Democritus’ atomism aims to respond to threats of Parmenidean monism. In so doing, it deploys a familiar epistemological distinction between what is known by the senses and what is known by the mind. This turns out to be a risky strategy, however, leading to inadvertent skepticism with only diffuse and contrary ethical implications. Vasubandhu’s more explicitly metaphysical atomism, by contrast, relies on a different principle to get to its results, and aims to address different concerns. It leaves us with a (...) view that positively implies a concrete mode of practical engagement, and resources for a critical stance. Even if certain atoms end up proven incoherent, there is no danger of slipping into the morally fatal indifference of inadvertent skepticism. For the ethical implications, it matters how one arrives at one’s atomism. (shrink)

This paper examines four central issues prompted by Thompson's recent critique of the Buddhist modernism phenomenon: (i) the suitability of evolutionary psychology as a framework of analysis for Buddhist moral psychological ideas; (ii) the issue of what counts as the core and main trajectory of the Buddhist intellectual tradition; (iii) the scope of naturalism in the relation between science and metaphysics, and (iv) whether a Madhyamaka-inspired anti-foundationalism stance can serve as an effective platform for debating the issue of progress in (...) science. The main argument of this paper is that while the mind sciences may corroborate some aspects of the Buddhist model of mind, they also call into question some core Buddhist ideas. Hence, if Buddhism is to enter into a fruitful dialogue with the mind sciences, it must be shown to complement the empirical claims to knowledge for which scientific naturalism so far provides the most viable basis. (shrink)

Fictionalism is the view that the claims of a target discourse are best seen as being fictional in some way, as being expressed in some pretense manner, or as not being about the traditional posits of the discourse. The contemporary taxonomy of fictionalist views is quite elaborate. Yet, there is a version of fictionalism that has failed to develop and which corresponds to the earliest form of the view found in the history of philosophy, East and West. I call this (...) view “reactionary fictionalism.” I argue that traces of reactionary fictionalism can be found in Classical Daoism, Madhyamaka Buddhism, and Pyrrhonian Skepticism. Reactionary fictionalism is a kind of fictionalism that differs from both the hermeneutic and revolutionary kinds discussed today. Hermeneutic fictionalism says we already treat the claims of a target discourse in a fictional manner. Revolutionary fictionalism recommends we all start treating the claims of a target discourse in a fictional manner for reasons mostly of social utility. Reactionary fictionalism recommends, by contrast, that only those concerned with obtaining maximal therapeutic release from the pathology of literally asserting genuine beliefs in the claims of a target discourse should react in a pretense manner to inescapable contexts demanding the use of the claims of that discourse. I aim to show that reactionary fictionalism was a technique utilized in premodern skeptical traditions as a means for enduring one's condemnation to near‐permanent sociality. I recommend slotting reactionary fictionalism into our present taxonomy once we note that employing fictionalism can have a primarily therapeutic motivation and not merely a semantic, epistemic, or metaphysical one. (shrink)

Questions regarding what exists are central to various forms of Buddhist philosophy, as they are to many traditions of philosophy. Interestingly, there is perhaps a clearer consensus in Buddhist thought regarding what does not exist than there may be regarding precisely what does exist, at least insofar as the doctrine of anātman (no self, absence of self) is taken to be a fundamental Buddhist doctrine. It may be noted that many forms of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy in particular are considered to (...) offer a quite austere ontology—a rather ‘empty’ account of what exists. Continuing in this vein of ontological austerity, here I will attempt to lay out a relatively novel approach to Buddhist ontology, viz. Buddhist fictionalism. (shrink)

The first Chapter of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā offers a critique of causation that includes the Abhidharmic category of the ‘four conditions’. Following the South-Asian commentarial tradition, this article discusses the precise relationship between Madhyamaka philosophy and its fundamental Abhidharmic background. What comes to light is a more precise assessment of Madhyamaka ideas about viable conventions, understood as the process of dependent arising. Since this is primarily in the sense of conceptual dependence, it involves sentiency as a necessary causal element, and the (...) relationship between sentiency and conceptuality is highlighted by Nāgārjuna and his commentators. Viable conventions exclude the possibility of a non-contingent core, and the systems and categories that revolve around such non-contingent element (ātman) are discarded by the Madhyamaka even at a conventional level. (shrink)

