to accept - explaining how Chinese language influences Chinese philosophy. It is rather more than less likely to generate fresh, non-Western interpretations and demonstrate their relation to the unique features of Chinese language. A defensive reaction, claiming for Chinese philosophy "everything found in Western philosophy", tends, I believe, to be counterproductive. The contexts into which these parallels are introduced fit the classical problems so poorly that any philosphically trained reader will find the Chinese thinkers confusing. The theoretical doctrines are attributed to Chinese philosphers who give no coherent arguments for the theories and demonstrate no insights into the classical positions they are supposed to be discussing. The defense typically asserts that they held the positions to be discussing. The defense typically asserts that they held the positions but did not believe in argument. Thus the view of Chinese thought as "irrational", "nonanalytic", or "inscrutable", is forced by the very attempt to glorify it. There are issues of philosophy which Chinese philosophers do not see. The issues they do see are discussed competently. There are issues in traditional Western philosphy which no longer hold the interest of Western philosophers. That classical Chinese philosophers never worried such issues hardly undermines positive evaluation of their philosophical acumen.