The beginning of any rigorous interdisciplinary study, as Hegel and later Marx predicted, is going to be the occasion for opposition, contradiction, negation and mediation. Sociobiology is not a mature field (thesis). Kitcher's critical work entitledVaulting Ambition seeks to at once expose the failings of this field (serving as antithesis) while simultaneously defining the requirements for more mature, and thus epistemologically satisfying, sociobiological explanations (synthesis). The sociobiological research agenda is thus implicitly given a green light provided certain methodological precautions are (...) taken into consideration. Confucius believed that under these circumstances the only way to restore order would be so to arrange affairs that the Emperor would continue to be Emperor, the nobles to be nobles, the ministers to be ministers, and the common people common people. That is, the actual must in each case be made to correspond to the name. This theory Confucius called theRectification of Names (cheng ming), a doctrine which he recognized as being of the utmost importance. (Fung, 1952, p. 59). Tzu-lu said, “If the Lord of Wei left the adminstration (cheng) of his state to you, what would you put first?” The Master said, “If something has to be put first, it is, perhaps, the rectification (cheng) of names.” (The Analects (Lun yü) of Confucius, Book XIII: 3) (Besides being homophones, the two words in Chinese are cognate, thus showing that the concept of ‘governing’ was felt to be related to that of ‘correcting’.) . (shrink)

How should we understand the Confucian doctrine of the rectification of names (zhengming): what does it mean that an object’s name must be in accordance with its reality, and why does it matter? The aim of this paper is to answer this question by advocating a novel interpretation of the later Confucian, Xunzi’s account of the doctrine. Xunzi claims that sage-kings ascribe names and values to objects by convention, and since they are sages, they know the truth. (...) When we misuse names, we are departing from a sagely convention of naming. As sagely convention determines moral truth, departure from the linguistic convention of the sages is a departure from moral truth. On my interpretation of Xunzi, the rectification of names is not a doctrine about what is true, but a doctrine about how we aim at truth. We are aiming at descriptive truth when our language conforms to the correct name of an object according to what I call ‘Confucian conventionalism’. When we correctly aim at descriptive truth we can aim at moral truth. Therefore, I claim that the doctrine of the rectification of names is concerned with discerning the literal accordance of language with an object (what is descriptively, linguistically true), to determine what is normatively, or morally, true. According to Xunzi, moral truth is grounded in linguistic truth. (shrink)

A substantial reason behind the Confucian canonization of the Yijing can be located in some underlying patterns of thinking common to both the Yijing and The Analects; especially relevant here is the doctrine of rectification of names. In particular, I analyze the fundamental structure of the Yijing by means of the names and symbols standing in unique semantic/semiotic relations to the world, and I go on to suggest that this is what is importantly entailed by the doctrine (...) of the rectification of names when the latter is understood by means of the perlocutionary function of the prescriptive language. (shrink)

Confúcio (551 aC - 479 aC) - foi um filósofo, professor e estadista bem conhecido, bastante influente durante os períodos de Primavera-Outono dos Estados Combatentes na China. Somados a esses atributos, destaca-se o fato de ele ter sido um pensador que transmitiu à humanidade numerosos conceitos perspicazes, dentre os quais a doutrina da "retificação de nomes" (正名 - zhèng míng). Esta doutrina, que tem caráter profundo, abrangente e metódico, procura resgatar a sociedade de um estado de caos para um estado (...) de ordem através da aplicação dos princípios da governabilidade benigna e através das virtudes. Nos tempos atuais, teríamos grandes ganhos humanos se conseguíssemos enxergar para além das suas falhas e encampar seus valores. Passado o tempo, nota-se que o pensamento de Confúcio sobre a rectificação de nomes ainda ostenta sua importância e serve como uma lição útil no avanço do desenvolvimento nacional das gentes. (shrink)

