All human thought proceeds through words, so if words are askew, thought cannot proceed aright. When Confucius says that nothing is more important than that a father be a father, that a ruler be a ruler, he is saying that we must know what we mean when we use those words. But equally important, the words must mean the right things. Rectification of Names is the call for a normative semantics--the creation of a language in which key nouns carry the meanings they should carry if life is to be well ordered.
About This Quote
About Huston Smith
Huston Smith was a 20th-century American religious studies scholar. Huston Cummings Smith was an American scholar of religious studies, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, The World's Religions sold over three million copies as of 2017. Read more on Wikipedia →