This paper considers the philosophical interpretation of the concept of svabhāva, sometimes translated as 'inherent existence' or 'own-being', in the Madyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy. It is argued that svabhāva must be understood as having two different conceptual dimensions, an ontological and a cognitive one. The ontological dimension of svabhāva shows it to play a particular part in theories investigating the most fundamental constituents of the world. Three different understandings of svabhāva are discussed under this heading: (...) svabhāva understood as essence, as substance, and as the true nature of phenomena (absolute svabhāva). The cognitive dimension shows svabhāva as playing an important rôle in our everyday conceptualization of phenomena. Svabhāva is here seen as a superimposition (samāropa) which the mind projects onto the world. (shrink)

This paper begins with a contrast between two different views about whether the five sensory consciousnesses are accompanied by vikalpa. For the Abhidharmakośa, the five sensory consciousnesses are accompanied by the svabhāva-vikalpa whose nature is vitarka; but for Yogācāra, the five sensory consciousnesses are without that particular kind of svabhāva-vikalpa because vitarka is regarded as belonging merely to the mental consciousness. My hypothesis for explaining such difference is that Yogācāra assigns that particular kind of svabhāva-vikalpa to mental (...) consciousness rather than to the five sensory consciousnesses. I then look for possible functions of vitarka-vicāra that could map to svabhāva-vikalpa: (a) conceptual vitarka-vicāra in an unconcentrated state; (b) conceptual vitarka-vicāra in a concentrated state; (c) nonconceptual vitarka-vicāra in an unconcentrated state; (d) non-conceptual vitarka-vicāra in a concentrated state. I argue that the svabhāva-vikalpa in the Abhidharmakośa should map to (c) and (d), which in Yogācāra maps to mental perception (mānasapratyakṣa) stipulated by Dignāga. This refers to the discernment of the shape of a cognitive object in the foreground against the background. I end this paper with some general observations about why Yogācāra maps the svabhāvavikapla to the mental consciousness, and about the different senses covered by the Buddhist notion of vikalpa, which is broader than the sense of "conceptualization" as we now understand it. (shrink)

아비달마의 설일체유부는 작용을 기준으로 하여 존재를 파악한다. 물질과 심의 위상을 비등하게 실유로 보고 인식 외부의 실체가 항유한다고 보았다. 사유의 대상인 비량도 실유하지만, 무소연심처럼 타당하지 않다고 판단한 개념은 거북의 털 등에 비유하여 실유를 부정하였다. 설일체유부의 유명한 어구인 삼세실유 법체항유는 삼세에 법체가 항상 실유한다는 의미로도 볼 수 있는데, 유부 교학 논리전개의 특이점은 법체자성과 혼용되는 사극미는 지각불가능하지만, 지각가능한 취극미나 적집상의 인식을 이루는 단계에서의 구성요소로 인정하여 그 체가 항유하는 법이 현행할 때 구생하는 심과 동시인과관계로 보는 것이다. 따라서 유식처럼 마음의 형상을 생성한다는 개념이 없기 때문에 (...) 무소연심을 인정하지 않으며, 경량부와 세친의 대상형상의 인식, 나아가서 승의심이나 일류심 등의 종자설, 심체설과는 달리 체의 작용을 인정한다. 그러나 설일체유부와 유식은 각각 법체자성과 종자식에 대해서 공통적으로 물리적 영향력인 공능으로 설정하였다는 점에서 환원주의적 성격을 보인다. 설일체유부의 철학체계는 물적 환원주의, 경량부의 비판적 태도의 영향을 받은 세친의 유식체계는 심적 환원주의라고 할 수 있다. (shrink)

svabhāva (own being) and yadṛchhā (chance, accident) are named as two different claimants among others as the first cause (jagatkāraṇa) in the ŚvUp. But in later works, such as Aśvaghoṣa’s poems, svabhāva is synonymous with yadṛchhā and entails a passive attitude to life. Later still, svabhāva is said to be inhering in the Lokāyata materialist system, although in which sense—cosmic order or accident—is not always clearly mentioned. Svabhāva is also a part of the Sāṃkhya doctrine and (...) is mentioned in the medical compilations. It is proposed that the idea of svabhāva as cosmic order became a part of Lokāyata between the sixth and the eighth century ce and got widely accepted by the tenth century, so much so that in the fourteenth century Sāyaṇa-Mādhava aka Vidyāraṇya could categorically declare that the Cārvāka/Lokāyata upheld causality, not chance. But the other meaning of svabhāva, identical with yadṛchhā, continued to circulate along with kāla, time, which was originally another claimant for the title of the first cause and similarly had acquired several significations in course of time. Both significations of svabhāva continued to be employed by later writers, and came to be used in another domain, that of daiva (fate) vis-à-vis puruṣakāra (manliness or human endeavour). (shrink)

