ABSTRACT
With historical hindsight, it might be argued that what integra-
tionists are proposing is not so much a rethink of modern linguistics
as a return to a much older tradition in the philosophy of language.
A problem which arises quite early on in both European and Indian
reflections on language is how to reconcile the idea (i) that words
and meanings persist through time, with the idea (ii) that every
utterance is spatio-temporally unique. In the Indian tradition,
Nagarjuna’s Refutation of Logic (Vaidalyaprakarana) is one example
of a Buddhist text in which the author undertakes to demonstrate
that there is no continuity which validates the concept of ‘repetition’
of what was said. An apparently parallel contention in the Western
tradition is Heracleitus’s claim that one cannot step into the same
river twice. Although Heracleitus left no text specifically addressed
to the question of language, it seems clear that his claim threatens to
undermine the whole basis of grammar as developed by the Greeks
and their European successors. In fact, what emerged as mainstream
European grammar can be seen as oriented quite specifically
towards avoiding or at least circumscribing this problem. The formal
engagement of language with time is carefully restricted by the
grammarians to the tense systems of verbs and one or two other
aspects of deixis. Elsewhere it is excluded absolutely, as if the rest of
language were untouched by it. That paranoid exclusion is
Heracleitus’s unwitting but enduring contribution to Western
linguistics.
