ABSTRACT
Buddhist and deconstructionist systems distinguish three semiotic models: The vulgar person's model, The noble person's model and The enlightened. The pre-Derridean anti-metaphysicians and the Derridean deconstructionists describe it as the determination of the meaning of being in terms of Vorhandenheit. Western champions of reason and critics of metaphysics give vulgar empiricism and naïve realism a very low grade. Madhyamaka and Vijñānavāda reject the vulgar model for the same reason Sarvāstivāda and Sautrāntika refute it, but they classify the Hīnayāna analytic model as a 'Small Vehicle'. For Derrida, early anti-metaphysicians and structuralists, in seeking the singularity of the signless, have forgotten that the singular can be recognised as such only when it is legible. The naïve critics of metaphysics, determining the identity of a sign, follow the principle of difference and forget the fact that difference presupposes identity. The assertion of the doctrine of emptiness. As this doctrine derives its meaning from etiological investigation, is essentially semiotics rather than ontology.
