 The  early Mohists  hoped to develop  objective moral standards  by which to unify society and achieve social order. Part of their solution was to develop a theory of  fǎ 法 (models, standards)  that explained how to judge distinctions (biàn 辯) between shì 是 (this, right) and fēi 非 (not-this, wrong). The core idea was to identify clear, objective fǎ (models) to serve as paradigms for pattern recognition or analogical extension. Things relevantly similar to, or “matching” (zhòng 中), the fǎ would be shì (right, this); anything not relevantly similar would be fēi (wrong, not-this). The theory of fǎ applied not only to ethics but to other areas of thought as well. In epistemology, for instance, it could be applied to explain what it is to know something: it is knowing how to correctly distinguish what does or does not match the fǎ for that sort of thing. To determine whether some claim ‘A is B’ should be accepted, we compare A to the fǎ for B to see whether they are similar. To determine whether some doctrine is right, we can compare it to the  “three models”—the  deeds of the sage-kings, perceptual experience, and practical benefit. In logic, the theory yields a model of analogical argumentation. For the Mohists, an assertion is the application of a term to something. To support an assertion, we cite a fǎ for the term we are asserting and then show that the thing we are asserting it of is relevantly similar to the fǎ. In philosophy of language—though early Mohist texts do not explicitly take this step—the theory could be applied to explain why words denote the things they do. The extensions of terms are determined by social practices in which we associate fǎ with terms and distinguish what things do or do not match the fǎ. Everything that does is thereby properly referred to by the term in question. 