The Birth of Meaning in Hindu Thought

385 Pages·1988·11.73 MB·English

by  David B. Zilberman (auth.)

THE BIRTH OF MEANING IN HINDU THOUGHT
BOSTON STUDIES IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Editor
ROBERT S. COHEN, Boston University
Editorial Advisory Board
ADOLF GRUNBAUM, University of Pittsburgh
SYLVAN S. SCHWEBER, Brandeis University
JOHN J. STACHEL, Boston University
MARX W. WARTOFSKY, Baruch College of the City University of
New York
VOLUME 102
DA VID B. ZILBERMAN
DAVID B. ZILBERMAN
THE BIRTH OF
MEANING IN
HINDU THOUGHT
Edited by
ROBERT S. COHEN
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
A MEMBER OFTHE KLUWER ACADEMICPUBUSHERSGROUP
DORDRECHT / BOSTON / LANCASTER /TOKYO
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Zilberman, David B., 1938-
The birth of meaning in Hindu thought.
(Boston studies in the philosophy of science; v. 102)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Philosophy, Hindu. I. Cohen, Robert S.
II. Title. III. Series.
Q174.B67 vol. 102 [BI31] 001'.01 s 87-26317
ISBN -13:978-94-010-7141-3 e-ISBN-13 :978-94-009-1431-5
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-1431-5
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17,3300 AA Dordrecht, Holland.
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In all other countries, sold and distributed
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All Rights Reserved
© 1988 by D. Reidel Publishing Company
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1988
No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EDITORIAL NOTE xi
xiii
PREFACE
INTRODUCTION xvii
CHAPTER I / Hindu Systems of Thought as Epistentic Dis
ciplines 1
I. The Science of Philosophies 1
IT. The Mechanism of Organization 9
ITI. The Structural Design 19
IV. Para-Methodology 33
V. Modality and Modalization 36
A. Deontic Modalization 42
B. Apodictic Modalization 42
C. Hypothetical Modalization 43
VI. The Self-Developing Culture and Text 43
VIT. Six Epistentic Disciplines Unfolding Into One Another 48
VIII. Modal Sentiotics and the Categories of Philosophical
Thinking 54
IX. Six Entries into the World of Philosophical Reflections 56
X. Summa Philosophiae 69
CHAPTER II / The Birth of 'Meaning': A Systematic Genealogy
of Indian Semantics 71
I. Segregation of Meaning and Language 71
II. The ~gveda in the Making: A Meaningful Activity With
out 'Meaning' 79
III. The Nirukta: A Knot of Semantic and Etymological
Problems 88
IV. Piif}ini: Separating and Interconnecting Language and
Logic 117
V. The Individual and the Universal in Language and
Knowledge 133
vii
Vlll TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER III / Dialectics in Kant and in the Nyaya-Sutra:
Toward the History of the Formation of Formal Logical
Trumkillg 141
CHAPTER IV / The Canonical Self ill the World of Knowledge:
A Note on Nyaya Gnoseology 180
CHAPTER V / Revelation ill Advaita Vedanta as an Experiment
in the Semantic Destruction of Language 218
I. Theoretical Basis of the Possibility of Coming to Know
Brahman (Paryaya) 225
II. Intuitive Basis of the Possibility of Comffig to Know
Brahman (Prayojana) 228
III. Paryaya of the First Stage of Reflection from the Structure
of the Text to the Nature of Brahman: The Theory of
False Attribution and its Sublation (Transcendence) 230
IV. Prayojana of the First Stage of Reflection: The Intuition of
False Attribution and its Sublation (Transcendence) 232
V. Paryaya of the Second Stage of Reflection: The Theory of
Brahman Shown in a Metaphoric Occurrence (Lakfjal}a-
vritti) 234
VI. Prayojana of the Second Stage of Reflection: Intuition of
Brahman Shown by the Method of Metamorphic Defini-
tion 238
VII. Language Inappropriateness Exposed and Brahman
Demonstrated by the Netivada Method: The Theory of
Intuition (Paryiiya) 240
VIII. Prayojana of the Vedic Realization by the Netivada
Method: The Intuition of a Theory 242
CHAPTER vI/Is The Bodhisattva a Skeptic? On the Tri-
chotomyof 'Indicative', 'Recollective', and 'Collective' Signs 247
CHAPTER VII / Hindu Values and Buddhism: An Exemplary
Discourse 263
I. Methodological 263
II. Theoretical 281
Il.l. The Miiniifnsa Normology 288
TABLE OF CONTENTS ix
CHAPTER VIII / Understanding Cultural Traditions Through
Types of Thinking 299
I. Level of Absolute Reality 308
II. Level of Phenomenation 308
III. Level of Absolute Irreality 309
CHAPTER IX / The Family of Hindu 'Visions' as Cultural
Entities 330
Notes and References 350
Bibliography: Selected Works of David Zilberman 361
Index 367
EDITORIAL NOTE
David Zilberman returned to Boston in the Fall of 1975, and we re
sumed our brief friendship which began two years earlier when he was
based in New York City. He came often to our Boston Colloquium for
the Philosophy of Science, quietly but passionately commenting, dis
puting, clarifying, instructing. Quite clearly, he was appreciated as im
mensely learned, intelligent, and wise. And he was a splendid lecturer,
at once lucid, gentle, and rigorous. I recall his thoughtful and original
lecture on 'Spinoza and Marx', to my undergraduate course on the phi
losophy of Marxism, and his masterful talk on Hindu epistemologies to
our Colloquium. These were his normal qualities as teacher, tutor, cor
respondent, conversationalist. .. perhaps as dreamer too.
We suggested that he prepare a book of his epistemological studies in
Indian thought, and he plunged into an expansion of the Colloquium
lecture; this book is the fulfillment of that effort, not too far, we hope,
from what he would have wanted. Now we may also hope that his pa
pers in our archive will be read by others, that his former students will
recover their notes on his courses of lectures (and some will perhaps
find their tape recordings of those lectures), that his letters to new and
old friends will be cherished, and that memories will be set down for
others to read. We will welcome all contributions of such materials for
our Zilberman Collection.
He worked so beautifully and so rapidly, in English as in Russian.
Not furiously but yet there was an outpouring, a flood, from a deep and
powerful source within him; he had no time to let pass by, he seemed
almost to be living as though he sensed there was a deadline soon. Rus
sian, Jew, Hindu rationalist and mystic, scientist, philosopher, human
ist. .. Zilberman was a man of our time who reached far beyond. He
was a sweet genius.
Bos/on University ROBERTS. COHEN
Center for Philosophy of Science
January 1988
xi
PREFACE
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 linguistics -
as to Kant psychology - cannot and must not figure as the primary
ground for any philosophical investigation.
Second, since the more thinking is an object, the more usable it is as
an actual or potential object of philosophical investigation, the most
natural object of philosophy would then be philosophy itself or, say, a
philosophy, or the philosophies. This, according to Zilberman, is his
own task, and the focus of his own philosophical thinking. And the task
is neither epistemological nor historico-philosophical, but merely
methodological for, as he wrote to me in March 1976, "I have em
ployed my thought in a certain way to investigate how various different
philosophies (not philosophers!) employed theirs to establish the prin
ciples of organisation of their own thinking activity with respect not
only to thinking, but behaviour and culture in general."
Third, since, while dealing in our philosophical investigation with a
xiii