白马非马

网上又在吵一个老问题：热狗到底算不算三明治？有人说面包中间夹着肉，当然算三明治，也有人说没人会这样叫它。

People online are arguing an old question again: does a hot dog count as a sandwich? Some say bread with meat sandwiched in the middle obviously makes it one. Others say nobody actually calls it that.

这个问题让我想起中国古代一位哲学家，叫公孙龙。他说过一句很有名的话：白马非马。你听过吗？

This question reminds me of an ancient Chinese philosopher named Gongsun Long. He said a famous line: a white horse is not a horse. Have you heard of it?

没听过。白马怎么会不是马？这位哲学家为什么会说这么奇怪的话？

Never heard of it. How could a white horse not be a horse? Why would this philosopher say something so strange?

他的意思是，“马”这个字说的是形状，“白”这个字说的是颜色。“白马”两个字合在一起，说的东西和“马”一个字说的东西不一样，所以在逻辑上，“白马”不属于“马”这个范畴。

What he meant is that the word 'horse' names a shape, and the word 'white' names a color. The two characters 'white horse' put together name something different from what the single word 'horse' names, so logically, 'white horse' does not belong to the category 'horse.'

这听起来像诡辩。你要是去马市场买马，跟卖马的人说你想要一匹白马，他会给你一匹马，不会说他这儿没有白马这种东西，只有马。

That sounds like sophistry to me. If you went to a horse market to buy a horse and told the seller you wanted a white horse, he would give you a horse. He would not say there is no such thing as a white horse there, only horses.

我同意，在市场上买马的人不会想这么多。但公孙龙说的不是市场上的事，他说的是词和词代表的东西是不是完全一样。“马”这个词，能代表所有的马，白色的、黑色的、黄色的都算；“白马”这个词，只能代表白色的马。这两个词代表的范畴，真的不一样。

I agree, someone buying a horse at a market does not think that hard about it. But Gongsun Long was not talking about the market. He was talking about whether words and the things they represent are exactly the same. The word 'horse' can represent every horse, white, black, or yellow, all count. The word 'white horse' can only represent white horses. The categories these two words represent really are different.

好吧，这个我懂了。但如果按照这个逻辑，三明治是不是也一样？三明治这个词的定义，是不是也应该包括热狗？

Okay, I get that part. But if we follow the same logic, isn't the sandwich case the same kind of thing? Shouldn't the definition of the word 'sandwich' also include a hot dog?

应该算吧。按照定义，面包中间夹着别的东西，就是三明治，热狗完全符合。可是我们平时说话，从来不会把热狗叫做三明治，这和公孙龙的白马一样奇怪。

It probably should count. By definition, bread with something sandwiched inside is a sandwich, and a hot dog completely fits that. But in everyday speech we never call a hot dog a sandwich, which is just as strange as Gongsun Long's white horse.

所以我们两个人现在也在做同一件事：一边说这是诡辩，一边又觉得公孙龙说得有点道理。这算不算也是一种诡辩？

So the two of us are doing the exact same thing right now: on one hand saying it is sophistry, and on the other hand feeling that Gongsun Long has a point. Is that itself a kind of sophistry too?

我也说不清楚。这个问题从公孙龙的年代问到现在，好像也没有哲学家真的解决了它。也许热狗到底算不算三明治，也会一直吵下去。

I cannot settle it either. This question has been asked from Gongsun Long's era all the way to now, and it seems no philosopher has really solved it. Maybe whether a hot dog counts as a sandwich will just keep getting argued forever too.