Zen and the Problem of Language

Abstract

In view of the current debate in the West between those who adopt a non-realistic approach to language and those who attempt to salvage a claim that religious terms refer to actual objective things, it is worth noting that there is an East Asian tradition which has for many centuries maintained a strict non-realistic approach to language. I refer, of course, to Buddhism in its Mahayana form. Though not much has been written about Zen non-realism, there is a literature on Buddhism and language generally. Some articles have been written on the parallels between Wittgenstein and Zen, and there are a few studies of Zen parallels with other thinkers and movements which touch directly or indirectly on language: Heidegger, Buchler and, most recently, Derrida. The centrality of the issue of language in Buddhism has been thoughtfully and carefully presented by Frederick Streng in his study of the doctrine of emptiness (shūnyatā), and an earlier study of the Mādhyamika school by T.R.V. Murti shows the central Buddhist problematic to be that of epistemology and language.