In this paper I probe the narratively constructed self as a _proper object of negation_ in the Madhyamaka. The paper borrows idioms and tropes from Western theories of the narrative self to illuminate and contemporize the discussion. Since Mādhyamikas reject the two-tiered interpretation of the Buddhist two truths, they are philosophically unobligated to reduce the self. Although both Mādhyamikas and Ābhidharmikas would accept the conceptually constructed self as conventionally real, they would disagree about its ontological significance. For the latter, the (...) narrative self as a conceptual construct necessitates reduction. Mādhyamikas, who reject the _svabhāva-dharma_ architecture, can be less dismissive of the conventional self. Their conventional self is a narrative construct, but of what kind? The paper tries to answer that question by bringing Mādhyamikas into interlocution with select modern narrative self theorists. It divides into two sub-sections. Each pivots on a theme about the narrative self in contemporary discourse. The first asks how important is ethics for the constitution of the conventional self. The second discusses fictionality of the self in the Madhyamaka. (shrink)

In recent years, scholars have become increasingly interested in reconstructing a Buddhist stance on the free will problem. Since then, Buddhism has been variously described as implicitly hard determinist, paleo-compatibilist, neo-compatibilist and libertarian. Some scholars, however, question the legitimacy of Buddhist free will theorizing, arguing that Buddhism does not share sufficiently many presuppositions required to articulate the problem. This paper argues that, though Buddhist and Western versions of the free will problem are not perfectly isomorphic, a problem analogous to that (...) expressed in Western philosophy emerges within the Buddhist framework. This analogous problem concerns the difficulty of explaining karmic responsibility in a world governed by dependent origination. This paper seeks to reconstruct an approach to free will consistent with Madhyamaka philosophy and, in so doing, to demonstrate that the mutual exclusivity of positions such as hard determinism and libertarianism is, from the Madhyamaka perspective, merely superficial. By building on the perspectivalist theory advanced by Daniel Breyer, it is clear that a Madhyamaka stance on free will demands the wholesale abandonment of perspectives, such that the idea of any one solution as definitive is disavowed. Taken to its logical conclusion, therefore, perspectivalism entails the relative truth of perspectivalism itself. (shrink)

Madhyamaka philosophers, like most Buddhist authors writing in Sanskrit and Pāli, often express their philosophical positions through the etymological expansion and interpretation of specific key terms. Their format and style reflect an attitude towards language that, while being largely shared by the entire Sanskrit tradition, is also attuned to uniquely Buddhist concerns. I shall here reconstruct and discuss some Sanskrit and Pāli etymologies, offering a possible context for the understanding of Madhyamaka thought in India. As it would be unfeasible to (...) analyze a large amount of terms, I focus on a few expressions that bear upon the question of how Mādhyamikas understand language, both as actual linguistic expression and, more broadly/figuratively, as the activity of conceptualization. I will propose a specific reading of the Sanskrit sources in terms of linguistic, lexical, and philosophical analysis. In particular, I interpret Candrakīrti as advocating a layered view of conventional truths. He restricts the perceptions and thoughts that may qualify as conventionally valid, so as to exclude impaired perception or distorting philosophical stances. These restrictions are embedded in his etymological explanation of key philosophical terms. In brief, when Candrakīrti discusses ‘worldly conventions’ or refers to ‘what is established in the world’, not everyone fits in his ‘world’. (shrink)

The paper taps the agency of the imaginary interlocutor in the _Mūlamadhyamakakārikā_ of Nāgārjuna to delineate _existential anguish_ in the Madhyamaka. The paper asks whether the protestations of the imaginary interlocutor cannot be recast as _anguished_. It claims that an objection to emptiness (_śūnyatā_) can be voiced even after the metaphysical commitment to _intrinsic existence_ (_svabhāva_) has been relinquished. By interpolating _anguish_ into the Madhyamaka, the paper posits an unorthodox phenomenological objection to _śūnyatā_.