In China, Warring States Period was imbued with chaos of wars and the whole society was in a state of ferment. The disordered phase in ideological area, as the most direct reflection of the change, was characterized b...In China, Warring States Period was imbued with chaos of wars and the whole society was in a state of ferment. The disordered phase in ideological area, as the most direct reflection of the change, was characterized by that all the old ethical standard had been badly weaken, even failed to explain the moral facts. In terms of common people, they were confused and puzzled by the questions as "what is language?" and "what is the standard of speaking and behavior?" Some ancient scholars pinned these problems upon the reversal of "ming" (名) and "shi" (实). As a result, to rectify names and to clarify the name of ethics became a must for reconstructing the old proprieties and system. Among those scholars and thinkers, Xun Zi firstly proposed Zhengming to state the relationship between a name and the thing it represents in a systematical way. This essay only sheds light upon the reason of rectifying names: to distinguish the rank and differentiate the similarities and differences("明贵贱,辨同异")which is the must of "rectifying names".展开更多
文摘In China, Warring States Period was imbued with chaos of wars and the whole society was in a state of ferment. The disordered phase in ideological area, as the most direct reflection of the change, was characterized by that all the old ethical standard had been badly weaken, even failed to explain the moral facts. In terms of common people, they were confused and puzzled by the questions as "what is language?" and "what is the standard of speaking and behavior?" Some ancient scholars pinned these problems upon the reversal of "ming" (名) and "shi" (实). As a result, to rectify names and to clarify the name of ethics became a must for reconstructing the old proprieties and system. Among those scholars and thinkers, Xun Zi firstly proposed Zhengming to state the relationship between a name and the thing it represents in a systematical way. This essay only sheds light upon the reason of rectifying names: to distinguish the rank and differentiate the similarities and differences("明贵贱,辨同异")which is the must of "rectifying names".
