1 Where the Rectification of Names Begins

1.1 A Chain Left by the Master

1.1.1 If Names Are Not Rectified, Speech Does Not Flow

To read the Rectification of Names (Zhengming), one must first return to that exchange in the "Zilu" chapter of the Analects. Zilu asked: the lord of Wei is waiting for the Master to govern his state—what would the Master do first$1 The Master answered: "It would certainly be to rectify names!" Zilu objected on the spot: "Is that so$2 How roundabout you are! What is there to rectify$3" The Master then spoke that famous chain: "If names are not rectified, speech does not flow; if speech does not flow, affairs are not accomplished; if affairs are not accomplished, ritual and music do not flourish; if ritual and music do not flourish, punishments do not hit their mark; if punishments do not hit their mark, the people have nowhere to put hand or foot. Hence when the noble person names something, it must be sayable; when he says something, it must be doable."

This chain begins with name, passes through speech, affairs, ritual and music, and punishment, and finally arrives at the people. It is a downward deduction: name is the uppermost thing, the people are the lowest, and every link in between depends on the one above it. Zilu found this roundabout because he could see only the downstream affairs of government, not how the upstream name determines what lies downstream.

The third section of Master Xun's Rectification of Names is a compressed version of this same chain: "When the true king institutes names, once names are fixed, actualities are distinguished; once the Way is carried out, intentions are communicated; then he may lead the people with care and unify them." Fixing names, distinguishing actualities, carrying out the Way, communicating intentions, leading the people to unity—this still runs from name down to the people. And the second half of that same section is the reverse version of the chain: "Now that the sage kings are gone, the guarding of names has grown slack, strange expressions have arisen, names and actualities have fallen into disorder, and the shape of right and wrong is no longer clear; then even officials who uphold the law and scholars who recite the statutes will all fall into disorder." The guarding of names growing slack is the loosening of the upstream; strange expressions arising and names and actualities falling into disorder is the corruption of the midstream; the shape of right and wrong no longer being clear is ritual, music, and punishment losing their footing; officials who uphold the law and scholars who recite the statutes falling into disorder—this is precisely "the people having nowhere to put hand or foot."

So the Rectification of Names is not a treatise on the study of names that appeared out of nowhere—it is the detailed unfolding of the Master's saying, "It would certainly be to rectify names!" The Master gave only the chain; Master Xun takes apart every link in it: how names are fixed, how actualities are distinguished, and why, once names fall into disorder, even officials and scholars fall into disorder along with them.

1.1.2 Roundabout or Not

Zilu's objection deserves to be taken seriously, because it represents a piece of common sense: what matters in governing a state is troops, food, taxation, and punishment—what urgency is there in rectifying names$4 Master Xun's answer to this doubt is hidden in a very weighty statement: "One who analyzes words and arbitrarily fabricates names, thereby throwing the rectification of names into disorder, causing the people to be confused and given to much contentious argument, is called a great villain. His crime is on a par with the crime of forging tallies and tampering with weights and measures."

Tallies are tokens of trust; weights and measures are scales and measures of volume. To privately forge a tally is to counterfeit the court's warrant of good faith; to privately alter weights and measures is to tamper with the scales of the whole realm. Master Xun places the arbitrary fabrication of names under the very same charge as these two crimes, and the meaning is plain: a name is not a plaything in a scholar's study—a name is the infrastructure by which the entire community exchanges information and judges right from wrong. A person may not understand the study of names, just as a person may not understand the craft of casting scales, yet every day when he buys rice he must use a scale. Once someone has tampered with the scale, he will suffer loss without even knowing it. Names are the same.

Only from this can one understand what Master Xun says next: "Then among his people none will dare to fabricate strange expressions in order to throw the rectification of names into disorder, and so his people will be sincere; being sincere, they are easy to direct; being easy to direct, government becomes impartial." Que (悫) means sincere and unadorned. When names are not in disorder, people need not scheme against one another in speech, and their minds stay sincere; being sincere, they are easily guided; being easily guided, decrees become impartial and unobstructed. "Unified in the Way and its statutes, and careful in following orders"—"when traces are extended and achievements completed, this is governance at its utmost." Master Xun calls this "the achievement of carefully guarding the conventions of names." To guard the conventions of names is to guard the agreements underlying them. This is in no way at odds with the affairs of government that concerned Zilu—rather, it is the precondition on which the operation of government depends.

1.1.3 Name and Ritual

The opening of the Rectification of Names says: "designations for ritual pattern follow ritual propriety." Designations for pattern are the names for the forms and observances of ritual. This one line reveals something: for Master Xun, name and ritual propriety (li) are never two separate matters.