Nāgārjuna’s Middle Way (Madhyamaka) doctrine met with the objection that it is a mere verbal attack (vitaṇḍā) against other philosophical positions. As one of the Madhyamaka critics pointed out: because Nāgārjuna does not hold own position, he is not able to justify his criticism of the essence (svabhāva). The article is an answer to the question whether, in the context of Indian philosophy, it is possible to know things devoid of essences. Theory of knowledge of this kind, i.e. the (...) concept of omniscience (sarvajña) was presented in Aṣṭasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā sutra. Associations between Nāgārjuna’s texts and the sutra suggest that omniscience could be a substrate for epistemological position of the Middle Way. (shrink)

The article discusses Bhāviveka’s Prajñāpradīpavṛtti and Avalokitavrata’s Prajñāpradīpaṭīkā commentaries on the “not without a cause” (nāpy ahetutaḥ) alternative of Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā 1.1ab, from which it emerges that at least two distinct theories of causality can be attributed to the Lokāyata school. The first one is a physicalist theory that confines all causal relations within the sphere of material elements and is assimilated to accidentalism. The second one is a naturalist theory that attributes causal power to inner nature (svabhāva). The (...) paper discusses the theoretical differences between these two approaches, considers Bhāviveka’s and Avalokitavrata’s counter-arguments and concludes that some of the conjectures that modern scholars have put forward on the relation between svabhāvavāda, accidentalism and Lokāyata should be revised. (shrink)

This paper engages with Johaness Bronkhorst’s recognition of a “correspondence principle” as an underlying assumption of Nāgārjuna’s thought. Bronkhorst believes that this assumption was shared by most Indian thinkers of Nāgārjuna’s day, and that it stimulated a broad and fascinating attempt to cope with Nāgārjuna’s arguments so that the principle of correspondence may be maintained in light of his forceful critique of reality. For Bronkhorst, the principle refers to the relation between the words of a sentence and the realities they (...) are meant to convey. While I accept this basic intuition of correspondence, this paper argues that a finer understanding of the principle can be offered. In light of a set of verses from Nāgārjuna’s Śūnyatāsaptati (45–57), it is maintained that for Nāgārjuna, the deeper level of correspondence involves a structural identity he envisions between understanding and reality. Here Nāgārjuna claims that in order for things to exist, a conceptual definition of their nature must be available; in order for there to be a real world and reliable knowledge, a svabhāva of things must be perceived and accounted for. Svabhāva is thus reflected as a knowable essence. Thus, Nāgārjuna’s arguments attacks the accountability of both concepts and things, a position which leaves us with nothing more than mistaken forms of understanding as the reality of the empty. This markedly metaphysical approach is next analyzed in light of the debate Nāgārjuna conducts with a Nyāya interlocutor in his Vigrahavyāvartanī. The correspondence principle is here used to highlight the metaphysical aspect of the debate and to point out the ontological vision of Nāgārjuna’s theory of emptiness. In the analysis of the Vigrahavyāvartanī it becomes clear that the discussion revolves around a foundational metaphysical deliberation regarding the reality or unreality of svabhāva. In this dispute, Nāgārjuna fails to answer the most crucial point raised by his opponent—what is that he defines as empty? (shrink)

The Indian philosopher Acarya Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 CE) was the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahayana Buddhism and arguably the most influential Buddhist thinker after Buddha himself. Indeed, in the Tibetan and East Asian traditions, Nagarjuna is often referred to as the "second Buddha." This book presents a survey of the whole of Nagarjuna's philosophy based on his key philosophical writings. His primary contribution to Buddhist thought lies in the further development of the concept of sunyata or (...) "emptiness." For Nagarjuna, all phenomena are without any svabhava, literally "own-nature" or "self-nature," and thus without any underlying substance. Particular emphasis is put on discussing Nagarjuna's thinking as philosophy. The present discussion shows how his thoughts on metaphysics, epistemology, the self, language, and truth present a unified theory of reality with considerable systematic appeal. The book offers a systematic account of Nagarjuna's philosophical position. It reads Nagarjuna in his own philosophical context, but also shows that the issues of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy have at least family resemblances to issues in European philosophy. (shrink)

This paper proposes an interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of the two truths that considers saṃvṛti and paramārtha-satya two visions of reality on which the Buddhas, for soteriological and pedagogical reasons, build teachings of two types: respectively in agreement with (for example, the teaching of the Four Noble Truths) or in contrast to (for example, the teaching of emptiness) the category of svabhāva. The early sections of the article show to what extent the various current interpretations of the Nāgārjunian doctrine (...) of the dve satye—despite their sometimes even macroscopic differences—have a common tendency to consider the notion of śūnyatā as a teaching not based on, but equivalent to supreme truth. This equivalence—philologically questionable—leads to interpretative paths that prove inevitably aporetic: indeed, according to whether the interpretation of śūnyatā is ‘metaphysical’ or ‘anti-metaphysical’, it gives rise to readings of Nāgārjuna’s thought incompatible, respectively, with anti-metaphysical and realistic types of verses traceable in the works of the author of the Mūla-madhyamaka-kārikā (MMK). On the contrary, by giving more emphasis to the expression samupāśritya (“based on”), which recurs in MMK.24.8, and therefore, by epistemologically separating the notion of śūnyatā from the notion of paramārtha-satya (and of some of its conceptual equivalents such as nirvāṇa, tattva and dharmatā), we may obtain an interpretation—at once realistic and anti-metaphysical—of the theory of the two truths compatible with the vast majority (or even totality) of Nāgārjuna’s verses. (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)

