Kiyotaka Yoshimizu on “Semantics or Pragmatics?”

On September the 2nd and the 3rd, Kiyotaka Yoshimizu will be at the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Apostelgasse, 23, 1030, ground floor) for a workshop on “Semantics or Pragmatics?”. The workshop wil regard Dignāga’s and Kumārila’s distinction of semantics from pragmatics (an innovation both shared, if compared to Nyāya) and their different solutions to the issue (with Dignāga priviledging semantics and Kumārila focusing on pragmatics).

More in detail,
2.9: apoha in Dignāga (showing his focus on semantics over pragmatics)
3.9: Kumārila’s understanding of the grahakaikatvanyāya as an evidence of his focus on pragmatics

Texts to be read: PS and PSV 41-44; PS and PSV 50a (2.9). TV on 3.1.(7).13-15 (3.9).

References: Kiyotaka Yoshimizu “The Theorem of the Singleness of a Goblet (graha-ekatva-nyāya) : A Mīmāṃsā Analysis of Meaning and Context”, Acta Asiatica 90, 2006.
Kiyotaka Yoshimizu “How to Refer to a Thing by a Word: Another Difference between Dignāga’s and Kumārila’s Theories of Denotation”, in Journal of Indian Philosophy, 39(4-5), 2011.

Forging Indian philosophical texts

Did Indian authors forge their authorities? Did they need it, given the freedom commentators enjoyed (so that Śaiva texts have been used by Vaiṣṇava authors (see the Spandakārikā) and dualist texts by non-dualist authors (see the Paratriṃśikā) as their authorities)?

Veṅkaṭanātha’s Buddhist quotes

Veṅkaṭanātha (also known as Vedānta Deśika) quotes relatively often from Buddhist texts, especially from Pramāṇavāda ones (as was possibly customary within Indian philosophical circles. Does it mean that he could still directly access Pramāṇavāda texts? Or does he depend on second-hand quotations?

Visiting Assistant Professor in Buddhist Studies at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

The Department of Religion at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, New Brunswick, invites applications for a full-time, non-tenure-track position in Buddhist Studies during the 2014-2015 academic year. The position will be in a one-year, non-renewable contract.

Who invented the apoha theory? On Kunjunni Raja 1986 SECOND UPDATE

Who invented the apoha theory? If you, like me, are prone to answer “Dignāga” and to add that Dignāga (as shown by Hattori) was inspired by Bhartṛhari’s theory and that Dharmakīrti and Dharmottara later fine-tuned Dignāga’s one, you are ready to have your view challenged by K. Kunjunni Raja’s article in Buddhist Logic and Epistemology (ed. by B.K. Matilal and R.D. Evans, 1986, I am grateful to Sudipta Munsi who sent me a copy of it).

Helmut Krasser, the Rebel Sanskritist —UPDATED

helmut_in_procida1

Photo by Birgit Kellner

I met Helmut Krasser during my Erasmus year in Vienna, back in the Nineties. We sat together (meaning that he, Horst Lasic and Ernst Steinkellner prepared and led the meetings whereas I and other people tried to follow and to add minor points from time to time) at the Academy, reading Jinendrabuddhi’s commentary on Dignāga’s Pramāṇasamuccaya.

What is unreal?

The term tuccha means in Classical Sanksrit “worthless”, “insignificant”. In Vedānta, however, it gets a more specific technical meaning, to denote the absolute unreality of chimeral entities, such as the khapuṣpa (flower in the air), which will not and cannot ever exist.