Perhaps no other classical philosophical tradition, East or West, offers a more complex and counter-intuitive account of mind and mental phenomena than Buddhism. While Buddhists share with other Indian philosophers the view that the domain of the mental encompasses a set of interrelated faculties and processes, they do not associate mental phenomena with the activity of a substantial, independent, and enduring self or agent. Rather, Buddhist theories of mind center on the doctrine of no-self (Pāli anatta, Skt.[1] anātma), which postulates (...) that human beings are reducible to the physical and psychological constituents and processes which comprise them. (shrink)

In this paper, I attempt a further elucidation and defense of some of the things I said in my article “Critical Reflections on Nāgārjuna’s Vigrahavyāvartanī” and a response to Professor Claus Oetke’s criticisms :371–394, 2012) of “a number of views which have been propagated” by me in my article. Although some additional issues have been raised, broadly, the themes addressed here are the same three as were the object of my investigation in that paper: namely, Nāgārjuna’s emptiness doctrine; his denial (...) that he has any thesis to advance or buttress; and his onslaught on the pramāṇa theory. Toward the end I argue that if I understand Nāgārjuna correctly, then what that thinker ends up providing is a criterion, not of reality, but of unreality, and that this stance, speaking philosophically, is tantamount to nihilism. (shrink)

This article examines the issue of the paradoxicality of institution, de-institutionalization, or the counter-institutionalization in classical Chan thought by focusing on the texts of Hongzhou School. It first analyzes the problem of 20th century scholars in characterizing the Chan attitude toward institution as iconoclasts, and the problem of the recent tendency to return to images of the Chan masters as traditionalists, as opposed to iconoclasts. Both problems are examples of imposing an oppositional way of thinking on the Chan masters. The (...) essay then introduces a new paradigm for interpreting the Chan attitude toward institution, the model of de-institutionalization, which borrows certain insights from Derrida’s idea of the counter-institutional. However, the new model is supported by the Chan heritage of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. This model can more consistently construe the Chan understanding of the paradoxicality of institution, the subtle Chan relationship of being “with and against” institution, and the Chan “middle way” to make institution remain open to its outside and to transformation. (shrink)

The sublime has been a baffling concept since its introduction by Longinus nearly two thousand years ago. What do we mean when we say something is sublime? This paper will attempt to answer that question by proposing a radical new theory of the sublime, examining the aesthetic experience called the sublime through the lens of the Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophical view of emptiness (Skt. śūnyatā). Drawing on Guy Sircello’s work (1993), I critique traditional Western accounts of the sublime, with their explicit (...) or implicit—but always problematic—commitments to epistemological and ontological transcendence. A brief summary of the Madhyamaka Buddhist view of emptiness, as elucidated in the Prajñāpāramitā literature, Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, and elsewhere, provides a context for examining the dialectic of the sublime and emptiness. I make the argument that the sublime experience is, in fact, an experience of emptiness. I conclude by surveying five years of the early work of visual artist Robert Rauschenberg, which express the open, clear, vivid, and unselfconscious space of emptiness in his approach to, and process of, artistic expression. (shrink)

This work will argue that Mahāyāna philosophy need not result in endorsement of some cosmic Absolute in the vein of the Advaitin ātman-Brahman. Scholars such as Bhattacharya, Albahari and Murti argue that the Buddha at no point denied the existence of a cosmic ātman, and instead only denied a localised, individual ātman (what amounts to a jīva). The idea behind this, then, is that the Buddha was in effect an Advaitin, analysing experience and advocating liberation in an Advaitin sense: through (...) a rejection of the individual ātman and knowledge (jñāna) of and immersion into the universal ātman-Brahman. I will explore how different religious traditions define and shape the Absolute according to their own religious convictions, illustrating a divergence in conception from the very start, before exploring key differences between the Advaitin conception of the Absolute as put forth by Śaṅkara and as defended by Bhattacharya in The Ātman-Brahman in Ancient Buddhism. I then challenge Bhattacharya’s claims that prajñāpāramitā literature necessarily endorses the ātman-Brahman and that Mahāyāna philosophies reorientate Buddhists towards the truth of the ātman-Brahman. I do this by arguing that there are viable interpretations of Vasubandhu’s Yogācāra and Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka that do not advocate such a belief, that prajñāpāramitā literature can be viewed as a project in episteme rather than ontology, and that we need not find a ground of the same sort as the ātman-Brahman in the Buddhist flux of experience. I conclude by showing that whilst Absolutism is a theme in some schools of Buddhism, it need not be – contra Bhattacharya – the conclusion of two major Mahāyāna philosophies. (shrink)

Everyone, with the possible exception of those who are really good at it, is personally familiar with the phenomenon of self-deception. Anyone who has been conscious of struggling with a temptation to do what goes against her own better judgment and has then found justification for yielding to temptation is familiar with self-deception. So if I may be allowed to begin with the assumption that most of us have experienced a phenomenon that we would identify as some form of self-deception, (...) what I shall try to do in this paper is to examine how one particular theory of personal identity can account for the phenomenon. Having done that, I shall look into the question of one of the mechanisms of self-deception and then into the question of whether there are occasions in which the mechanisms of self-deception may be regarded as producing more positive results. (shrink)

