According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I (...) clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation. (shrink)

Canonical defenders of the principle of sufficient reason (PSR), such as Leibniz and Spinoza, are metaphysical foundationalists of one stripe or another. This is curious since the PSR—which says that everything has a ground, cause, or explanation—in effect, denies fundamental entities. In this paper, I explore the apparent inconsistency between metaphysical foundationalism and approaches to metaphysical system building that are driven by a commitment to the PSR. I do so by analyzing how Indian Buddhist philosophers arrive at foundationalist and anti-foundationalist (...) positions motivated by implicit commitments to different versions of the PSR. I begin by introducing the Buddhist principle of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) as a proto-PSR that is restricted to causal explanation. Next, I show how Vasubandhu’s Sautrāntika Abhidharma metaphysics is shaped by a qualified commitment to both causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. I then reveal how Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka metaphysics is driven by an unrestricted and exceptionless commitment to causal and metaphysical grounding versions of the PSR. Finally, I consider how Nāgārjuna’s account may put him in a unique position to respond to a common contemporary objection to the PSR from necessitarianism. I conclude by addressing a competing interpretation on which Nāgārjuna is best understood as an anti-rationalist rather than an uber-rationalist, as I characterize him. (shrink)

Universalist and nihilist answers to philosophical questions may be extreme, but they are clear enough. Aliquidist answers, by contrast, are typically caught between the Scylla of vagueness and indeterminacy and the Charybdis of ungroundedness and arbitrariness, and steering a proper middle course—saying exactly where in the middle one is going to settle—demands exceptional navigating powers. I myself tend to favor extreme answers precisely for this reason. Here, however, I consider one sense in which Something may claim superiority over its polar (...) competitors, Everything and Nothing, when it comes to answerting the ontological question, “What is there?”. (shrink)

On the basis of Nāgārjuna’s works, especially the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, this paper proposes a sceptic presupposition as the departure point of Nāgārjuna’s refutations. This presupposition invalidates perceptual knowledge, and thus the identities of existents can only be deemed as referents assumed by concepts. Then the “confinement principle,” a theorem tacitly applied in Nāgārjuna’s arguments, is justified, i.e., any definition or description of a concept would necessarily confine its assumed referent to an invariable and isolated state. This principle enables Nāgārjuna to deduce (...) contradictions between the static and isolated nature of the assumed referent, and the activity in which it must be involved. Notions of both a static identity and its activity are deep-rooted in all referential mental activities of sentient beings. Hence all concepts are found to be self-contradictory and therefore devoid of referents, namely, empty. Thus, Nāgārjuna is refuting the whole intelligible world, and his position can be identified as epistemological nihilism—nothing within our ken can possibly be. (shrink)

This paper attempts to dissolve an apparent difficulty arising in the philosophy of language as discussed by the Indian Buddhist Madhyamaka school. On the one hand Madhyamaka seems to be claiming that every entity is fundamentally linguistic in nature, on the other hand it also asserts that language does not exist. I argue that the difficulty is to be dissolved by distinguishing two different senses of language appealed to by the Mādhyamikas. They argue that one specific understanding of language is (...) deficient (and that therefore language thus understood does not exist), but this is not the same sense of language according to which everything is linguistic in nature. The apparent contradiction is thereby resolved. (shrink)

This article seeks to introduce a greater degree of precision into our understanding of Madhyamaka Buddhist ontological non-foundationalism, focussing specifically on the Madhyamaka founder Nāgārjuna (c. 150–250 CE). It distinguishes four senses of what the ‘foundation’ whose existence Mādhyamikas deny means; that is, (1) as ‘something that stands under or grounds things’ (a position known as generic substantialism); (2) as ‘a particular kind of basic entity’ (specific substantialism); (3) as ‘an individual essence (a haecceity or thisness of that object) by (...) means of which it is identical to that very object, to itself’ (modal essentialism); and (4) as ‘an essence in the absence of which an object could be of a radically different kind or sort of object than it in fact is’ (sortal essentialism). It then proceeds to delineate the Madhyamaka refutation of the specific substantialist position in terms of its argued denial of dharma as basic entity; of generic substantialism and modal essentialism in terms of its argued denial of svabhāva as both foundation for and essence of putative entities; and of sortal essentialism in terms of its argued denial of essentialist conceptions of conceptual thought (vikalpa), mental construction (prapañca), and in short the entire domain of ratiocination (kalpanā), by means of its notion of conceptual imputation (prajñaptir upādāya)—a denial strictly speaking ontological, but of what are putative epistemic entities. The final portion of the article explains the relationship of ontological to other forms of non-foundationalism according to Madhyamaka. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders the notion that Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein’s Tractatus may only be seen as comparable under a shared ineffability thesis, that is, the idea that reality is impossible to describe in sensible discourse. Historically, Nagarjuna and the early Wittgenstein have both been widely construed as offering either metaphysical theories or attempts to refute all such theories. Instead, by employing an interpretive framework based on a ‘resolute’ reading of the Tractatus, I suggest we see their philosophical affinity in terms of (...) a shared conception of philosophical method without proposing theses. In doing so, this offers us a new way to understand Nagarjuna’s characteristic claims both to have ‘no views’ and refusal to accept that things exist ‘inherently’ or with ‘essence’. Therefore, instead of either a view about the nature of a mind-independent ‘ultimate reality’ or a thesis concerning the rejection of such a domain, I propose that we understand Nagarjuna’s primary aim as ‘therapeutic’, that is, concerned with the dissolution of philosophical problems. However, this ‘therapy’ should neither be confined to the psychotherapeutic metaphor nor should it be taken to imply a private enlightenment only available to philosophers. Instead, for Nagarjuna and Wittgenstein, philosophical problems are cast as a source of disquiet for all of us; what their work offers is a soteriology, a means towards our salvation. (shrink)

