Pratyabhijñā Apoha Theory, Shannon–Weaver Information, Saussurean Structure, and Peircean Interpretant Agency

Abstract

This paper builds upon my earlier studies in interpreting interculturally how the Kashmiri nondual Śaiva thinkers Upaladeva (c. 900–950 CE) and Abhinavagupta (c. 950–1020 CE) in their Pratyabhijñā philosophical theology respond to and reinterpret the Buddhist semantic theory of reference as the exclusion of the inapplicable (anyāpoha). It engages the issues in the Pratyabhijñā debate with the Buddhists, with the interrelations of Claude Shannon and Warren Weaver’s theory of Information, Saussurean structuralist semiotics, and Peircean pragmatic semiotics.

Keywords

• Nondual Kashmir Śaivism
• Pratyabhijñā
• Utpaladeva
• Abhinavagupta
• Yogācāra
• Dignāga
• Dharmakīrti
• apoha
• information theory
• Claude E. Shannon
• Warren Weaver
• structuralism
• Ferdinand de Saussure
• pragmatic semiotics
• Charles Sanders Peirce