 Moreover, the Mohists’ term for reasoning or disputation, bian, appears in most other major philosophical texts of the Classical (or pre-Han) era, suggesting broad similarities in use. The term is generally understood to mean “distinguishing” or “drawing distinctions”, although in its more specific uses we find it variously understood as a process of conceptualizing similarities and differences, discriminating objects in acts of perception, appealing to normative linguistic standards for naming objects, and using the normative criteria of correct naming as a proper guide to action (Fraser 2013). At the heart of these uses there appears to be a basic preoccupation with the philosophical importance of identifying the similarities and differences of things and events, a process largely determined by cognitive skills associated with pattern recognition. Unlike Aristotle, however, whose methods of classifying things depended on assumptions about metaphysically real essences (independent of human agency), the early Chinese philosophers put the burden of correct discrimination at least partly on what they deemed to be appropriate normative standards, based on the efficacy with which they were thought to guide action. That is to say, which similarities and differences they thought were relevant depended on whether they were thought to guide action in a way that is consistent with general moral principles about right conduct. A central purpose of the ethical investigations of the Mohists, for example, was to identify general standards of judgment that would reliably and impartially guide action in a way that produces beneficial consequences, and they appealed to bian as the principal human faculty for determining how these standards would play out in specific cases. Practical reasoning was conceived as an ability to respond appropriately on the basis of inferences drawn by analogy from various preconceived exemplars or models of moral action. According to Book 4 of the Mozi: