Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (
2023)
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Abstract
Apoha, a Sanskrit term meaning exclusion, was used by the late fifth- to early sixth-century
Buddhist philosopher Dignā ga as a keystone in his theory of denotation. According to Dignā ga, a
word denotes its meaning through the exclusion of what is other (anyā poha). This idea provoked
celebration and controversy that would last through the end of Sanskritic Indian Buddhism. In
the hands of Dignā ga’s successor Dharmakīrti (seventh century), who developed what became
the normative version of this theory, apoha leverages the fact that a causally efficacious real
thing is different from everything else to describe how the interaction between living beings and
their worlds produces judgements that are either shared or not in accord with the various
factors contributing to the judgement’s formation. Dharmakīrti argues that there’s an infinite
number of ways that a real thing could be conceptualised since each real thing is different from
the infinite expanse of other real things. Acting toward a real thing requires delimiting the scope
of what one ignores so that just some of the differences are left over. A living being can afford to
ignore the differences between the differences that are left over in this exclusion because these
differences don’t impact the specific goal based on which the living being judges an object to be
efficacious or not.