Mādhyamikas argue that ultimate reality, which is without any delimitation and hence cannot be verbalized in itself, can be expressed in words on the basis of the attribution or superimposition of the basis for the application of the word. The denotation theory of ultimate reality Bhartṛhari advances in the Dravyasamuddeśa of his Vākyapadīya convincingly explains that, insofar as ultimate reality is spoken of, we must say that it is denoted by the word; ultimate reality is said to be ineffable only (...) in the sense that it is far from what is conveyed as something by the word; language is a pointer to the ultimate reality. The point that the application of a word to ultimate reality depends on the attribution of the basis for the application of the word to it naturally leads to an idea that one should not hypostatize the basis, although without resorting to it any word cannot be used to convey the ultimate reality; otherwise, it would have to be said that the ultimate reality to which the word is applied has in essence the property which serves as the basis. Such a property is precisely what the Mādhyamikas consider to be the svabhāva ‘intrinsic nature’. What they understand by the term śūnyatā is precisely that everything has no real basis for the application of the word to it. (shrink)

One strategy Mādhyamikas use to support their claim that nothing has intrinsic nature (svabhāva) is to argue that things with intrinsic nature could not enter into causal relations. But it is not clear that there is a good Madhyamaka argument against ultimate causation that understands causation in ‘Humean’ terms and understands dharmas as tropes. After exploring the rationale behind the intrinsic-nature criterion of dharma-hood, I survey the arguments Mādhyamikas actually give for their claim that anything dependently originated must be (...) devoid of intrinsic nature, and suggest that none actually succeeds in ruling out this hypothesis about how ultimate causation might work. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Buddhist-Christian Studies 20 (2000) 191-216 [Access article in PDF] In the Beginning: Hebrew God and Zen Nothingness Milton ScarboroughCentre College, Danville, KentuckyIn the 1960s, during the heyday of the so-called "Marxist-Christian dialogue," Leslie Dewart, one of the participants in the exchange, delivered himself of what I took to be a stunning and memorable utterance: "To put it lightly: the whole difference between Marxist atheism and Christian theism has to (...) do with the existence of God." 1 Now, at the end of the millennium, we are several decades into a Buddhist-Christian dialogue, precipitated by a shrinking globe, the growing presence of Buddhist communities and institutions in the West, and the initiative of the Kyoto School of Zen Buddhism. The dialogue has occurred along a variety of fronts. In terms of monastic life, for example, monks from the two traditions have discovered that they often feel a more powerful bond with each other than with laypersons of their own faiths. Some years ago I was a retreatant at Gethsemane Abbey in central Kentucky. Looking down from the sanctuary's balcony, where laypersons and other guests were required to sit, I noticed three Tibetan Buddhist monks in the choir, surrounded by Trappists and engaged in chanting the liturgy, something I, as a Christian, was not, at the time, permitted to do. In the domain of ethics, similarities and differences between Buddhist compassion (karuna) and Christian love (agape) have been carefully noted. In soteriology, comparisons have been made between Christ as savior and the bodhisattva as savior. Nevertheless, when it comes to an examination of ultimate reality in the two religions, the differences are obvious and stark. Traditionally, and still today for the most part, Christians are committed to some variety of theism. On the other hand, Masao Abe observes, "Unlike Christianity, however, Buddhism is fundamentally not theistic and does not accept one personal God as the ultimate reality but sunyata.... In Buddhism there is nothing permanent, self-existing, and absolutely good." 2 In this regard, I am tempted to parallel Dewart's comment by saying, "The whole difference between Buddhist atheism and Christian theism has to do with the existence of God." 3The parallel, however, is not entirely accurate because more recently some members of the Kyoto School of Zen have shown a willingness to speak of God, most notably, Masao Abe himself. 4 On the other hand, they contend that God might be described better in conceptual categories other than 'being,' which is habitually used in the West. Abe, for example, has proposed a reformulation of the idea of God in [End Page 191] terms of sunyata. 5 Like many other participants in the Buddhist-Christian dialogue, he finds an initial justification for such a reconceptualization in Philippians 2:5-8, where Christ's self-emptying (kenosis) has its biblical grounding. According to traditional Christian theological understanding, between the incarnation and resurrection Christ either abandoned, concealed, or restrained--these words represent variant interpretations--his divine nature, such as his attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence, in order to condescend to his humanity and, hence, to ours. This leads to the heart of Abe's proposal, which consists of bringing to bear on the trinitarian view of God Mahayana Buddhism's ample resources for critiquing the idea of substance, in which the traditional version of the doctrine is cast. Just as the Buddha attacked the Brahmanical doctrine of the atman, a spiritual substance underlying the self of all things, and Nagarjuna attacked the Sarvastivadins' notion of svabhava, a material substance underlying all Dharmas or fundamental elements constituting reality, so Abe provides a critique of the Christian view of God as three persons in one ousia or substance. 6 Both the three persons of the trinity, on the one hand, and the relation of the trinitarian God to the rest of the universe, on the other, he understands as interdependent and co-existent rather than as independent and self-existent. Thus, the theory of the trinity is purged of the Greek concept of substance and its implications.Abe's proposal represents... (shrink)

