Editing School of Names (section)

== Overview ==
The earliest literary occurrence for xingming is in the ''[[Zhan Guo Ce]]'', in reference to what would become known as the School of Names amongst other more modern terms; Chris Fraser ([[Stanford Encyclopedia]]) modernly argues "Disputers" a more "appropriate" English label.

The philosophy of the Logicians is often considered to be akin to those of the [[sophists]] or of the [[dialectician]]s. One of the few surviving lines from the school, "a one-foot stick, every day take away half of it, in a myriad ages it will not be exhausted", resembles [[Zeno's paradoxes]]. However, some of their other aphorisms seem contradictory or unclear when taken out of context, for example, "dogs are not hounds".  [[Joseph Needham]] notes that their works have been lost, except for the partially preserved oeuvre of [[Gongsun Long]], and the paradoxes of Chapter 33 of the ''[[Zhuangzi (book)|Zhuangzi]]'', considering the disappearance of the greater part of Gongsun Long's work one of the worst losses in the ancient Chinese books, as what remains is said to reach the highest point of ancient Chinese philosophical writing.{{sfn|Needham|Wang|1956|p=185, 697}}

As with the [[Chinese legalism|Legalists]], Sinologist Kidder Smith highlights the mixed posthumous reception received by the school of names. Already opposed by the Later [[Mohists]] (who have also sometimes been termed "logicians") in their own era for their paradoxes, many of them, despite being remembered as sophists, would also have been administrators. [[Hui Shi]] was a prime minister, while [[Gongsun Long]] was a diplomat and peace activist, as typical of the Mohists. Although not classed under it, while [[Shen Buhai]] may not have been familiar with his contemporary [[Shang Yang]] in the remote [[Qin state]], he likely was familiar with central Chinese "school of names" type debates on language and the correlation between the names and realities of things, with language useful in administration.{{sfn|Van Norden|2011|p=111}}{{sfnm|1a1=Smith|1y=2003|2a1=Fraser|2y=2017}}