This paper challenges the notion that there is a complete continuity between the thought of Nāgārjuna and the thought of Candrakīrti. It is shown that there is strong reason to doubt Candrakīrti’s gloss of Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (MMK) 2.1, and that Candrakīrti’s peculiar reading of this verse causes him to alter the context of the discussion in the four cases in which Nāgārjuna quotes MMK 2.1 later in the text—MMK 3.3, 7.14, 10.13 and 16.7. The innovation produced by Candrakīrti is next contrasted (...) to Nāgārjuna’s style of argument, and it is shown that these two author’s notions of emptiness, as well as their particular implementation of Madhyamaka logic, significantly diverge from each other. Finally, Candrakīrti’s reading of these verses is compared with his commentary on MMK 15 so as to suggest a possible subtle metaphysical position that is at the base of his thinking. (shrink)

. Arguing that the revolution in postmodern physics is concerned essentially not with a change in paradigm but with a change in interpretive standpoint, this paper explores a parallel between the aetiology of disease in Buddhism and the interpretive standpoint introduced by twentieth‐century quantum physics. The paper suggests a need to revise central interpretive assumptions of the natural and human sciences, including the traditional projection of an atomistic self.

A pivotal focus of exegesis of Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārïkā (MMK) for the past half century has been the attempt to decipher the text's philosophy of language, and determine how this best aids us in characterizing Madhyamaka thought as a whole. In this vein, MMK 24:18 has been judged of particular weight insofar as it purportedly insists that the concepts pratītyasamutpāda (conditioned co-arising) and śūnyatā (emptiness), both indispensable to Buddhist praxis, are themselves only "nominal" or "conventional," that is, they are merely labels (...) that do not referentially signify anything that can be taken to be an ontologically ultimate reality. In various guises, as a result of this explication, Nāgārjuna's thought has been seen to embrace an overarching linguistic nominalism or conventionalism in which words, whether they are used for the purposes of theory or practice, though they serve as commonly accepted currency in the transactions of worldly business (vyavahāra), are in the end only ideas (prajñapti) or metaphysical fabrications (prapanca). This interpretation is largely due to tenaciously inaccurate translations and expositions of MMK 24:18 and their dependence on Candrakīrti's peculiar analysis of this verse in his Prasannapadā. This essay will attempt to correct both the diction of the major translations of MMK 24:18 and the fictions of nominalism and conventionalism that the consequent interpretations of this stanza have perpetuated. The argument that will be developed in the course of this essay is that Candrakīrti's reading of this verse proffers a strong form of linguistic nominalism that Nāgārjuna himself does not embrace. It will be shown, based on everything else found in the MMK, that Nāgārjuna, rather than advocating the mere nominal or conventional status of terms such as pratītyasamutpāda and sunyata, demands they be accepted as both pedagogically useful and even referentially accurate descriptions of the world as it is. (shrink)

This paper critically examines Ken Wilber's transpersonal evolutionary theory in the context of the philosophical discourse of postmodernity. The critique focuses on Wilber's refutation of non?absolutist and non?universalist approaches to rationality, truth, and morality?such as cultural relativism, pluralism, constructivism or perspectivism?under the charges of being epistemologically self?refuting and morally pernicious. First, it is suggested that Wilber offers a faulty dichotomy between his absolutist?universalist metanarrative and a self?contradictory and pernicious vulgar relativism. Second, it is shown that Wilber's arguments for the self?refuting (...) and pernicious nature of other non?absolutist approaches are both fallacious and distorting. Finally, the problematic consequences of absolutist discourse for academic and cross?cultural dialogue are pinpointed. Taking Wilber's treatment of Nagarjuna's thinking as a paradigmatic example, it is suggested that absolutist thinking both usually leads to ?bad? hermeneutics, and potentially hinders genuine dialogue among people and traditions holding different world views. (shrink)

Buddhist teachings and practices can be viewed as a journey of soteriological transformation, where language, as a tool for the analysis of views, occupies a place of special significance and importance. This article examines how the concept of non-duality, from the Madhyamaka perspective, has served as a powerful rhetorical device with the explicit aim of fostering soteriological transformation. Among the various expressions representative of the Madhyamaka perspective, two are particularly explored in this article for their facilitation of soteriological transformation: the (...) expression of ‘neither a dharma nor a not-dharma’ and the teaching that ‘one should let go even of dharmas, still more so not-dharmas’ . I argue that the Madhyamaka expression of ‘neither A nor not-A’ is hardly ever just about conforming to any linguistic conventions. It is about gaining liberation from linguistic conventions and unexamined remarks. (shrink)

Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda, whilst accepting much of the argumentation and style of Nāgārjuna's philosophy, aligns himself firmly with the ātman/ svabhāvatā tradition of Vedānta; his view of ātman is inspired by an absorption of Nāgārjuna's dialectical method. For both Nāgārjuna and Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda, the basis of both the Madhyamaka and Advaitic perspectives is the impossibility of change (na anyathabhāva). For Nāgārjuna this entails ni $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{h}$$ svabhāvatā, for Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda it means absolute svabhāvatā. Both accept that the belief in (...) an ‘own nature’ (which amounts to all views of reality) entails a non-active, unchanging absolute. Nāgārjuna takes this as grounds for a rejection of svabhāvatā, Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda accepts this as proof of its reality. The real dividing line between the two thinkers is on the question of the necessity (or not) of even positing a ‘nature’ to things. Nāgārjuna denies the possibility of an underlying and unchanging substratum behind all manifestations, Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda argues that for there to be an appearance there must be a thing that appears. It is this point, the debate over ātman (svabhāva) or anātman (ni $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{h}$$ svabhāva) at its most fundamental level, that is the real dividing line between the philosophies of the Buddhist and the Advaita Vedāntin. (shrink)