A White Horse Is Not a Horse, A Mother Is Not a Mother

I had a strange moment during this podcast recording with Professor Robert Beshara—I blanked on 媽 (mā, mother).

It was the same day my mother was taken into the hospital for an aneurysm. I looked at the character and thought: This must not be it.

It wasn’t just forgetting—I had refused the word itself.

The Chinese character for mother, 媽 (mā), contains 馬 (mǎ, horse). It’s just a phonetic component, nothing symbolic—at least, that’s what linguists would say. But I couldn’t shake the association: motherhood as burden, endurance, domestication. The mother as a beast of burden, something that carries others, something that can never stop.

That day, my mother wasn’t moving. She wasn’t carrying anything. She lay in a hospital bed, small in a way I had never seen before, her body a fragile outline against the sheets. I couldn’t make the word fit her.

媽 (mā). The horse that bears, endures, pulls forward. But she wasn’t moving. I needed another word—one that didn’t already break her. Even when I looked it up, when I saw the strokes I had once traced so easily, my mind resisted. The Communist Chinese must have changed the word, rewritten history. A convenient distortion, but I knew better. This was one of the first words I had ever learned to write.

This brings me to a classic paradox in Chinese philosophy that Professor Beshara brought up: 白馬非馬 (báimǎ fēi mǎ), a white horse is not a horse.

The debate originates from 公孫龍 (Gōngsūn Lóng),¹ a logician from the Warring States period,² whose argument plays on the distinction between categories and particulars. His claim: a 白馬 (báimǎ, white horse) is not simply a 馬 (mǎ, horse) because 馬 is a general category, while 白馬 is a specific subset. If someone asks for a 馬, any horse will do—black, brown, spotted, or white. But if they ask for a 白馬, a black or brown one won’t do. The presence of 白 (bái, white) changes the terms of the request.

Thus, 白馬非馬—white horse is not horse.

This argument hinges on a subtle but crucial distinction: does adding a descriptor fundamentally alter the identity of a thing? In 公孫龍’s logic, it does. By specifying 白 (bái, white), the object ceases to belong fully to the broad category of 馬 and instead becomes something else—a particular type of horse, not simply a horse.

The paradox becomes even more intriguing in Chinese grammar, which lacks articles like “a” or “the.” In English, we might parse the statement as “A white horse is not a horse”, implying a negation of membership within the category. But in Classical Chinese, the phrase 白馬非馬 is more stark—closer to “white horse, not horse” or even “white horse negates horse”. Without articles, the boundary between existence and negation is more fluid.

公孫龍’s paradox forces us to consider the tension between general categories and specific instances, between language and reality, between what we name and what is. It’s a debate that continues to resonate, not just in classical Chinese philosophy but in logic, semiotics, and even modern discussions of identity and classification.

It’s a linguistic trick, but one with profound implications. What happens when the word we reach for no longer holds what we need?

Lacan tells us that language is not neutral—it is a structuring force of the unconscious. Words determine what can be thought. To name something is to trap it within a category, a signifier that dictates its fate. When I saw 媽 (mā) that day, I rejected it—not just as a word but as a structure of expectation. I refused to see my mother as something defined by endurance, something that exists to carry.

This is where Chinese lacks articles like “a” or “the.” Unlike English, where we differentiate “a mother” (any mother) from “the mother” (a specific one), Chinese leaves this ambiguous. Does 媽 (mā) mean a mother? Or does it mean Mother, in the universal sense?

I wonder if my refusal was a refusal of this universal. If the structure of Chinese itself made it impossible for me to name my mother in that moment without naming all mothers, without invoking a weight I didn’t want to place on her.

The Chinese Unconscious

This was just one of the thoughts that came up after my discussion with Robert Beshara on our latest episode, “The Chinese Unconscious: A Lacanian Reading.”

Professor Beshara presented Lacan’s Seminar XVIII and his fascination with 漢語 (Hànyǔ, Chinese language), Derrida and his critique of writing, and the ways psychoanalysis encounters a linguistic system that doesn’t quite fit its European origins. But Lacan was far from the only European intellectual to engage with Chinese thought—nor were his interpretations universally accepted.

Some of what we cover:

• 拉康 (Lākāng, Lacan) and《第十八研討會》 (Seminar 18)—His exploration of 漢字 (hànzì, Chinese characters) and their implications for the 無意識 (wúyìshì, unconscious), and how his approach compared with Derrida’s critique in Of Grammatology.

• The Great Racist Convergence—How 恐華症 (kǒnghuàzhèng, Sinophobia), 恐伊斯蘭症 (kǒng Yīsīlán zhèng, Islamophobia), and 反共主義 (fǎngòng zhǔyì, anti-communism) form a singular ideological structure.

• 白馬非馬 (báimǎ fēi mǎ, "A white horse is not a horse")—What does it mean when words don’t hold their category? What happens when a mother is not a mother?

Chinese Thinkers Who Critiqued or Engaged Lacan

Lacan was one of the few European theorists to take Chinese characters seriously, attempting to interpret them through the lens of psychoanalysis. However, his engagement with Chinese thought has been met with both fascination and critique from Chinese scholars who argue that his approach—while groundbreaking—still falls into certain Eurocentric limitations.

