Well Confucius may have been deliberately vague concerning the existence
of transzendente Idealwesen, yet at the center of his teaching there's
the "rectification of names". This is supposed to mean "Let the ruler be
ruler, the minister minister, the father father and the son son" (in the
Lun Yu), where not the concepts had to fit their content, but the other
way round; so it's like everybody has to live up to his concept.
This text from the Lun Yu looks much less harmless
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~jendres/lunyu/ :
Tsze-lu asked,
"If the Duke of Wei made you an advisor,
what would you address as the very first priority?"Confucius replied,
"The most important thing
is to use the correct words."
"What?" Tsze-lu replied.
"That's your first priority? The right words?"Confucius said,
"You really are simple, Yu.
The Sage keeps his mouth shut
when he doesn't know what he's talking about! "If we don't use the correct words,
we live public lies.
If we live public lies,
the political system is a sham. "When the political system is a sham,
civil order and refinement deteriorate.
When civil order and refinement deteriorate,
injustice multiplies.
As injustice multiplies,
eventually the electorate is paralyzed
by public lawlessness. "So the Sage takes for granted that he use the appropriate words,
and follow through on his promises with the appropriate deeds."The Sage must simply never speak lies."
Hic et ille
Joerg Gruel
"Don't gimme google, gimme solutions!"
Yes, and this is true of 'triangles' also: what (in normal usage) "we call" triangular will always have be three-sided, but there is no reason in logic why we could not use the word 'triangle' to refer to a four-sided object rather than a three-sided one. It is obviously true that a three-sided object will be three-sided but it is only a convention of language what term or terms we use to refer to such objects: insofar as we insist that triangle is not "rightly so called" when used to refer to an object that is not three-sided we are merely appealing to rightness in terms of such conventions of usage. We can allow 'triangle' to be used otherwise without contradiction but if it is used otherwise, say to refer to a four-sided object, we can insist that certain consequences follow logically from this e.g. if the speaker subsequently uses the term triangle to refer to a three-sided object it is logically the case that they are not using the term 'triangle' in the same sense in which they used it to refer to a four-sided object - they are giving it a different meanning. (...)
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