405 Chapter 16 The Zhuangzi and the Logicians: Two Perspectives on the Difference Between “zhi 指” and “wu 物” Sai Hang Kwok 1 Introduction The philosophical linkage between Zhuangzi and the Logicians (or the School of Names; “mingjia 名家”) is often overlooked in Chinese philosophy. Although some traditional Daoists and contemporary scholars have pointed out that there is a close relationship between Zhuangzi and the Logicians, not many systematic studies have been devoted to the difference and relation between the two philosophies. In this chapter, I argue that a signifcant part of Zhuangzi’s philosophy in the Qiwulun 齊 物論 is devoted to responding to the Logicians’ discovery of the separation between the name that we use to refer to things (zhi 指) and the things that are referred to by name (wu 物). The relation between zhi and wu is a central philosophical issue of the Logicians. Their doctrine can be represented by the opening sentence of the Zhiwulun 指物論 of Gongsun Long 公孫龍: “Of things, none are not designated [pointed], but desig- nation [pointing] is not designated [pointed] 物莫非指,而指非指.” (Zhiwulun; Rieman 1980, p. 307) 1 This statement indicates that the Logicians were aware of the ontological difference between the “pointer” and the “pointed.” A core paragraph in Zhuangzi’s Qiwulun is obviously responding to this statement: 1 There is not an entire translation of the works of Gongsun Long. The textual base of all quotations of the Gongun Longzi is (Wang 1992). I also compare (Pang 1979), (Huang 2012) and (Mei 2020) for paragraphing. The translation of this sentence, in particular, is taken from (Rieman 1980). S. H. Kwok (*) Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, People’s Republic of China e-mail: hmleokwok@ust.hk © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K.-c. Chong (ed.), Dao Companion to the Philosophy of the Zhuangzi, Dao Companions to Chinese Philosophy 16, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-92331-0_16