The "Yong Ye" chapter of the Analects records a sigh of the Master's: "A gu-vessel that is not a gu—is this a gu$5 Is this a gu$6" The gu was a ridged wine vessel. The vessel had lost its ridges, yet was still called gu. The name remained; the actuality did not. The Master's sigh was not a complaint about crude workmanship in vessel-making—it was a sigh for the collapse of ritual propriety, because ritual propriety is precisely constituted by countless such strict correspondences between name and actuality. In the "Yan Yuan" chapter of the Analects, when Duke Jing of Qi asked about government, the Master answered, "Let the ruler be a ruler, the minister a minister, the father a father, the son a son"—this is the most direct political meaning of rectifying names: the ruler must be like a ruler, the minister like a minister, name and actuality matching. The fourth section of Master Xun's Rectification of Names says the function of instituting names is "above, to make clear the noble and the base; below, to distinguish the same from the different." "Making clear the noble and the base" is simply another way of stating "let the ruler be a ruler, the minister a minister."

Only by understanding this level can one see why Master Xun titled an essay discussing naming, the senses, disputation, and desire "Rectification of Names," rather than "Name and Actuality" or "Disputation." Rectifying names is the work of ritual propriety; it is the work of governance. Name and ritual propriety share a single root, and that root is letting every actuality under Heaven obtain its proper name and rest secure in its proper station.

1.2 The Completed Names of the Later Kings

1.2.1 Names for Punishments Follow the Shang, Names for Noble Rank Follow the Zhou, Designations for Pattern Follow Ritual Propriety

The very first sentence of the Rectification of Names is: "The completed names of the later kings: names for punishments follow the Shang, names for noble rank follow the Zhou, designations for pattern follow ritual propriety." This sentence is often read in haste, yet it contains a stance of great importance.

Names were not created all at once by a single sage on a single day. The names for punishments carry over from the Shang dynasty, the names for noble rank carry over from the Zhou dynasty, and the designations for ritual pattern carry over from the ritual canons. Names are a historical inheritance accumulated in layers, and what the later kings "completed" is a system built up by the superposition of several generations. This agrees entirely with what the Master says in the "Wei Zheng" chapter of the Analects: "The Yin followed the ritual propriety of the Xia; what it added and subtracted can be known. The Zhou followed the ritual propriety of the Yin; what it added and subtracted can be known." Ritual propriety is formed through inheritance, addition, and subtraction, and so it is with names.

This is why Master Xun says in the third section: "Should a true king arise, he would certainly follow the old names in some cases, and create new names in others." To follow the old names is to honor history; to create new names is to respond to the present. Neither statement says "discard the old names and make names anew." Master Xun does not hold that a sage king may take a blank sheet and start entirely from scratch. This agrees with his consistent thought of "taking the later kings as the model": the later kings are the "resplendent," visible sage kings of recent times, whose names can be followed and whose traces can be examined; whereas the distant former kings' names and traces can no longer be detailed, and only their broad outlines can be grasped.

From this sentence, too, one can see Master Xun's attitude toward names: names are matters of convention, but convention is not arbitrary. It has a history, an origin. A person cannot, simply because a name is conventional, revise the convention as he pleases. Revising the convention is the business of the true king, and even the true king can only create anew on the foundation of following what came before.

1.2.2 Dispersed Names and the Established Customs of the Xia States

"As for the dispersed names applied to the myriad things, they follow the established customs and fine agreements of the various Xia states; in places of distant lands with different customs, one relies on these to achieve mutual comprehension." Dispersed names are the scattered, ordinary names applied to the myriad things—what is called an ox, what is called a horse, what is called sweet, what is called bitter. Where do these names come from$7 From "the established customs and fine agreements of the various Xia states." Established custom is custom already formed; fine agreement is agreement worked out in careful detail. That is to say, ordinary nouns are made up of habits long formed among the central states and agreements worked out in fine detail.

And in distant lands of different custom, where the names differ, what then$8 "One relies on these to achieve mutual comprehension." To rely on is to follow along with; to comprehend is to reach mutual understanding. Distant peoples have their own names, the peoples of the central states have theirs; there is no need to force uniformity—one need only find the correspondences, so that translation between them becomes possible.

This sentence shows an extraordinary sense of proportion. It acknowledges that names are local—people of different places may have different names for the same actuality—while at the same time affirming that names can be mutually translated, because the actuality to which a name points is one and the same. The locality of names does not obstruct the interconnection of the realm. The "Doctrine of the Mean" (Zhongyong) in the Book of Rites says, "Now under Heaven, carriages share the same gauge of axle, writing shares the same script, and conduct shares the same norms"—sharing the same script speaks of the unification of writing, while what Master Xun speaks of is names being mutually intelligible. The two point in the same direction: one is unification by institution, the other is comprehension through understanding.

1.2.3 The Sage Kings Gone, the Guarding of Names Grown Slack

Master Xun wrote the Rectification of Names out of a real circumstance he faced. The middle of the third section is a diagnosis: "Now that the sage kings are gone, the guarding of names has grown slack, strange expressions have arisen, names and actualities have fallen into disorder, and the shape of right and wrong is no longer clear." Once the guarding of names has grown slack, strange expressions arise; once strange expressions arise, names and actualities fall into disorder; once names and actualities fall into disorder, right and wrong can no longer be told apart.