Nāgārjuna’s “middle path” charts a course between two extremes: Nihilism, and Absolutism, not unlike earlier Buddhism. However, as early Buddhists countinanced constituents of reality as characterizable by essences while macroscopic objects lack such essences, Nāgārjuna argues that all things lack what he calls svabhāva – “own being” – the Sanskrit term for essence. Since everything lacks an essence, it is Empty (śūnya). To lack an essence is to lack autonomy. The corollary of this is that all things are interrelated. (...) The Mahāyāna (Great Vehicle) school of Buddhist thought draws heavily on this insight: if all things are related, individualism has to give way to inclusivity. According to Nāgārjuna, the key to understanding his Middle path philosophy is dharma: ethics. It is only by a prior commitment to ethics that we can properly understand the Buddha's philosophy as teaching no doctrine of reality, for it is not a teaching of metaphysics, but of ethics, which is to say, Dharma. At the center of Dharma is a kind of Contractualism of the Buddhist community (saṅga). A failure to approach emptiness via ethics is like trying to hold a snake dangerously. However, approaching the emptiness of reality via ethics is grounds for optimism: nothing is stuck by essence, and we have reason to believe in positive change made possible by prudent ethical choice. In this module I consider some objections to Nāgārjuna's position from Vedic positions, and Yoga, and identify responses available to Nāgārjuna. (shrink)

This article focuses on the three natures (_trisvabhāva_) or three characters (_trilakṣaṇa_) doctrine as described in Indian Yogācāra treatises. This concept is fundamental to Yogācāra epistemology and soteriology, but terminology employed by contemporary buddhologists misconstrues and misrepresents some of its most important features, particularly with regard to the ‘ultimately real nature’ (_pariniṣpanna-svabhāva_), which is equated with terms that connote ultimate reality like ultimate truth (_paramārtha_), emptiness (_śūnyatā_), and reality limit (_bhūta-koṭi_), and which is described as a ‘purifying object of observation’ (...) (_viśuddhālambana_) that facilitates insight when properly understood by meditators. The article discusses how it is described in a range of Yogācāra treatises and compares this with how it has been conceived in academic studies of Indic Yogācāra literature. (shrink)

The concept of svabhavahetu is a major contribution of Dharmakirti to Buddhist logic. In such a case the invariable relation of pervasion between the probans and the probandum is based on identity or non-difference. This implies, according to our interpretation, that some general statements are true by virtue of meaning but are not devoid of content. This disagrees with the view of many recent philosophers who hold that statements true by virtue of meaning are devoid of content. We explain that (...) svabhava general statements are true by virtue of meaning in the sense that the grounds for calling something by the name of the probandum are the same as some or all of those for calling something by the name of the probans. We explain how such general statements differ from general statements based on causation as also the threefold classification of svabhava general statements. (shrink)

Nāgārjuna, the famous founder of the Madhyamika School, proposed the positive catuṣkoṭi in his seminal work, Mūlamadhyamakakārikā: ‘All is real, or all is unreal, all is both real and unreal, all is neither unreal nor real; this is the graded teaching of the Buddha’. He also proposed the negative catuṣkoṭi: ‘“It is empty” is not to be said, nor “It is non-empty,” nor that it is both, nor that it is neither; [“empty”] is said only for the sake of instruction’ (...) and the no-thesis view: ‘No dharma whatsoever was ever taught by the Buddha to anyone’. In this essay, I adopt Gricean pragmatics to explain the positive and negative catuṣkoṭi and the no-thesis view proposed by Nāgārjuna in a way that does not violate classical logic. For Nāgārjuna, all statements are false as long as the hearer understands them within a reified conceptual scheme, according to which substance is a basic categorical concept; substances have svabhāva, and names and sentences have svabhāva. (shrink)

