Concept tag
#apoha
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What is apoha, and how can a word mean something by excluding everything else?
I'm a poet and new to formal philosophy, so please be gentle. In a seminar on translation someone mentioned that the Buddhist philosopher Dignāga held that the word “cow” means something like “not non-cow”. Everyone nodded. I laughed, because it sounded like…
Started by Kavya Menon4 replies202 views -
How is apoha supposed to work? ‘Cow’ means ‘not non-cow’ sounds circular to me
I teach mathematics, and when I read that Dignāga's theory of meaning says a word like "cow" works by exclusion, meaning roughly "not non-cow", my first reaction was the one I would have to a student's proof: this is circular. To exclude…
Started by Vikram Sethi5 replies194 views -
Dignāga’s apoha and Frege’s sense are answers to different questions
In my MA seminar this term somebody summarised apoha as "basically Frege's sense", and someone else said "no, it's Saussure: meaning by difference". I want to resist both, or at least slow them down. Dignāga's claim (c. 480–540) is that a word…
Started by Meera Kulkarni4 replies174 views -
What is apoha, and does defining by exclusion help with the frog-and-fly problem?
I teach philosophy of language in Lund, and my hobby is reading Sanskrit philosophers in translation and noticing where they reached our problems first. I would like a clear explanation of one idea I only half understand. Dignāga, the fifth- and sixth-century…
Started by Oskar Nyberg4 replies170 views