A Study on the Authenticity of the Gongsun Longzi : Focusing on the Jixia Academy and the Theory of Five Elements

The question of whether Gongsun Longzi is an authentic text remains a subject of scholarly debate, with opposing views arguing that the entire text is spurious, only certain sections are inauthentic, or that it is entirely genuine. This study defines spurious texts as those that cannot be considered contemporaneous with the era of Gongsun Long and seeks to identify which portions of Gongsun Longzi fail to meet this criterion. First, this study examines the disputed chapter “Jifu” and the latter half of Gongsun Longzi, identifying a shared feature: both “Jifu” and the blue-white dialogue (qingbai wenda) in “Tongbian lun” contain political arguments rooted in the intellectual tradition of the Zhixia School. Second, it analyzes the Five Elements theory as presented in the blue-white dialogue in “Tongbian lun”, taking into account the historical evolution of Five Elements theory and the recorded relationship between Zou Yan and Gongsun Long. Based on this analysis, the study concludes that the blue-white dialogue in “Tongbian lun” is better understood as a composition created after Gongsun Longzi’s time. Through this investigation, the study argues that the blue-white dialogue in “Tongbian lun” cannot be considered a work contemporaneous with Gongsun Longzi. If substantiated, this argument may provide insights into the previously noted differences between the first and the second halves of the Gongsun Longzi. Furthermore, by distinguishing between the School of Names’ original focus on the relationship between names and actualities and political arguments incorporating Five Elements theory, it becomes possible to reevaluate the pure philosophical thought of the School of Names during Gongsun Longzi’s era. From a textual perspective, this analysis may also contribute to clarifying the relationships and chronological order among “Jifu”, the Lüshi Chunqiu, and the Kongcongzi.