Abstract

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''.