Among the most notable Chinese scholars engaging with Lacanian psychoanalysis, we discuss:

• 程抱一 (Chéng Bàoyī, François Cheng)—A French-Chinese poet, calligrapher, and literary theorist who argued that Lacan underestimated the pictographic and poetic nature of Chinese characters. Cheng’s work, particularly Empty and Full: The Language of Chinese Painting, highlights how Chinese writing operates differently from phonetic scripts, where meaning emerges from a dynamic interplay of strokes, space, and structure.

• 符瑋 Dr. Fu Wai (Fú Wěi), a prominent figure in critical psychology and Lacanian psychoanalysis within the Chinese context. Dr. Fu Wai is an Associate Professor in the Department of Counselling and Psychology at Hong Kong Shue Yan University. His scholarly pursuits encompass a range of interests, including the intersection of Lacanian psychoanalysis with Chinese philosophical traditions, as well as the development of indigenous qualitative methodologies. Notably, Dr. Fu has explored the implications of the School of Names (名家, Míngjiā) for indigenous psychology, offering insights into how ancient Chinese linguistic theories can inform contemporary psychological practice. Dr. Fu's work exemplifies a critical engagement with both Lacanian psychoanalysis and Chinese philosophical thought, challenging the universality of Western psychological constructs and emphasizing the importance of cultural specificity in psychological theory and practice.

  You can listen to an interview I had with Dr. Fu Wai here.

• 吳光濬 (Wú Guāngjùn, Wu Guangjun)—Author of The Great Dragon Fantasy: A Lacanian Analysis of Contemporary Chinese Thought (2014), Wu takes Lacan’s approach further, applying it to ancient Chinese texts such as 《孟子》 (Mèngzǐ, Mencius) and the dispute between 儒家 (Rújiā, Confucianism) and 道家 (Dàojiā, Daoism). Wu explores whether the "Chinese unconscious" operates differently from Lacan’s model of subjectivity, given how Chinese philosophy does not foreground lack in the same way as Lacanian psychoanalysis does.

• 王大同 (Wáng Dàtóng, W. Datong)—In his 2008 book China on the Couch, Wang argues that the unconscious is structured like Chinese writing, challenging Lacan’s claim that it is structured like a language. He demonstrates how 漢字 (hànzì, Chinese characters) rely on visual morphology, condensation, and metonymy—in ways that differ from alphabetic scripts. He revises 索緒爾 (Suǒxù’ěr, Saussure) and Lacan’s theory of the signifier, proposing that Chinese writing disrupts the Saussurean arbitrary signifier-signified split.

• 陳方正 (Chén Fāngzhèng, Françoise Cheng)—A major scholar in 書法 (shūfǎ, Chinese calligraphy) and its relationship to psychoanalysis. Chen critiques 拉康 (Lacan) for overlooking 書法的氣 (qì, the "breath" of calligraphy)—a concept tied to 生命力 (shēngmìnglì, vital force), which resists Western psychoanalytic models of castration and lack.

Decolonial Psychoanalysis & the Limits of the European Unconscious

Lacan’s engagement with Chinese language was not orientalist in the way of earlier European sinologists—but it was still shaped by a Eurocentric framework. Enrique Dussel and 非歐中心學派 (fēi Ōuzhōng xuépài, the non-Eurocentric school) argue that psychoanalysis itself is a colonial structure, founded on a Western understanding of subjectivity, guilt, and repression—which do not map neatly onto all cultures.

For example, 東亞文化 (Dōngyà wénhuà, East Asian culture) does not center 缺失 (quēshī, lack) as the foundation of desire in the same way Lacan claims. Instead, yin-yang dialectics suggest a recursive and complementary model of 性別 (xìngbié, sexuation), which contrasts sharply with Lacan’s phallic order.

Why Does This Matter?

This is not just an academic debate. The way we think about language, writing, and the unconscious shapes everything from identity formation to political discourse. If Lacanian psychoanalysis assumes a European unconscious, then what do we make of an unconscious structured by characters rather than alphabetic letters?

What happens when language itself operates on different principles?

And if the unconscious is structured differently in Chinese, then what does that mean for psychoanalysis, race, power, and ideology today?

---

Listen to the episode on this post here, or on this YouTube link (which I like because I can put things at 2x speed and save it offline for when I go for a walk or clean the house).

And if this resonates—if you’ve ever had a word slip away from you when you needed it most—tell me about it in the comments.

1. Gōngsūn Lóng (公孫龍) was a Chinese philosopher from the Warring States period (c. 325–250 BCE), associated with the School of Names (名家, Míngjiā). He is best known for his paradoxical arguments concerning logic, language, and metaphysics, particularly the famous White Horse Paradox (白馬非馬, Báimǎ fēi mǎ), which asserts that "a white horse is not a horse." His work challenges the relationship between language and reality, questioning whether terms denote categories or particular instances. Gōngsūn Lóng’s thought has been compared to early Greek logic, though it remains uniquely rooted in classical Chinese philosophy.

2. The Warring States period (戰國時代, Zhànguó Shídài) was a time of intense political fragmentation and warfare in ancient China, lasting from approximately 475 to 221 BCE. It followed the Spring and Autumn period (春秋時代, Chūnqiū Shídài) and ended with the unification of China under the Qin dynasty (秦朝, Qíncháo). This era saw the rise of major philosophical schools, including Confucianism (儒家, Rújiā), Daoism (道家, Dàojiā), Legalism (法家, Fǎjiā), and the School of Names (名家, Míngjiā), to which Gōngsūn Lóng (公孫龍) belonged.