The present volume of Proceedings of the Workshop “Il segno e il vuoto” (April 8-9, 2011) hosted by the Dipartimento di Filologia Classica, Glottologia e Scienze Storiche dell'Antichità e del Medioevo” of the University of Cagliari, follows a common thread, which is robust and identifiable, even though it is not explicitly stated. It is a survey, albeit by far incomplete, of the debates, difficulties and provisional answers raised in classical Indian culture with some excursions outside by the awareness of the existence of some asymmetries or dissonances within the otherwise well established casual pattern found in phenomenal, linguistic or aesthetic reality. Its boldest expression coincides with the well known mādhyamika Buddhist refusal of the svabhāva of any phenomenon, i.e. with the metaphysic cancellation of the intrinsic nature of each appearance, which as a consequence relies on its absolute ‘depending upon other nature’ (parabhāva) or on the ‘dependent origination’ (pratītyasamutpāda). Precisely by means of a reflection on the conceptual dependence between the three linguistically considered factors e.g. of movement, i.e. action, agent and object of going, Nāgarjuna shows that cause and effect cannot be endowed with an intrinsic nature (svabhāva). Otherwise the movement itself should be suppressed. The relevant background is of course the idea of the world which results as “becoming” instead of as “being”.

In linguistic terms, such speculation focused on the non-homogeneous relationship occurring between the phono-mor-phological level of the communication (a sign, in Saussurian terms) and the conveyed meanings (or the signified), and has long been developed and discussed, through the advancement of solutions quite distant from each other.