 Ueda Shizuteru (1926– ), a member of the Kyoto School, has developed a detailed theory of language along similar lines (JPS 766–84). Like Zen Master Dōgen, Ueda argues language translates the empty, not-yet-meaningful “pre-thing” (Vor-sache) into a thing with meaning. Having evoked that meaning, the word recedes back into the hollow void and the thing takes its place in the totality we call “world.” If we need to subsequently point to those things, we can again call up the word that originally conjured up the thing since the word-thing link has already been established and the word can simply refer back to that link without creating anything new. That is not the whole story, however. There are other words (fictional, metaphorical, poetic expressions) that do not point to such things in the world at all but are “hollow words.” Such words are not about things as much as they are about words themselves or, better stated, about how words work. Ueda claims, therefore, that through poetic and religious language, we do not learn about things, but about the origin of things, about how the “world” came into being and how meaning is generated. 