This essay explores one of the first distinctively Sinitic reappropriations of Madhyamaka epistemology: Seng Zhao’s essay “Prajñā is Without Knowledge.” Seng Zhao’s work is here read as a deliberate collapse of the traditional Madhyamaka Two Truths into two simultaneous aspects of sagely wisdom, rather than a diachronic means-end relation, arriving at a crypto-Zhuangzian “trivialist” conclusion aimed at undermining epistemological bivalence at its roots. For Seng Zhao, because nothing can be established as true, nothing can be excluded as false. Here the (...) understanding of Emptiness has become not the exclusion of all views, but the inclusion of all views. This is rooted in Seng Zhao’s view that, to use Jan Westerhoff’s terms, the denial of substance-svabhāva is always also implicitly the denial of essence-svabhāva. Seng Zhao move from Emptiness as exclusion to Emptiness as inclusion, and from denial of ontological substance to denial of mutually exclusive determinateness, sets the agenda for the distinctive developments of classical Chinese Buddhist philosophy to come. (shrink)

This essay attempts to clarify the position of Nāgārjuna in the history of Buddhist philosophy by comparing the concept of emptiness in the Pāli Nikāyas and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. It is argued that the identity of samsāra with nirvāna, the emptiness of svabhāva of all dharmas, and the equating of emptiness and dependent arising are not revolutionary innovations of Nāgārjuna or the second turning of the wheel of Dharma, but orthodox philosophical moves entailed by the teachings of early Buddhism.

Two of the most fundamental distinctions in metaphysics are (1) that between reality (or things in themselves) and appearance, the R/A distinction, and (2) that between entities that are fundamental (or real, etcetera) and entities that are ontologically or existentially dependent, the F/D distinction. While these appear to be two very different distinctions, in Buddhist metaphysics they are combined, raising questions about how they are related. In this paper I argue that plausible versions of the R/A distinction are essentially a (...) special kind of F/D distinction, and conversely, that many F/D distinctions imply an R/A distinction. Nevertheless, while this does suggest that the F/D distinction is more basic than the R/A distinction, it does not favor a particular understanding of the F/D distinction. There are many kinds of existential or ontological dependence that cannot be meaningfully combined into a single notion, and reality does not force us to accept any specific kind of dependence as more fundamental. Consequently, what we consider to be ‘real’, ‘fundamental’, or ‘really existing’ is not entirely given by reality, but partially up to us. (shrink)

This paper defends a “conceptualist” interpretation of Nāgārjuna which stands in-between two other prominent accounts, the nihilist view and what I call the anti-essentialist view. The nihilist reading, recently defended by Thomas Wood, holds that for Nāgārjuna nothing exists either at the ultimate or at the conventional level. On the anti-essentialist account, supported by Jay Garfield and David Kalupahana, though Nāgārjuna rejects the ultimate existence of things as svabhāva (independent), he affirms their conventional existence as interdependent. I argue that (...) the nihilist view raises two challenges to which anti-essentialists have given no adequate response. The first alleges that the notion that all things are interdependent is incoherent. The second consists of passages from Nāgārjuna’s writings that seem to claim that whatever exists is svabhāva or depends on what is svabhāva. The conceptualist interpretation, I suggest, allows us to respond to these challenges while avoiding the implausible nihilist account. On this view, the passages in question assert a claim not about what exists but about the concept of existence, namely that it is a core part of this concept that what exists is either svabhāva or depends on what is svabhāva. Thus, contra the anti-essentialist, Nāgārjuna’s view is that there is no coherent concept of universal interdependent existence. But contra the nihilist, things can still be said to exist conventionally, since conventional discourse is precisely discourse in which subjects do not endorse the svabhāva component of the concept of existence. The upshot – again contra the anti-essentialist – is that both conventional truth and emptiness are strictly inconceivable. (shrink)

The paper taps the agency of the imaginary interlocutor in the _Mūlamadhyamakakārikā_ of Nāgārjuna to delineate _existential anguish_ in the Madhyamaka. The paper asks whether the protestations of the imaginary interlocutor cannot be recast as _anguished_. It claims that an objection to emptiness (_śūnyatā_) can be voiced even after the metaphysical commitment to _intrinsic existence_ (_svabhāva_) has been relinquished. By interpolating _anguish_ into the Madhyamaka, the paper posits an unorthodox phenomenological objection to _śūnyatā_.

While phenomenology and Yogacara Buddhism are both known for their investigations of consciousness, there exists a core tension between them: phenomenology affirms the existence of essence, whereas Yogacara Buddhism argues that everything is empty of essence (svabhava). How is constructive cultural exchange possible when traditions hold such contradictory views? -/- Answering this question and positioning both philosophical traditions in their respective intellectual and linguistic contexts, Jingjing Li argues that what Edmund Husserl means by essence differs from what Chinese Yogacarins mean (...) by svabhava, partly because Husserl problematises the substantialist understanding of essence in European philosophy. Furthermore, she reveals that Chinese Yogacara has developed an account of self-transformation, ethics and social ontology that renders it much more than simply a Buddhist version of Husserlian phenomenology. Detailing the process of finding a middle ground between the two traditions, this book demonstrates how both can thrive together in order to overcome Orientalism. (shrink)

