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)

Is Buddhism’s attitude towards accepted forms of knowledge sceptical? Are Pyrrhonian scepticism and classical Buddhist scholasticism related in their respective applications and expressions of doubt? In what way and to what degree is Critical Buddhism an offshoot of modern scepticism? Questions such as these as well as related issues are explored in the present collection, which brings together examinations of systematic doubt in the traditions of Buddhism from a variety of perspectives. What results from the perceptive observations and profound analytical (...) insights of the seven essays is a rich and multi-faceted picture of two families of philosophical systems—scepticism and Buddhism—that seem both akin and at odds, both related and distant at the same time. (shrink)

The Dalai Lama is fond of quoting a verse attributed to the Buddha to the effect that as the wise examine carefully gold by burning, cutting and polishing it, so the Buddha's followers should embrace his words after examining them critically and not just out of respect for the Master. A role for critical thought has been accepted by all Buddhists, although during two and a half millennia of sophisticated doctrinal development the exact nature, role and range of critical thought (...) has been extensively debated. In general doctrinal difference in Buddhism has been seen as perfectly acceptable, reflecting different levels of understanding and therefore different stages on the path to enlightenment. Buddhism has tended not to look to or expect doctrinal orthodoxy, although there has always been a much stronger impetus towards orthopraxy, and common code and behaviour has perhaps played a comparable role in Buddhism to common belief and creed in some other religions. Nevertheless an acceptability of doctrinal divergence has not lessened the energy and vigour devoted to lengthy and sometimes fiercely polemical debate between teachers and schools. This was nowhere more so than in Tibet, where doctrinal debates—sometimes lasting all night—to the present day form the central part of a monastic education in most of the largest Tibetan monastic universities. (shrink)

Graham Priest in collaboration with J. Garfield and Y. Deguchi (henceforth: DGP) wrote several articles and responses arguing that the Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna was a dialetheist thinker, i.e. that he not just identified and exposed certain contradictions but that he embraced it. These contradictions, according to DGP, always occur ``at the limits of thought'' i.e. when a certain view at the same time transcends the limit (``transcendence'') and is within that limit (``closure''). In Nagarjuna's case, these limital contradictions arise at (...) the boundary between ``conventional reality/truth'' (samvrti-sat/satya) and ``ultimate reality/truth'' (paramartha-sat/satya). Ultimate truth is that things lack intrinsic nature (svabhava}), i.e. that they are empty (sunya) of intrinsic nature. This emptiness is universal and it includes emptiness itself (emptiness of emptiness). But that means that being empty is intrinsic property of all things so it comes out that things both have (conventional truth) and lack (ultimate truth) intrinsic nature. This is ontological paradox. DGP identify also semantic and expressibility paradoxes in Nagarjuna. Although logically coherent and philosophically intriguing, I think that DGP's interpretation nevertheless overlooks a special kind of semantics that, presumably, works behind Nagarjuna's reasoning and that would be best described in terms of difference between first and second order statements, i.e. between terms referring to the world (primary system) and terms referring to the primary system (meta-system, comprising the ``meta'' concept of emptiness). Working in these two semantic levels N\={a}g\={a}rjuna, I believe, escapes contradictions --- and Nagarjuna is aware of them --- that arise ``at the limits of thought''. (shrink)

The Madhyamaka school of Buddhism, the followers of which are called Mādhyamikas, was one of the two principal schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism in India, the other school being the Yogācāra. The name of the school is a reference to the claim made of Buddhism in general that it is a middle path (madhyamā pratipad) that avoids the two extremes of eternalism—the doctrine that all things exist because of an eternal essence—and annihilationism—the doctrine that things have essences while they exist but (...) that these essences are annihilated just when the things themselves go out of existence. The conviction of the Madhyamaka school, which can be called the Centrist school in English, is that this middle path is best achieved by a denial that things have any inherent natures at all. All things are, in other words, empty of inherent natures. This doctrine of universal emptiness of inherent natures (svabhāva-śūnyatā) is the hallmark of the school, which places the school solidly in the tradition associated with the Perfection of Wisdom (prajñāpāramitā) literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism. (shrink)

The article analyzes the figure of Indian philosopher Vasubandhu (ca. S. IV), one of the most important representative of the vijñānavāda school of mahāyāna Buddhism. After a brief account on the legendary biography of Vasubandhu and other members of his school, the article focuses on the understanding of two of his seminal works: Trimśikā and Trisvabhāvakārikā through the concepts of vijñāna (showing the different meanings of this widely used concept in Buddhist thought), ālayavijñāna (store consciousness), vāsanā (mental trace), parikalpa (imagination) (...) and trisvabāva (three natures): parikalpita (imaginative), paratantra (dependent) and parinispanna (consummated). It also establishes the links between Vasubandhu and the nāgārjuna’s doctrine of śūnyatā and the Buddhist practice of puöya-praöidhana (dedication of merit) and bodhicitta (thought of awakening), showing, in a coherent fashion, the practical aspects of this philosophy of mind. (shrink)

The cross-cultural philosopher B.K. Matilal is one of many who have argued that some Indian philosophers are skeptics. Inspired by Matilal, in Three Pillars of Skepticism in Classical India, Ethan Mills argues that Nāgārjuna (150–200 CE), Jayarāśi (770–830 CE), and Śrī Harṣa (1125–1180 CE) are skeptics in a specific sense: as part of a textually inspired tradition of “skepticism about philosophy,” they share overlapping methods. Mills’ arguments about method are more successful than those about tradition, although the book’s engaging exposition (...) of these three thinkers will hopefully spark new interest in their work. (shrink)