Abstract
Semiotics is a young science. With all its happy anticipations in the past, it is only now entering the period of primary accumulation and the search for its proper subject-matter. The utmost openness of interest combined with particular attention to separate facts which might reveal the privileged fields of the semiotic experience seems to be the best strategy for such a period.
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Notes And References
The Lankavatara Sutra, tr. by D. T. Suzuki, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1956.
Piatigorsky, A. M., ‘Some notes on the structure of the Dhammasangani texts’, parts I, II, and III, in: Studies in Semiotics, Tartu, IV, 1969; V, 1971; VI, 1973.
Mamardashvili, M. K. and A. M. Piatigorsky, ‘Three Discussions on the Metatheory of Consciousness (A Short Introduction to the Theory of the VijñEānavāda)’, in: Studies on Semiotics, Tartu, vol. 5, 1971.
Zilberman, D. B., ‘Revelation in Advaita Vedānta as an Experiment in the Semantic Destruction of Language’, in: Problems of Philosophy, [Also, this volume.]. 5, 1972;
Piatigorsky, A. M., and Zilberman, D. B. ‘The Emergence of Semiotics in India’, in: Semiotica, XII, 1976, No. 4.
Suzuki, D. T., On Indian Mahayana Buddhism, Harper Torchbooks, New York, 1966.
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van Zeyst, H. ‘Agnosticism and Buddhism’, in: Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, Colombo, 1961; vol. 1.
Galileo Galilei, Dialogue on the Great World Systems; Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1953.
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Nagarjuna, Mūlamandhyamikakārikās, ed. and tr. by Th. I. Shcherbatskoy, St. Petersburg, Academy of Sciences Press, 1903–1913. Scherbatskoy, Th. I., The Conception of Buddhist Nirvana, Petrograd, 1922 (in Russian).
Shuklaji, Sanghvi, ‘Advanced Studies in Indian Logic and Metaphysics’, in: Indian Studies Past and Present, Calcutta, 1961.
Kalupahana, D., Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, The University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1975.
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The Lankāvatara Sūtra, p. 41.
Dialogues of the Buddha (Dīgha Nikāya), Part I, tr. by T. W. Rhys Davids, Oxford University Press, London, 1899.
The Lankāvatara Sūtra, p. 49.
This certainly leaves out of place any comparison with the Kantian antinomies in the Critique of Pure Reason, although this comparison is a commonplace in the vast Buddhological literature.
The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, tr. by E. Conze, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1975.
Cf. Husserl, E., Experience and Judgment, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1973.
Kuhn, Th., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, 2nd edn., The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1970.
A very similar intention underlies distinction between the ‘functionary’ and ‘genetic’ research in: Shchedrovitzky, G. P., ‘On the theory of complex “populative” objects’, in: Systems Research, Moscow, 1976. [in Russian]
The Lankāvatara Sūtra, p. 41.
See ‘Asanga’, in: Encyclopaedia of Buddhism (op. cit.).
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Schopenhauer, A., Die Welt als Wille and Vorstellung, Leipzig, 1819.
The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom, p. 643. Cf. also St. Beyer’s idea of the ‘surrealistic’ quality of significations in Buddhism: St. Beyer, The Cult of Tara, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1974. And again, in The Lankāvatara Sūtra, p. 83: “It is like Piśāca [”goblin“ — D.Z.] who by means of his spell makes a corpse or a wooden image throb with life though it has no power of its own; but here the ignorant cling to the non-existent, imagining them to have the power of movement”.
as their distinctive feature. But in our case, experience is discarded, while in the Husserlian phenomenology it is merely ‘deexistentialized’, turned into the ‘past’. Hence we have the doubled ’distance’, double conventionality. It is mentioned in Mahā-Vagga that, when the mental process of the Buddha’s enlightenment was over, he kept sitting under the Bodhi Tree seven days more, to let his thoughts be ‘naturalized’ into words. Only when his doctrine was worded, i.e. ceased to be something of his own mentality, he tried to retell all the story to himself: thus the language structure of his speaking was consolidated — see: Nyaponika Thera, Studies in the Abhidharma Psychology, Kandy, 1961.
Zilberman, D., ‘A critical review of D. Kalupahana’s Causality: The Central Philosophy of Buddhism’, in: The Journal of Asian Studies, May, 1976.
Zilberman, D.: ‘A critical review of E. Conzé s translation of The Large Sutra on Perfect Wisdom’, in: The Journal of Asian Studies, November, 1975.
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Zilberman, D.B., Cohen, R.S. (1988). Is the Bodhisattva a Skeptic?. In: Cohen, R.S. (eds) The Birth of Meaning in Hindu Thought. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 102. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-1431-5_6
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