In this paper I probe the narratively constructed self as a _proper object of negation_ in the Madhyamaka. The paper borrows idioms and tropes from Western theories of the narrative self to illuminate and contemporize the discussion. Since Mādhyamikas reject the two-tiered interpretation of the Buddhist two truths, they are philosophically unobligated to reduce the self. Although both Mādhyamikas and Ābhidharmikas would accept the conceptually constructed self as conventionally real, they would disagree about its ontological significance. For the latter, the (...) narrative self as a conceptual construct necessitates reduction. Mādhyamikas, who reject the _svabhāva-dharma_ architecture, can be less dismissive of the conventional self. Their conventional self is a narrative construct, but of what kind? The paper tries to answer that question by bringing Mādhyamikas into interlocution with select modern narrative self theorists. It divides into two sub-sections. Each pivots on a theme about the narrative self in contemporary discourse. The first asks how important is ethics for the constitution of the conventional self. The second discusses fictionality of the self in the Madhyamaka. (shrink)

Indian psychology scholars have primarily focused on developing triguṇa-based personality models. However, triguṇa-based personality models are not epistemologically consistent with Sāṁkhya. This article offers a bhāva-based conception of personality that is epistemologically consistent with Sāṁkhya. It proposes svabhāva as a personality-like construct that refers to individual-specific arrangements of prākṛtika and vaikṛtika bhava. This article contributes to both Indian psychology and Sāṁkhya scholarship.

This essay attempts to clarify the position of Nāgārjuna in the history of Buddhist philosophy by comparing the concept of emptiness in the Pāli Nikāyas and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. It is argued that the identity of samsāra with nirvāna, the emptiness of svabhāva of all dharmas, and the equating of emptiness and dependent arising are not revolutionary innovations of Nāgārjuna or the second turning of the wheel of Dharma, but orthodox philosophical moves entailed by the teachings of early Buddhism.

Perhaps more than any other contemporary scholar, Mark Siderits has illuminated the deep connections between ontology, explanation, epistemology, and philosophy of language in Indian Buddhist philosophy. His ground-breaking interpretations of Abhidharma and Madhyamaka—particularly concerning reductionism, emptiness, and the two truths—have largely set the terms of debate in Anglophone Buddhist philosophy. This chapter is very much in the spirit of Siderits’ work, though it will reach conclusions somewhat at odds with his own. The first part of the chapter will examine the (...) ontological and explanatory reductionism of much Abhidharma thought. The thorough-going reductionism of Abhidharma yields a two-tiered ontology of ultimately real and (merely) conventionally real entities, and a correspondingly two-tiered account of ultimate and conventional truth. The second part of the chapter will take up the Madhyamaka critique of Buddhist reductionism and the philosophical consequences of the view that all things are empty (śūnya) of inherent existence (svabhāva). If all things are empty, then arguably Abhidharma reductionism is undermined. That is, if everything is empty of inherent existence, then the project of reducing things to that which exists inherently is doomed. Moreover, as Sidertis has so forcefully argued, the Madhyamaka view of emptiness undermines the Abhidharma distinction between two truths. As he provocatively puts it, for the Mādhyamika, “the ultimate truth is that there is no ultimate truth” (Siderits and Katsura 2013, p. 273). Hence, if all things are empty, all real entities are conventionally real, and all truths are conventionally true. Yet, as discussed in part three of the chapter, this raises the specter of the ‘dismal slough’—a pernicious ontological and epistemic flattening that threatens to undermine the critical and revisionist force Buddhist philosophy. How might a Mādhyamika avoid the dismal slough? One approach, explored in Siderits’ more recent work, is to, as it were, transpose Buddhist reductionism into a Mādhyamika key. Here the strategy is to show that while Buddhist reductionism cannot provide an account of ultimate reality, it still offers the best account of conventional reality. It will be argued that recent work in the philosophy of science gives reasons to doubt this approach. Finally, section four of the chapter will explore an alternative, post-reductionist strategy for avoiding the dismal slough. This alternative is based on three key ideas. (shrink)

: This essay attempts to clarify the position of Nāgārjuna in the history of Buddhist philosophy by comparing the concept of emptiness in the Pāli Nikāyas and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. It is argued that the identity of samsāra with nirvāna, the emptiness of svabhāva of all dharmas, and the equating of emptiness and dependent arising are not revolutionary innovations of Nāgārjuna or the second turning of the wheel of Dharma, but orthodox philosophical moves entailed by the teachings of early Buddhism.

