Prof. Roy Tzohar: “The Pan-Metaphorical View of Early Indian Yogācāra”
23 April 2014
Photo: Orna Almogi
The paper presents an early Yogācāra theory of meaning as outlined by Sthiramati in his commentary to Vasubandhu’s Triṃśikā, in which it is argued that all language use is metaphorical (upacāra). The paper first briefly explores the main sources of influence on this understanding of language and metaphor, tracing it to its immediate Buddhist textual context as well as to the theories of meaning put forward by contemporaneous non-Buddhist schools.
This theory of meaning, I argue, enabled the Yogācāra to maintain a discourse in which highly diversified descriptions of reality were considered meaningful under the same referential principle, and at the same time to contend that some descriptions are more meaningful and true than others. The upshot of this picture is that the Yogācāra was able, in accordance with its soteriological models, to distinguish between varying levels of discourse and truth within the conventional realm, and thereby also to avoid the undesirable implications of the Madhyamaka’s radical conventionalism for the meaningfulness of ordinary language.
Finally, I discuss some of the implications of the Yogācāra theory of meaning for the school’s understanding of hermeneutics and intersubjectivity, and explore its relevance to contemporary issues in the study of the Philosophy of Religion.
- Click here to download the invitation (PDF)
April 23rd, 2014 - 18.00h
Universität Hamburg, Hauptgebäude,
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Raum 118
Free Entrance.