The Structure of the Chinese Language and Ontological Insights: A Collective-Noun Hypothesis

Abstract

In this essay, through a comparative case analysis regarding the Chinese language, I will discuss how the structure and functions of a natural language would bear upon the ways in which some philosophical problems are posed and some ontological insights are shaped. In doing this, I suggest and argue for a mereological collectivenoun hypothesis about the denotational semantics of Chinese nouns. My discussion begins with a puzzle: why has the classical Platonic one-many problem in the Western philosophical tradition not been consciously posed in the Chinese philosophical tradition, and why, generally speaking, do classical Chinese philosophers seem less interested in debating the relevant ontological issues? Before I move on, let me give a specification of the Platonic one-many problem. This problem begins with the following observation: objects around us share features with other objects, and many particular individuals-say, horses-bear the same name 'horse'. The Platonic one-many problem presupposes that there is one single universal entity that is common or strictly identical across all these particular concrete horses and by virtue of which many individual horses bear the same name 'horse';' the single universal entity is labeled 'horseness'.2 The Platonic one-many problem is how to characterize the status of universals and the ways by which particulars share universals. Under the aforementioned presupposition, there is the debate among Platonic realism, other versions of realism, and conceptualism; for example, Platonic realism claims that single universal entities are universal properties shared or instantiated by, but are separated from, particulars, while conceptualism insists that single universal entities are universal concepts (mental representations) shared by the mind. In the Western philosophical tradition, nominalism appears as a challenge to the very presupposition of the Platonic one-many problem: there are no universals except for general words like 'horse' and 'dog'. The debate between Platonic realism and nominalism is thus metaphilosophical. One suspects that the structures and uses of different languages might play their roles in pushing philosophical theorization in different directions; the ways of speaking and writing of the Chinese language might reveal and reflect Chinese folk ideology and then influence the ways in which certain philosophical questions are posed and certain ontological insights are formed. This issue is significant because it