Some argue that a prāsaṅgika mādhyamika is committed to rejecting all epistemic instruments (pramāṇas) in virtue of the rejection of intrinsic nature (svabhāva) and intrinsic characteristic (svalakṣaṇa). This chapter takes a different perspective, arguing that Candrakīrti accepts both conventional and rational epistemic instruments, and develops a cogent account of their respective roles in our cognitive lives. To be sure, any mādhyamika rejects intrinsic nature, but Candrakīrti shows that epistemic instruments give us access to epistemic objects precisely because they lack (...) such nature, and that each has its appropriate sphere of use, simply because, relative to the standards appropriate to those spheres, each apprehends its respective object. (shrink)

This research attempts to evaluate the hermeneutic characteristics of catuṣkoṭi (tetralemma) in the ‘Nirvāṇa’ Chapter of the _Mūlamadhyamakakārikā_ (Ch. 25), focusing on the identity thesis between nirvāṇa and saṃsāra. Regarding the structure of the tetralemma posited by Nāgārjuna (ca. 150-ca. 250), this study criticizes the dialectical interpretation of Robinson and Kajiyama from the perspective of Siderits and Katsura’s semantic approach to the extent that it does not deny ultimate truth. This sets it apart from the semantic view presented by Siderits (...) and Garfield (J Indian Philos 41:655–664, 2013). To support this position, the commentaries of Piṅgala (ca. 4C) and Candrakīrti (ca. 600–ca. 650) are also used, along with Nāgārjuna’s _Vigrahavyāvartanī_. From this standpoint, the meaning of non-duality of nirvāṇa and saṃsāra is evaluated, in the sense that both are negated in the ultimate sense, as opposed to the metaphysical view, which interprets the tetralemma in a dialectical way. Siderits and Katsura suggests that, as in the case of nirvāṇa, “just as the four lemmas applying to saṃsāra is rejected, ultimately there is no such state as saṃsāra,” because it is empty of its intrinsic nature. Following this line of reasoning, the thesis of Tathāgata in 25.17 and 25.18 can also be interpreted semantically as “there is no real distinction between before and after death, due to the absence of intrinsic nature (_svabhāva_) in Tathāgata.” Likewise, the semantic approach here negates the four propositions of nirvāṇa and saṃsāra only, as operated when clinging to identity. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Religion and Science: Nishitani’s View of Nihility and Emptiness–A Pure Land Buddhist CritiqueRyusei TakedaIn general, philosophical critique of Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani, the so-called Kyoto school, has been mainly conducted from a Zen Buddhist perspective. One should not, however, overlook the fact that a profound regard for the philosophical aspects of Pure Land Buddhist thought, another major stream of Mahayana Buddhism, is deeply intertwined in the foundation of their (...) philosophies. But the ways in which they interpret it and the position they give it within their philosophical systems are not the same: they have taken different forms, often giving rise to original terminology, in accord with each thinker’s metaphysical speculation.As Alfred N. Whitehead critically argues in his Religion in the Making, the fundamental reason for the decay of both Buddhism and Christianity is that “each religion has unduly sheltered itself from the other. The self-sufficient pedantry of learning and the confidence of ignorant zealots have combined to shut up each religion in its own forms of thought. Instead of looking to each other for deeper meanings, they have remained self-satisfied and unfertilized.” Further, “both have suffered from the rise of the third tradition, which is science, because neither of them had retained the requisite flexibility of adaptation.” 1In this contemporary situation, the philosophies of Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani, in which the issue of religion and science has been brought into fundamental question and examined on the dimension of origin of their development, have extremely important implications for the critical interpretation of Pure Land Buddhist doctrines, particularly in the postmodern world. 2There are two points I want to make in this paper. First, the fundamental structure of Pure Land Buddhism, in a way an antipode to Zen, will be examined in light of Nishitani’s metaphysical analysis of the relationship between human experience and the laws of nature, particularly bringing into focus his existential realization of ‘nihility.’And second, I want to challenge Nishitani’s understanding of ‘emptiness’ from my perspective as a Pure Land Buddhist, and also to uncover some fundamental [End Page 155] problems underlying his view of ‘emptiness’ by attempting to relate it to Nagarjuna’s negation of ‘substance’ in his concept of ‘non-self being,’ or ‘nih-svabhava.’ 3What is Religion for Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani?Before getting into those two topics, I want to make a rough sketch indicating about where Nishida, Tanabe, and Nishitani see that religious experience is to be truly realized.The starting point of Nishida’s understanding of religion is found in his argument that “it is on the ground of fact that religion ought to be considered.” The fact of religious experience is in his view none other than self-awareness of ‘absolute nothingness,’ which is also the foundation of what we consider as objective knowledge. The self-awareness manifests itself in the midst of such fact and serves to reveal that fact. He argues that the ultimate goal of Mahayana Buddhism is to penetrate into the depth of this fact.In Tanabe’s philosophy, one’s resurrection and return to the world (genso) and self-renunciation through ‘metanoetics’ (zangedo), a philosophy of absolute Other-power, are required and witnessed to in order for one to establish a genuine religious standpoint. Neither/nor, instead of both/and, is the only relationship in which the self negates itself by means of contradiction, so that at the same time as the self is extinguished in the negation, the contradiction of that which opposes the self is also extinguished. Converted into the neither/nor relationship, both self and contradiction cease to be contradictory opposites. 4 This is Tanabe’s criticism directed at Nishida’s notion of the self-identity of absolute contradiction. Nothingness can never be intuited as such self-identity. The self-consciousness of nothingness is only in resurrection and return to the world, which is witnessed to through practice based upon faith and performed in obedience to Other-power. 5For Nishitani the question of the essence of religion must be answered through tracing the process of the genuine pursuit of true reality. He attempts to interpret the religious quest... (shrink)