본고의 주요 논제들은 다음이다. 국가 또는 정치적 상태란 말의 힘과 말의 질서가 지배하는 상태이며, 개인들은 본질적으로 언어주체이다. 언어의 사용은 인간으로 하여금, 자연상태에서 벗어나 전혀 새로운 차원의 삶, 즉 정치상태에 진입하며, 전혀 새로운 존재자로서 새로이 탄생하게 된다. 언어는 홉스가 통찰하였듯이 리바이어던 적인 존재 또는 신적인 존재이며, 인간의 정체성, 인간들 간의 관계, 인간을 규제하는 힘을 새로이 규정한다.국가나 정치적 상태의 언어의존성을 주목할 때, 우리는 순자의 정명론에 담긴 통찰을 재조명할 수 있다. 그의 정명론은 서구 전통의 정치관이나 언어관과 대조되면서 보다 현대적인 모습으로 다가온다. 순자의 정명론에 (...) 따르면 언어적 질서가 국가 사회의 인륜적 기초이다. 그에 따르면 언어적 질서 이전에는 의미있는 존재자나 정치권력이 없으며, 역사나 문화를 준거로 하여 현자나 제왕이 이름을 제정할 때 비로서 이런 세계내의 존재자들이나 정치적 질서가 등장한다.언어는 사물들의 객관적 또는 사회적 모습을 만드는 사물의 척도이며, 사물을 대신하는 신표의 역할을 한다. 그런 점에서 언어의 세계의 의사(擬似) 세계라고 말할 수 있다. 언어는 만물의 척도이며, 언어 진화의 과정에서 획득된 언어의 역사성과 총체성으로 하여 언어는 리바이어던적인 힘과 행위 규제력을 발휘함은 논한다. 국가 권력에 대한 언어적 해석을 취할 때, 국가 권력과 개인 간의 표면상의 갈등 역시 해소될 수 있음은 논한다. 이런 논의의 과정에서 신성한 언어와 세속적 언어를 구분하고, 언어와 정치권력이 세속화함에 따라 시민들이 언어주체의 지위를 차지하게 되고, 현대에 이르러 이런 언어주체들에 의해 다중지성이 출현하게 됨을 논한다. (shrink)

이 글의 목적은 공자의 정의관을 살펴보고 이를 통해 정의의 본질문제, 정의가 추구하는 것이 무엇인가의 문제를 토론해보는 것이다. 이러한 논의를 위해 먼저 동, 서양의 정의 개념과 정의의 근본적인 의미를 살펴보았고, 그 다음 정의의 존재이유와 공자가 추구한 정의를 살펴보았으며, 마지막으로 공자의 ‘의’와 ‘정명’에서 드러나는 정의관을 살펴보았다. 동양에서 말하는 정의의 글 뜻은 분석해보면, 정의는 “어떤 기준이나 원칙에 따라 옳은 길로 나아간다.”는 의미를 담고 있다. 공자는 비록 정의가 무엇인지 직접 말하지 않았지만 그의 사상은 이러한 정의에 부합하는 중요한 내용을 많이 포함하고 있다. 공자의 사상에서 ‘기준’이나 (...) ‘원칙’은 ‘사람’이며, ‘옳은 길’이란 ‘사람이 더불어 살아갈 수 있는 길’이다. 사람이 살아가는 세상에서 사람보다 귀중한 것은 없다. 사람은 모든 가치에 우선하는 개념이다. 그 어떤 이유에서도 사람을 배척하거나 억압해서 안 되며 그 어떤 경우에서도 사람이 소외되어서는 안 된다. 공자의 사상에서 드러나는 정의란 개인의 권리를 보호해주는 것도 아니고 억지로 균형을 유지하는 것도 아니며, 사람을 먼저 생각하고 사람을 귀하게 여기는 것이다. 사람의 생명을 존중하는 사람이 가장 정의로운 사람이며, 사람의 가치를 중요하게 생각하는 사회가 가장 정의로운 사회이다. 만약 사람이 소외되거나 사람의 생명이 위협받는 사회라면, 그 사회는 질서가 무너지고 정의가 사라진 사회라는 것을 의미한다. 국가, 정치, 경제, 사회, 기업, 공공기관 등 인간사회에 존재하는 모든 제도와 기관이 사람을 중심으로 생각할 때 가장 정의롭다고 말할 수 있다. (shrink)

The common approach to discussing Confucius’ advocacy of “correction of names” is to join the current academic debate about its meaning, usually in philosophical terms. Rather than joining in, however, this article describes the debate itself as a historically situated discourse largely dating from the early Republican era. I argue that Hu Shi 胡適 played a crucial but largely forgotten role in the creation of this discourse. While the core of the current discourse on zhengming consists of views that (...) can be traced to him, this discourse is nowadays often regarded as fact rather than a specific interpretation. By forgetting the historicity of this interpretation, academic reflection risks ossification and the loss of its critical spirit. The mere repetition of Hu Shi’s discourse is also contrary to his own spirit, which sought to call into question established views. (shrink)

The concept of rectifying names [cheng-ming] is a familiar one in the Confucian Analects. It occupies an important, if not central, position in the political philosophy of Confucius. Since, according to Confucius, the rectification of names is the basis of the establishment of social harmony and political order, one might suspect that later political theories of Confucian-ists should be traced back to the Confucian doctrine of rectifying names. It need not be added that the theory of (...) rectifying names, as developed by Hsün Tzu in the third century B. C., served the double purpose of strengthening his political doctrine of government on the one hand and repudiating doctrines of names on the other. (shrink)

