Meditation Transcending Signs: Seven Concepts for a Buddhist Psychosemiotics
Philosophies January 12, 2026 Peer reviewed DOI: 10.3390/philosophies11010007 via OpenAlex
Summary
This paper reviews how Pāli Buddhist texts portray language and cognition as deeply intertwined. It examines how signs structure cognitive processes and how semiosis—the production of meaning—drives the proliferation of concepts and perceptions, organizing a shared yet partly subjective world. Drawing on linguistics, semiotics, and biosemiotics, the author provides a vocabulary for understanding these Buddhist ideas and traces why language became central in Pāli Buddhism.
Study at a glance
| Design | theoretical or philosophical paper |
|---|---|
| Key finding | In Pāli Buddhist texts, language and cognition are fundamentally linked, with semiosis organizing a shared and partly subjective world. |
Abstract
This paper aims to provide an in-depth and detailed overview of the relationship between language and cognition in Pāli Buddhist texts. These reflections will touch on several fundamental themes, such as the role of signs in structuring cognitive processes and semiosis as a force linked to the proliferation of concepts and percepts, whose organization underlies the constitution of a shared and partly subjective “world”. The paper will engage with linguistics, semiotics, and biosemiotics in order to acquire a vocabulary capable of better understanding the Buddhist reflections on these issues, and, where possible, it will also offer a genealogical inquiry that explains why the theme of language takes on the pivotal role it holds in Pāli Buddhism.