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Book Notes: "Buddhism and Language: A Study of Indo-Tibetan Scholasticism," by Jose Ignacio Cabezon |
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| Author |
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| Source |
Philosophy East and West
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| Volume | v.46 n.2 |
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| Date | 1996.04 |
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| Pages | 294 - 295 |
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| Publisher | University of Hawaii Press |
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| Publisher Url |
https://uhpress.hawaii.edu/
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| Location | Honolulu, HI, US [檀香山, 夏威夷州, 美國] |
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| Content type | 期刊論文=Journal Article; 書評=Book Review |
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| Language | 英文=English |
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| Note | 690; Book notes.
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| Keyword | Buddhism and Language; Buddhism in Tibet; Buddhism in India; Indian Schools; Tibetan Schools; dGe Lugs Pa School; Cabezon, Jose Ignacio |
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| Abstract | The focus of Buddhism and Language is appropriately narrow for its size，although the suggested implications of the example that it sets are intriguingly broad. This monograph focuses on the views of the dGe lugs pa school of Tibetan Buddhism regarding the nature of language. This includes issues regarding scripture -- its authority，its relationship to doctrine (dharma)，its correct interpretation，and the nature of the activity of writing commentary. It also includes more generally philosophical issues such as the relationship between language and reality，the nature (and the point) of drawing inferences, the ways in which thoughts and statements are validated，and the reason for the Buddha's silence in response to certain metaphysical questions. Because the dGe lugs pa school drew on and responded to a variety of movements--not only in Tibet but also in India -- Indian schools (Vaibhasika, Sautrantika, Pramanika, Prasangika, and Svatantrika) and their representatives (Vasubandhu，Dharmakirti) are drawn into the discussion. (Hence the "Indo-Tibetan" of the subtitle.) To maintain the focus, the author presents the views of these (and of several Tibetan) schools and representatives as they were understood by the dGe lugs pa, and does not raise questions about the accuracy or validity of their interpretations of others.
The broader implications are contained in the word "scholasticism." For the author proposes that the preoccupations characteristic of the Medieval schools in Europe may be found elsewhere in the intellectual history of the world -- not only in movements generated in the "Buddhist universities" of the fifth century C.E. and after but in Jewish, Islamic，and Chinese (specifically Hui Shih, Kung-sun Lung，and Mo Tzu) thought. In short "scholasticism," like "religion," "tabu," and "Kadi-justice," is a term that can usefully be detached from a specific historical context and applied to an identifiable general phenomenon. We have in "scholasticism" a name for certain preoccupations of a highly literate (although the author is open to arguments to extend his category to oral cultures) elite with the problems raised by their reliance on language and texts and，as with the dGe lugs pa, inclined to defend，to whatever extent they can，what in the West is spoken of as the use of reason. |
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| ISSN | 00318221 (P); 15291898 (E) |
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| DOI | 10.2307/1399416 |
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| Hits | 893 |
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| Created date | 2000.11.13; 2002.03.23
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| Modified date | 2019.05.17 |
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