Meditation Transcending Signs: Seven Concepts for a Buddhist Psychosemiotics

In Pāli Buddhist texts, language and cognition are deeply intertwined: signs structure cognitive processes and semiosis drives the proliferation of concepts and percepts, organizing a shared yet partly subjective world. Drawing on linguistics, semiotics, and biosemiotics, the paper provides a vocabulary for understanding Buddhist reflections on these issues and offers a genealogical inquiry into why language holds a pivotal role in Pāli Buddhism.

Study at a glance

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.