The two traditional Indian Buddhist philosophers – the Mādhyamika Nāgārjuna (c.150–250) and the Sautrāntika-Vasubandhu (c. 350–430) – agree that mental causation involves a causal relationship between successive consciousness moments in which the previous moments are causes and the latter moments effects. In this chapter, I investigate the nature of this relation at stake. Is it a type of relationship that requires (1) necessary connection between successive consciousness moments in which there is an internal causal connection between the previous and the (...) latter conscious moments? (2) Alternatively, is the causal relationship between consciousness moments just a matter of constant conjunctions of intrinsic natures (svabhāvas) without any necessary causal relation? If the former, the two Buddhist philosophers need to explain which of the two truths – conventional truth or ultimate truth – does this necessary relation belong and why? If the latter, they need to explain how mental causation – a continuum of interrupted mental events in which the previous moment are causes and the subsequent moments effects – possible with intrinsic natures, absent any necessary causal connection between them? Either way, the Buddhist philosophers must address these two questions concerning causal relation adequately. (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)

Various features of the interpretation of these schools main positions, the reasons for their appearance and the consequences for the development of Mahayana Buddhism have been the subject of discussion in this research. Attention is drawn to the existence of various ideas of Buddhist authors about the interpretation of fundamental philosophical ideas of these schools. The influence of the peculiarities of translation into other languages for the adequate transmission of the author’s thought is discussed. It is noted that the possibility (...) of different interpretations was already established in the very methodology of the transmission of Buddhist doctrines, formed at the earliest stages of Buddhism. The opinions of a number of Tibetan authors are analyzed. The study presents the derivation of the existence of different interpretations of some categories central to Mahayana Buddhism due to the presence of different philosophical methodologies. A number of features were associated with the interpretation of the correlation of logical-critical knowledge, yogic methods and their priority in choosing ways to achieve an exit from the chain of rebirth. The factor of similarities in the positions of such authors as Nāgārjuna and Vasubandhu (traditionally attributed to different schools) makes it problematic to unambiguously interpret their philosophical positions; Some features of these schools were determined not only by theoretical backgrounds, but also by political struggle for a leading place in the Buddhist hierarchy of a certain country, as well as the desire to affect authorities. (shrink)

The presupposition strategy is a widely adopted approach to understanding the catus.kot.i or tetralemmas that appear in Nāgārjuna’s works. According to this strategy, the apparent contradictions between the statements in the tetralemmas can be resolved by viewing them as making the false presupposition that there are entities that have svabhāva, independent existence or intrinsic nature, and hence as semantically deficient. Contemporary discussions of the strategy, however, do not take into account recent work on presupposition in linguistics and philosophy, much (...) of which claims either that presupposition is not a genuine linguistic phenomenon at all, or that it is pragmatic rather than semantic, thus threatening the presupposition strategy’s claim to resolve the contradictions in the tetralemmas. Based on a consideration of these critiques, this paper argues for three claims. First, the svabhāva presupposition is best viewed as pragmatic rather than semantic in nature. Second, viewing this presupposition as pragmatic rather than semantic does not in fact undermine the ability of the presupposition strategy to resolve the apparent inconsistencies. Finally, the best way of preserving the viability of the presupposition strategy is to adopt a model of the two truths that views emptiness not as interdependence, as is widely held, but as nonconceptuality. (shrink)

Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda, whilst accepting much of the argumentation and style of Nāgārjuna's philosophy, aligns himself firmly with the ātman/ svabhāvatā tradition of Vedānta; his view of ātman is inspired by an absorption of Nāgārjuna's dialectical method. For both Nāgārjuna and Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda, the basis of both the Madhyamaka and Advaitic perspectives is the impossibility of change (na anyathabhāva). For Nāgārjuna this entails ni $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{h}$$ svabhāvatā, for Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda it means absolute svabhāvatā. Both accept that the belief in (...) an ‘own nature’ (which amounts to all views of reality) entails a non-active, unchanging absolute. Nāgārjuna takes this as grounds for a rejection of svabhāvatā, Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda accepts this as proof of its reality. The real dividing line between the two thinkers is on the question of the necessity (or not) of even positing a ‘nature’ to things. Nāgārjuna denies the possibility of an underlying and unchanging substratum behind all manifestations, Gau $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{d}$$ apāda argues that for there to be an appearance there must be a thing that appears. It is this point, the debate over ātman (svabhāva) or anātman (ni $$\underset{\raise0.3em\hbox{$\smash{\scriptscriptstyle\cdot}$}}{h}$$ svabhāva) at its most fundamental level, that is the real dividing line between the philosophies of the Buddhist and the Advaita Vedāntin. (shrink)