This paper seeks to reconstruct the meaning of existence in the Pāli discourses of the Buddha by considering how the notion is used in the most systematic contexts in which it appears, and how it could be best interpreted. The discourses are concerned with how existence is used to support and consolidate a certain attitude of ownership, appropriation, and entitlement over contents of experience, in virtue of which one can claim that this or that is ‘mine’. The problem with this (...) move is that it seems to require a degree of stability that is at odds with the fundamental uncertainty (anicca) of all conditioned realities. Existence is used to somehow cover up uncertainty, and thus allow for a semblance of genuine ownership and possession, while in fact possession and ownership are just deluded views doomed to be contradicted by the structural uncertainty of actual experience. This reading entails that the early discourses do share with later traditions an anti-realist inspiration, which is worth exploring in its own right. (shrink)

Extant discussions of Buddhist mereology give minimal attention to the soteriological significance of denying the reality of wholes. This is unfortunate, because the connection between mereology and soteriological is both significant and problematic. The connection is significant, because it supports an argument for the unreality of composite wholes that does not depend upon any claim about the nature of wholes. The connection is also problematic, because some Buddhists endorse the soteriological relevance of mereology despite admitting that composite wholes are real. (...) I address these issues by reviewing early Pāli Buddhist attitudes toward the soteriological significance of mereology, developing an argument for the unreality of wholes from the work of Buddhaghosa, and explicating an alternative approach from the Chinese tradition of Huayan 華嚴 Buddhism that calls into question some common assumptions about parts and wholes. (shrink)

This paper is a preliminary study of Bhāviveka’s Svātantrika-Mādhyamika justifications for taking non-existent things as the subject of an inference, based on his Dacheng Zhangzhen Lun. Bhāviveka’s treatment of inference is similar to that of Dignāga in that the subject is required to be existent. Bhāviveka also holds that, in a conventional sense, words refer to universals and to the existent entities that possess them, while the two are cognised together. However, in his inference for the unreality of unconditioned things, (...) he likens these things to a sky-flower that never arises and is unreal even conventionally. This paper first demonstrates how taking unconditioned things as the subject of an inference can be problematic for Bhāviveka. Then, it discusses Bhāviveka’s attempts to address the problems by subsuming the unconditioned things under the domain of conventional reality. The paper concludes that these attempts show his flexibility in terms of what is taken as conventionally real. (shrink)

This paper supports the thesis that nihilistic interpretations of Madhyamaka philosophy derive from generally antirealistic and/or metaphysical approaches to Nāgārjuna’s thought. However, the arguments and many images by way of which the author of the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā and his Indian commentators defend themselves from the charge of nihilism show limits in these approaches, and rather confirm that Nāgārjuna’s philosophy should be read as a theoretical proposal that is at once realistic and antimetaphysical. The epistemology inherent to the soteriological dimension of the (...) Buddha’s teaching, of which Nāgārjuna presents himself as a faithful continuer, assesses on the one hand the accomplishment of a ‘cognitive revolution’ consisting in the achievement of a new vision of reality and on the other the avoidance of any metaphysical description of the same vision. Comprehension of the Madhyamaka philosophical enterprise through a realistic-antimetaphysical lens seems to hinder and prevent the possibility of any nihilistic interpretation of Nāgārjuna. (shrink)

Through a philosophical analysis of realist interpretations of Madhyamaka Buddhism, I will argue that the Madhyamaka is not well represented when it is represented as nihilism, absolutism or as some non-metaphysical alternative. Indeed, I will argue that the Madhyamaka is misrepresented when it is represented as anything; its radical context sensitivity entails that it cannot be autonomously volunteered. The Madhyamaka analysis disrupts the ontic and epistemic presuppositions that consider inherent existence and absolute truth to be possible and necessary, and so (...) the ultimate truth, śūnyatā, is not an absolute truth or ultimate reality. However, I will argue that śūnyatā does qualify as a universal truth and should be understood as a context-insensitive, non-propositional truth in a non-dual dependent relationship with the multitudinous context-sensitive, propositional truths. This analysis will prove helpful in an investigation of those tensions, discernible within Buddhist modernism and the discourse of scientific Buddhism, that arise when Buddhist apologists claim a timeless modernity and a non-hostility with respect to contemporary worldviews. I will argue that apologists can resolve these tensions and satisfy their intuitions of timelessness, but only if they are willing to foreground the crucial distinction between their Buddhist worldview (their context-sensitive propositional truths) and their Madhyamaka attitude towards that worldview (the context-insensitive truth of śūnyatā). I will go on to generalise this result, showing that this Madhyamaka analysis opens up the possibility for frictionless co-operation between any and all worldviews, and that we therefore have a philosophical basis for a workable and sensitive theory of worldview pluralism. I will find it necessary to defend this position by demonstrating that, despite its context-insensitivity, the ultimate truth’s non-dual relationship with conventional truth mitigates against moral and epistemic relativism. I will further substantiate my claim as to the universal truth of śūnyatā by showing that, in Karan Barad’s ‘agential realism’, we find a revealing example of śūnyatā being articulated from within a non-Buddhist context. Thus, I hope to demonstrate some of the good effects of the Madhyamaka message, and show that this message can only be communicated clearly when it is distinguished from the discourses of Buddhism. In this manner, not by giving it a voice but through finding its voiceless authority, I hope to enable the Madhyamaka speak to the West. (shrink)