Online research in philosophy

§1. Introduction. By means of what semantic features is a proper name tied to its bearer? This is a puzzling question indeed: proper names — like “Aristotle” or “Paris” — are syntactically simple, and it therefore does not seem possible to reduce their meanings, by means of a principle of compositionality, to the meanings of more basic, and hence perhaps more tractable, linguistic elements.

The basic reason is this. Even though, as people have been pointing out for some years now, the linguistic meaning of a given sentence generally underdetermines what a speaker means in uttering it, it does not follow that linguistic meaning is infected or infested by what some of these same people call ‘pragmatic meaning’. There is no such thing as pragmatic meaning, at least nothing that is commensurate with linguistic meaning. There is what the sentence means and what the speaker means in uttering it.

Language is used to express thoughts and to represent aspects of the world. What thought a sentence expresses depends on what the sentence means, and how it represents the world also depends on what it means. Moreover, it is ultimately arbitrary, a matter of convention, that the words of a language mean what they do. So it might seem that what they mean is a matter of how they are used. However, they need not be used in accordance with their literal meanings. One can speak nonliterally, and convey something other than what the sentence means ('The look on his face spoke volumes'), or speak indirectly, and convey something more than what the sentence means ('I wonder if you know the time'). Linguistic communication requires knowledge of linguistic meaning, on the part of both the speaker and his audience, but it requires extralinguistic knowledge as well.

A word can have multiple meanings and the referent of a word is not fixed independently of the context. Yet, might it be possible to have a feasible theory of meaning and reference such that a word expresses not only its conventional, literal meaning or referent, but also what is literally meant by its opposite word, and even the negation of its conventional meaning? Further, can we stretch the meaning of a word without limit, such that it means each and everything in the world? Startling as this may be, it is basically what is proposed by Jizang 吉藏 (Chi-tsang; 549-623 CE), the main philosophical exponent of the Sanlun 三論 school of Chinese Buddhism, in his hermeneutical theory of “one name, infinite meanings,” in which one name (ming 名), or one nominal word, is said to bear infinite meanings (yi 義). The theory serves for Jizang as a hermeneutical means for construing Buddhist doctrinal terms to suggest the coincidence of his thought with what he takes to be the real intention behind the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures. It proposes four types of interpretation of word meaning to disclose in a sequence the comprehensive meaning of a nominal word. They are the conventional interpretation (隨名釋), the codependent interpretation (因緣釋), the Way-revealing interpretation (顯道釋), and the nonhindrance interpretation (無方釋). With the four interpretations, a nominal word X means X, non-X, the negation of X or the Way that is not X, and all things whatsoever. The word, then, amounts to have infinite meanings. The present paper seeks to offer an analysis of the theory for elucidating Jizang’s thought on meaning and reference and considering the contemporary significance of the theory. For our purposes, I first sketch certain aspects of Jizang’s philosophy of non-acquisition and discuss his thought concerning the notion of provisional expression. It is pointed out that for Jizang, a root cause of human suffering lies in a definite understanding of things that views the referent of a word as determinate in nature and determinable by the word. Then, I explicate in turn the four types of interpretation. The theory construes the referential function of a word in such a way that once one recognizes that the word has multiple meanings and has comprehended those meanings, one discerns its provisional character and is unlikely to have a definite understanding of its referent. The thing x as expressed by the word X is not a determinate X. Thus, words are to be valued for their intrinsically provisional character. Towards the end of the paper, I attempt to evaluate the theory from within the context of the Buddhist community and beyond the context. It is claimed that the theory may best be viewed as an expedient means for telling us how to use words provisionally without any definite understanding of their referents.

Zen-Buddhist nothingness is the nowhere is there something that is I, or conversely: the I that is the nowhere is there something. (Hisamatsu, FN, 25-26; quoted and trans. in Stambaugh, FS, 76)... it is empty of being. That means that it is beyond all measure ....... it is empty without emptiness. That means that it does not cling to itself.... it possesses nothing. That means that it doesn't possess and also cannot be possessed. (Hisamatsu, FN, 31; quoted and trans. in Stambaugh, FS, 77-8)The emptiness of what is called "emptiness" is referred to as "the emptiness of emptiness" (ʼsūnyatāʼsūnyatā), and it is explained in this way for the purpose of controverting any understanding of emptiness as a[n ontological reference to] "being." (Candrakīrti, EMW, 180)A skillful Zen student will strive to be awakened to an identity with all phenomena, the student him- or herself emptyand continually changing as the phenomena come forth. (Codiga, ZPSP, 108)Zen practice is a means for the enlightenment of bushes and grasses, an activity that has no beginning or end in the vastness of any empty universe. (p. 110).

The role of "skillful means" is examined in relation to the important Mahāyāna philosopher Nāgārjuna, and it is argued that the doctrine of "emptiness" is best understood as a critical reflection on the nature of Buddhist praxis. Whereas traditional Western scholarship sees Nāgārjuna as struggling with certain metaphysical problems, a "skillful means" reading situates his philosophy within a debate about the nature and efficacy of Buddhist practice. Thus, a "skillful means" reading of Nāgārjuna does not ask what it means for causality, the self, or consciousness to be "empty" in a very general sense, but how "emptiness" relates to the soteriological practices of Buddhism and what it means for these practices to be "empty" of inherent nature. It is argued that this situates Nāgārjuna's philosophy within a highly critical, self-reflective movement in the Buddhist tradition.