The Buddhist 'exclusion' theory of meaning: a word such as 'cow' denotes not a real universal but the exclusion of everything that is not a cow ('not-non-cow'). Nyaya rejected it in defence of real universals.

Where this term appears

• What is Nyaya? Philosophy →

  There is no real universal cowness spread across all cows, Dignaga held; the word "cow" works by apoha , exclusion, by marking off what is simply not a non-cow.

← All terms · Search the site