The Birth of Meaning in Hindu Thought

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xxii

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2. Hindu Systems of Thought as Epistemic Disciplines

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 1-70

3. The Birth of ‘Meaning’

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 71-140

4. Dialectics in Kant and in the Nyāya-Sūtra

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 141-179

5. The Canonical Self in the World of Knowledge

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 180-217

6. Revelation in Advaita Vedānta as an Experiment in the Semantic Destruction of Language

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 218-246

7. Is the Bodhisattva a Skeptic?

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 247-262

8. Hindu Values and Buddhism

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 263-298

9. Understanding Cultural Traditions Through Types of Thinking

   • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

   Pages 299-329

10. The Family of Hindu ‘Visions’ as Cultural Entities

    • David B. Zilberman, Robert S. Cohen

    Pages 330-349

11. Back Matter

    Pages 350-368

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In his letter to B. K. Matilal, dated February 20, 1977, the author of this book wrote about his work on Advaita-Vedanta: " ... It was not to present Advaita in the light of current problems of the logic of scientific discovery and modern philosophy of language ... but just the contrary. I do not believe that any 'logic without metaphysics' or 'philosophy of language without thinking' is possible." This passage alone may serve as the clue to Zilberman's understanding and mode of explaining that specific and highly original approach to (not 'of'!) philosophy that he himself nicknamed modal. Four points would seem to me to be most essential here. First, a philosophy cannot have 'anything un-thinking' as its object of investigation. Language, to Zilberman, is not a phenomenon of con­ sciousness but a spontaneously working natural mechanism (like, for instance, 'mind' to some Buddhist philosophers). It may, of course, be­ come used for and by consciousness; consciousness may see itself, so to speak, in language, but only secondarily, only as in one of its modifica­ tions, derivations or modalities. That is why to Zilberman linguistic- as to Kant psychology - cannot and must not figure as the primary ground for any philosophical investigation.

• Immanuel Kant
• logic
• metaphysics
• philosophy

• Center for Philosophy of Science, Boston University, USA

  Robert S. Cohen

Policies and ethics