The concept of rectifying names [cheng-ming] is a familiar one in the Confucian Analects. It occupies an important, if not central, position in the political philosophy of Confucius. Since, according to Confucius, the rectification of names is the basis of the establishment of social harmony and political order, one might suspect that later political theories of Confucian-ists should be traced back to the Confucian doctrine of rectifying names. It need not be added that the theory of (...) rectifying names, as developed by Hsün Tzu in the third century B. C., served the double purpose of strengthening his political doctrine of government on the one hand and repudiating doctrines of names on the other. (shrink)

How should we understand the Confucian doctrine of the rectification of names (zhengming): what does it mean that an object’s name must be in accordance with its reality, and why does it matter? The aim of this paper is to answer this question by advocating a novel interpretation of the later Confucian, Xunzi’s account of the doctrine. Xunzi claims that sage-kings ascribe names and values to objects by convention, and since they are sages, they know the truth. (...) When we misuse names, we are departing from a sagely convention of naming. As sagely convention determines moral truth, departure from the linguistic convention of the sages is a departure from moral truth. On my interpretation of Xunzi, the rectification of names is not a doctrine about what is true, but a doctrine about how we aim at truth. We are aiming at descriptive truth when our language conforms to the correct name of an object according to what I call ‘Confucian conventionalism’. When we correctly aim at descriptive truth we can aim at moral truth. Therefore, I claim that the doctrine of the rectification of names is concerned with discerning the literal accordance of language with an object (what is descriptively, linguistically true), to determine what is normatively, or morally, true. According to Xunzi, moral truth is grounded in linguistic truth. (shrink)

Confucius, being one of the earliest of Chinese philosophers that we know of, seems uniquely responsible for setting the tone of Chinese philosophy. His focus on ethical questions of the Way no doubt serves as a reminder of the type of perennial questions that philosophers should answer. In this module, I outline the main concepts of the Analects, followed by an elaboration on the central Confucian ethical doctrines: The doctrine of the Mean, Filial Piety, Patriarchal Hierarchy and the Golden Rule. (...) This is followed by a discussion of the Analects’ comments on politics, and finally, a discussion of the underlying metaethics or moral semantics of Confucius's ethics: The Rectification of Names. Confucius's ethics constitutes a uniquely Asian source of Humanism, and while similar to the ethics of Aristotle, provides a distinctive account of moral theory and Virtue Ethics. (shrink)

INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE Volume 26 Number 1 March 2012 ARTICLES An Inferential Model of Scientific Understanding Mark Newman 1 Evidence and the Assessment of Causal Rela...

This article invokes the idea of personhood (which it takes to be at the heart of Afrocommunitarian morality) to give an account of corrective/rectification justice. The idea of rectification justice by Robert Nozick is used heuristically to reveal the moral-theoretical resources availed by the idea of personhood to think about historical injustices and what would constitute a meaningful remedy for them. This notion of personhood has three facets: (1) a theory of moral status/dignity, (2) an account of historical (...) conditions and (3) the achievement of moral excellence by the agent (personhood). This article argues that a just society is a function of (1) and (2), and it further argues that the aim of rectification justice is to correct these two facets of a society, which are necessary for (3) to be possible. The aim of correcting history just is to make personhood a possibility for all humanity, particularly of those who were victims of past injustices. (shrink)

This article attempts to explore ancient Chinese philosophical thought by analyzing how pioneering Chinese thinkers made judgments and inferences, and compares it to ancient Greek philosophy. It first addresses the starting-point and the object of cognition in Chinese ancient philosophy, then analyses how early thinkers construed definition and proposition, and finally discusses how they made inferences on the basis of definition and proposition. It points out that categorization is an important methodology in ancient Chinese philosophy, and that rectification of (...) names and the doctrine of the mean are key criteria in making judgments. (shrink)

This chapter surveys libertarian thought on the question of “historic injustice,” which is when serious injustice goes unresolved for many years. After some historical discussion of early libertarian writing on the subject, I turn to the contemporary debate surrounding reparations for slavery. After outlining three arguments common among libertarians for reparations, common reasons for skepticism are also discussed. Then, special focus is given to the topic of land theft. In particular, I hone in on what I call the “Poisoning Problem,” (...) or the idea that natural rights approaches to property fail because so much of actually-existing property is founded in conquest. In the conclusion, I highlight two areas where libertarian writing on historic injustice is relatively quiet compared with broader writing on these topics: reparations of a less material sort and transitional injustice. Throughout this chapter, I typically refer to American slavery and land theft, but the discussion is meant to apply much further than those two cases. (shrink)

Book Review. Jos de Mul. The Tragedy of Finitude . Dilthey’s Hermeneutics of Life . New Haven and London: Yale University Press. 2004.

