Abstract This essay discusses the paradox of the N?g?rjunian negation as presented in his Vigrahavy?vartani. In Part One it is argued that as the Naiy?yika remarks, N?g?rjuna's speech act ?No proposition has its own intrinsic thesis? seemingly contradicts his famous claim that he has no negation whatsoever. In Parts Two and Three I consider the traditional as well as modem responses to this paradox and offer my own. I argue that N?g?rjuna's speech act does not generate a paradox for two (...) reasons: (a) the equivalence thesis of the kind??P = ?P is obviously false; and (b) since N?g?rjuna's speech act is situated in the dialogical/conversational universe of discourse as opposed to the argumentative/systematic universe of discourse, the teaching of the non?intrinsic thesis of all statements that it purports, holds for all statements in its class, including itself. Lastly, it is argued that even though the N?g?rjunian speech act is not a negation situated in the argumentative universe of discourse, it serves both philosophical and soteriological purposes. (shrink)

In what follows I argue for two interrelated theses: that early Buddhism is not a form of empiricism, and that consequently there is no basis for an early Buddhist apologetic which contrasts an empirical early Buddhism with either a metaphysical Hinduism on the one hand, or with a baseless Christianity on the other.

Recent articles in Religious Studies have underscored the questions of whether Buddhism presents any empirical doctrines, and whether, if it does, such doctrines are false or vacuous. In what follows I want to sketch an interpretation of Buddhism according to which it does not offer doctrines which are empirically false, on the one hand, or trivially true on the other. In doing so I take my cue from an earlier, and by now classic, paper by H. H. Price. For the (...) exposition of Buddhism I take the Pali Nikāyas , the single most significant collection of texts in the Buddhist tradition. The particular doctrine which is the focus of discussion here is the kammavāda or ‘karma view’ of early Indian Buddhism, for it is the focus of much of the recent literature cited above and a doctrine which some have thought amenable to statement in empirical terms. (shrink)

Zen Buddhism often appears to be ‘anti-intellectual’, ‘illogical’ and ‘trivial’. These apparent aspects of Zen have puzzled many students of Buddhism. Why is Zen so ‘irrational’? By what Buddhist doctrines, tenets or philosophies did Zen masters develop their unconventional and dramatic teachings and practices? The aim of this paper is to show that main San-lun Mādhyamika doctrines, such as Emptiness, the Middle Way, the Twofold Truth and the refutation of erroneous views as the illumination of right views, have been assimilated (...) into Zen teachings and practices Mādhyamika philosophy seems to provide a major ‘theoretical’ foundation for as a ‘practical’; ‘anti-intellectual’, ‘irrational’, ‘unconventional’ and ‘dramatic’ religious movement. (shrink)