Nāgārjuna, Madhyamaka, and truth

Contemporary Buddhism, 2004

Indo-iranian Journal, 2007

Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde Heft 59]. Wien: Arbeitskreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien der Universität Wien 2004, LXVII + 304 pp. € 37,10 Klaus-Dieter Mathes

International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture, 2017

The two truths theory is usually considered as an indispensable framework for Madhyamaka exponents to maintain a middle position. Based on Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MK) and its Indic commentaries, this paper challenges this view and argues that there is a discernible turning point in the exegetic history of the MK concerning the two truths theory and that the practice of establishing the middle position on two truths was not present in the Madhyamaka tradition until Bhāviveka of the sixth century.

Proceedings of the third Indian Conference on Logic and Its Applications, 2009

In his excellent paper, Nāgārjuna as anti-realist, Siderits showed that it makes sense to perform a connection between the position of the Buddhist Nāgārjuna and contemporary anti realist theses such as Dummett's one. The point of this talk is to argue that this connection is an important one to perform for one's correct understanding of what Nāgārjuna is doing when he criticizes the contemporary Indian theories of knowledge and assertion, first section, but as soon as the theories of argumentation are involved, this connection can be implemented in a better way from an other anti realist perspective, namely the one of Dialogical logic (Erlangen school), in which the signification is given in terms of rules in a language game. The philosophical issues are to hold an interpretation of the type of assertion performed by Nāgārjuna. We here aim at making a rational reconstruction of his chief claim 'I do not assert any proposition' in which a proposition is considered as the set of its strategies of justification. As for the last section, the point will be to apply these analyses to Buddhist practice. We will in this section consider the conventional character of human activities as the fact that any speech act is performed within a dialogue under ad-hoc restrictions; and the question of one's progress in the soteriological path to liberation will be asked 1 .

2002

The Buddhist saint N=ag=arjuna, who lived in South India in approximately the second century CE, is undoubtedly the most important, influential, and widely studied Mah=ay=ana Buddhist philosopher. His many works include texts addressed to lay audiences, letters of advice to kings, and a set of penetrating metaphysical and epistemological treatises. His greatest philosophical work, the M?lamadhyamikak=arik=a--read and studied by philosophers in all major Buddhist schools of Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea--is one of the most influential works in the history of Indian philosophy. Now, in The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, Jay L. Garfield provides a clear and eminently readable translation of N=ag=arjuna's seminal work, offering those with little or no prior knowledge of Buddhist philosophy a view into the profound logic of the M?lamadhyamikak=arik=a. Garfield presents a superb translation of the Tibetan text of M?lamadhyamikak=arik=a in its entirety, and a commentary reflecting the Tibetan tradition through which N=ag=arjuna's philosophical influence has largely been transmitted. Illuminating the systematic character of N=ag=arjuna's reasoning, Garfield shows how N=ag=arjuna develops his doctrine that all phenomena are empty of inherent existence, that is, than nothing exists substantially or independently. Despite lacking any essence, he argues, phenomena nonetheless exist conventionally, and that indeed conventional existence and ultimate emptiness are in fact the same thing. This represents the radical understanding of the Buddhist doctrine of the two truths, or two levels of reality. He offers a verse-by-verse commentary that explains N=ag=arjuna's positions and arguments in the language of Western metaphysics and epistemology, and connects N=ag=arjuna's concerns to those of Western philosophers such as Sextus, Hume, and Wittgenstein. An accessible translation of the foundational text for all Mah=ay=ana Buddhism, The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way offers insight to all those interested in the nature of reality.

2024

As one of the most pivotal thinkers in the history Mahāyāna Buddhism, the writings of Nāgārjuna have long attracted the attention of scholars aiming to interpret in declarative terms the meaning of the arguments contained therein. However, the very aim of such an endeavor that seeks to ascribe to Nāgārjuna a philosophical position is fundamentally at odds with the unwaveringly critical nature of his project. In order to illustrate the singular character of Nāgārjuna's methodology, this article seeks to clarify three crucial points concerning his thought: (1) the central concept in his philosophical works, dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda), ironically denotes the non-origination (anutpāda) of any entity (bhāva) whatsoever and is universal in scope; (2) emptiness (śūnyatā) is not a meaningful predicate of any entity, meaning that no entity exists that can be identified as being empty; and (3) the Two Truths (satyadvaya) are not a philosophically significant device for Nāgārjuna and subsequently do not provide a means by which to mitigate the radical consequences of his arguments. As a result, we can understand Nāgārjuna's claim to have no postulative thesis (pratijñā) as a statement that he predicates no quality (dharma) of any subject (dharmin), and that his methodology is strictly critical, offering us no constructive theory by which to make sense of reality.

2009

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Contemporary Buddhism, 2003