The Interpretation Of "Names" By Philosophy Of Language

Conceptualism is the foundation of logic. In the light of Philosophy of Language, the paper is to interpret the concept of "Names", through examination, analysis and dissertation of the theory of Mohist School. Historically, conceptualists in ancient China always attached great importance to "Names". Mo-tse made a special contribution to the development of the naming theories. Thanks to his insights, naming theories transferred from referential study to the establishment of criteria and classes for names and the identification of objective identities; and the Mohist School reached the theoretic peak in its last period. With the four chapters of "JingShuo ( 经说) " as a clue, and in the spirit of applied Philosophy of Language, my thesis has made a tentative criticism on the Mohist theories about the nature, role, function and classifying criteria of the "Names". Detailed demonstration have also been conducted on the matters of the relationship between names and referents, the relationship between names and symbols, restriction on and generality in naming, the proposition "BaiMaFeiMa (白马非马 )" and conventions in naming. Through the analysis, the symbolic nature of and the functions of "Names" are revealed, and the principles and methods of naming are illustrated. My conclusion is that "Names" is a linguistic symbol for signaling and referring to objective realities.