A debut picture book that explores the importance of pronouncing names properly and celebrates cultural identity. Saajin loves his name--he loves it so much that he sees it spelled out in the world around him in his snacks, in the sky and sometimes he even sings it aloud. On his first day of school, Saajin is excited to meet his new classmates, but things take a turn when the teacher mispronounces his name as Say-jin and he is not sure (...) how--or if he should--correct her. After trying to live with the different version of his name for a while and some thoughtful conversations with his family about the meaning behind it, Saajin realizes the importance of reclaiming his name and embracing his identity. This empowering story, accompanied by energetic and vibrant art by Samrath Kaur, will resonate with any reader who has ever felt misunderstood. (shrink)

A transcript of three lectures, given at Princeton University in 1970, which deals with (inter alia) debates concerning proper names in the philosophy of language.

Should an institutional scheme prioritize the rectification or compensation of harms it has wrongfully caused over provision of aid to persons it has not harmed? Some who think so rely on an analogy with the view that persons should give higher priority to rectification than to aid. Inference from the personal view to the institutional view would be warranted if either (i) the correct moral principles for institutional assessment are nearest possible equivalents of the correct personal moral principles, (...) or (ii) the moral principles which ground the personal view also ground the institutional view. Neither claim can be justified. I briefly assess some alternative ways of defending the view that institutions should prioritize rectification over aid. (shrink)

Libertarians typically object to having the state deal with law and order for several general reasons: it is inefficient; it is carried out at the expense of taxpayers; and it punishes so-called victimless crimes. Exactly what the observance of liberty implies with respect to the treatment of tortfeasors and criminals is more controversial among libertarians. A pure theory of libertarian restitution and retribution is mainly what is attempted here, without becoming involved in general moral anti-state arguments. However, the pure theory (...) alone will raise practical problems that require immediate response if the theory is to appear at all plausible. (shrink)

This book aims to help answer two questions that Western philosophy has paid relatively little attention to - what is injustice and what does justice require when injustice occurs? Injustice and Rectification offers a taxonomy of justice, which sets forth an initial framework for a moral theory of justice and focuses on framing a conception of rectificatory justice. The taxonomy is ground for this book's eleven other essays, in which a diverse group of authors brings philosophical analysis to bear (...) on the idea of injustice itself and on some important conceptual and normative issues concerning the rectification of injustice. (shrink)

One reason to think that names have a predicate-type semantic value is that they naturally occur in count-noun positions: ‘The Michaels in my building both lost their keys’; ‘I know one incredibly sharp Cecil and one that's incredibly dull’. Predicativism is the view that names uniformly occur as predicates. Predicativism flies in the face of the widely accepted view that names in argument position are referential, whether that be Millian Referentialism, direct-reference theories, or even Fregean Descriptivism. But (...) names are predicates in all of their occurrences; they are predicates that are true of their bearers. When a name appears as a bare singular in argument position, it really occupies the predicate position of what in this essay is called a denuded definite description: a definite description with an unpronounced definite article. Sloat provided good evidence for this. The definite article is sometimes pronounced with names in the singular: ‘The Ivan we all love doesn't feel well’. Sloat proposed a disjunctive generalization of when the definite article must be pronounced with a singular name. This essay shows that by slightly revising Sloat's generalization, we arrive at a simple, nondisjunctive, syntactic rule that governs the overt appearance of the definite article with singular names. But Ivan does not necessarily bear the name ‘Ivan’, so one might worry that the sentence “Ivan might not have had ‘Ivan’ as a name” would incorrectly be predicted false. This essay shows that Predicativism does not have this consequence by showing that incomplete definite descriptions in general and incomplete denuded descriptions, such as ‘Øthe Ivan’, in particular are rigid designators. (shrink)

Evans envisaged a language containing both Russellian and descriptive names. A language with descriptive names, which can contribute to truth conditions even if they have no bearer, needs a free logical truth theory. But a metalanguage with this logic threatens to emasculate Russellian names. The paper details this problem and shows, on Evans's behalf, how it might be resolved.

[Book Review] Rudolf Makkreel and Frithjof Rodi, eds. Wilhelm Dilthey. Selected Works vol. III: The Formation of the Historical World in the Human Sciences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002.