Master Xun was not alone among the pre-Qin thinkers in making this diagnosis. Master Meng (Mencius) says in the "Teng Wen Gong II" chapter: "Sage kings no longer arise, the feudal lords indulge themselves without restraint, and men of standing but no office debate wildly." Master Zhuang (Zhuangzi) says in the "Tianxia" chapter: "The realm is in great disorder, the worthy and the sage are no longer manifest, the Way and its power are no longer one, and most under Heaven seize upon one aspect of it to please themselves"—"the arts of the Way are about to be torn apart by the realm." The three of them are looking at the same disease: the center has been lost, and every school of speech clings to its own single point, no longer able to communicate with the others.

But Master Xun goes a step further than the other two in locating the seat of the disease in names themselves. What he says about "even officials who uphold the law and scholars who recite the statutes will all fall into disorder" deserves particular attention. Officials uphold the law, scholars recite the statutes—these ought to be the very people least likely to fall into disorder. But the law is written in names, and the statutes are recorded in names. Once names fall into disorder, law and statute lose their bearings along with them. Those who uphold the law will uphold it wrongly; those who recite the statutes will recite them wrongly. This is why one cannot merely treat the symptoms without rectifying the names.

1.3 Who This Essay Was Written For

1.3.1 Three Matters That Must Not Go Unexamined

The final line of the third section is the outline for the whole essay: "This being so, why there are names, what one relies on to determine sameness and difference, and what the essential pivots for instituting names are—these must not go unexamined." Three matters: why there ought to be names; on what basis sameness and difference are distinguished; where the pivotal points of instituting names lie.

These three matters were written for "should a true king arise." Master Xun is not explaining the nature of language to scholars—he is explaining to a future true king where he ought to begin when the time comes to rectify names. This is why the Rectification of Names is written in a practical mode. Every section of theory in it circles back, in the end, to "then one is able to prohibit strange expressions," back to how strange expressions are to be prohibited, how the people are to be made sincere and easy to direct.

Once this is understood, one will neither read the Rectification of Names as a purely logical treatise and complain that its logic is insufficiently rigorous, nor read it as a purely political tract and overlook its fine-grained analysis of language, perception, and mind. It is a fusion of the two: the analysis of names placed in the service of the governance of the realm.

1.3.2 The Beginning of Kingly Enterprise

The eleventh section says: "Agreement, designation, disputation, and explanation are the great pattern of use, and the beginning of kingly enterprise." This statement raises the standing of names to an extraordinary height. Where does kingly enterprise begin$9 It begins with agreement, designation, disputation, and explanation—that is, with agreeing on names, assigning names, clarifying, and debating.

This claim can be corroborated by the "Great Treatise" (Xici zhuan) of the Book of Changes (Zhouyi): "The sages had the means to perceive the complexity of all under Heaven, and modeled it on forms and appearances, imaging what was fitting for each thing—hence these are called images." The sages saw the complexity of the realm and, for its sake, modeled forms and appearances and imaged what was fitting for each thing; this is the image. The image is the precursor of the name: it gathers the manifold actualities into a single symbol that can be pointed to and identified. The "Great Treatise" also says: "What it calls by name is small, but what it takes in kind is great." Calling something by name looks like a small matter, but taking it in kind is a great one. A name gathers a whole kind of actuality into one place; a name is the gateway to a kind. When a king governs the realm, the first task is to let every actuality under Heaven return to its proper kind—this is "the beginning of kingly enterprise."

1.3.3 How to Read This Essay

The Rectification of Names has twenty sections: the first thirteen discuss names, the last seven discuss desire and mind. First-time readers often feel that the second half turns abruptly, as though Master Xun had stitched two separate essays together. What this study aims to demonstrate is that this is no patchwork—it is a single essay's two breaths. The first half establishes names; the second half puts names to use. The first half fixes names such as "nature, emotion, deliberation, artifice, mind"; the second half uses these very names to discuss where order and disorder lie. And the single hinge running through both halves is one character: mind (xin, 心).

The first half says, "the mind has verifying cognition," "the mind is the artisan-steward of the Way." The second half says, "order and disorder lie in what the mind approves," "when the mind is calm and content, colors that fall short of the ordinary can still nourish the eye." Names are verified through the mind; desires are judged through the mind; things are put to service through the mind. This mind is the axis of everything Master Xun discusses.

The chapters that follow will proceed step by step along this thread. Chapter Two first examines the structure and foreshadowing of the whole essay; Chapters Three through Five examine the convention of names, the boundary of names, and mind and the Heavenly Faculties; Chapters Six and Seven examine disputation; Chapters Eight through Ten examine mind, desire, balance, and things. The thread running through the whole essay will, in the final chapter, return to that opening character: ji (稽, to examine, to verify).