 Gongsun Long’s arguments were founded upon Confucius’ premise that the ideal application of language was based on a complete mutual congruency of the name and the object to which it referred. Despite his idealistic stance, he believed language was not only a consecrated structure which embraced the essence of all existence, but that the crucial function of language remained that of denominating actualities (Gongsun Longzi CTP: Bai ma lun, 4). This is the hypothesis which underpins his main arguments on this topic, entitled The Dispute on Names and Actualities (Ming shi lun). With respect to the concrete situation to which language has been applied, each single thing could have only one single meaning. Of course, this projection is in contrast with the usual application of language, for people tend to use different names for the same objects. In everyday language, the meanings of words usually overlap. Gongsun Long attempted to eliminate this semantic overlapping, or at least to reduce it to a level on which language could still be overseen and controlled. The famous ‘White horse not horse’ debate was an attempt to deal with these concerns.