Of Non-Horses, Quantum Mechanics, and the Establishment Clause

Abstract

The pronouncements of Chuang Tzu are seldom easy; his remark about non-horses is certainly no exception. The best explanations suggest that he was responding to a group of philosophers who argued that attributes are so connected to their objects that to speak of the object without the attribute was a form of nonsense. 2 True, Chuang Tzu seems to tell us, but it is almost equally nonsensical to fail to recognize the singularity of objects: for surely if a white horse is not a horse then a non-horse is not either. As is often the case with the writings of Chuang Tzu, he makes one notice several truths in getting where he wishes to go. He does no more than state a logical truth when announcing that a non-horse is not a horse. Yet he leaves us with a mystery: what, precisely, is a non-horse? He may have had in mind a shoe, a tea kettle, a tree, or a mountain. Indeed, he may have meant them all and many other things as well. It is impossible to identify any particular object with a term like non-horse. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine a single criterion by which one of them takes pride of place. It is difficult to imagine a coherent way to