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Nāgārjuna, Kant and Wittgenstein: The San–Lun Mādhyamika Exposition of Emptiness

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Hsueh–Li Cheng
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies, University of Hawaii at Hilo

Extract

Among Western scholars there has been a growing interest in Buddhist philosophy, especially in the philosophical teachings of the Mādhyamika. Mādhyamika philosophy is considered to be ‘the most important outcome of Buddha's teaching’ and to represent ‘philosophical Buddhism par excellence’. The main message of Mādhyamika Buddhism is the doctrine of emptiness. Yet scholars, as well as students of Buddhism, have often been puzzled about this teaching and have misinterpreted it. The chief purpose of this paper is to expound the Mādhyamika philosophy of emptiness as presented in Chinese San–lun sources and to clarify misconceptions about this important philosophy of Buddhism.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

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page 67 note 4 After the fifth century, Indian Mādhyamika Buddhism was divided into two schools: the Prāsangika and the Svātantrika.

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page 70 note 9 Ibid.pp. 89c and 93b.

page 71 note 1 Ibid. pp. 79C and 80c.

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page 74 note 1 ‘Characteristics’ or ‘attributes’ here refer to physical appearances or physical bodies.

page 74 note 2 The Middle Treatise, xxvin: 5–6 and xviii: Ia.

page 74 note 3 Ibid. xxvn: 4, 7, XVIII: Ib and IX: 3, 5.

page 74 note 4 Āryadeva had a good discussion of this in the Hundred Treatise, II, and see also the Middle Treatise, IX.

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page 75 note 3 Ibid. B311, p. 272.

page 75 note 4 Ibid. B307, p. 268.

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page 76 note 2 Ibid. B33, p. 65.

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page 76 note 4 The Middle Treatise, III: 3 and 4.

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page 77 note 3 H. Kern, La Vallée Poussin, Max Walleser, A. B. Keith and Harsh Narain interpreted the Mādhyamika philosophy of emptiness in this way. For example, Harsh Narain recently claimed that ‘(Mädhyamika philosophy) is absolute nihilism rather than a form of absolutism or Absolutistic monism’. Śūnyavāda: A Reinterpretation’, Philosophy East and West, XIII, 4 (January 1964), p: 311.Google Scholar

page 77 note 4 The Middle Treatise, xxiv: 7.

page 77 note 5 Ibid. XIII: 8. Nāgārjuna also said, ‘Nothing could be asserted to be śūnya (empty), aśūnya (non-empty), both śūnya and aśūnya, and neither śūnya nor aśūnya. They are stated as provisionary names.’ Ibid. XXII: II.

page 78 note 1 Chi-tsang, , A Commentary on the Middle Treatise (Taishō, 1824), pp. 111–13Google Scholar; The Profound Meaning of Three Treatises, pp. 5–6 and 10–11; The Meaning of Twofold Truth, pp. 82, 87a, 91a, 94, 108c and 114b.

page 78 note 2 Kant said, ‘The transcendental illusion (metaphysical speculation)… does not cease even after it has been detected and its invalidity clearly revealed by transcendental criticism’, op. cit. B353, p. 299.

page 78 note 3 In India philosophical study of the nature of words and its relation to meaning occurred in the Jaimini-sūtra, the Nyāya–sūtra and the Vaiśesika–sūtra from 500 B.C. to A.D. 200.

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page 78 note 5 Generally speaking, the Mimāmsā School is a representative of the latter view and maintains that a word refers to a genius and only indirectly to a particular. The Nyāya School is a representative of the former view and holds that a word refers to an individual, the class residing in the individual and its configuration or form.

page 79 note 1 The Middle Treatise, xxv: 24.

page 79 note 2 Ibid. xxii: I b.

page 79 note 3 The Hui-cheng–lun, 22, 23, 55 and 57.

page 79 note 4 Ibid. 25.

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page 80 note 5 Fann, K. T., Wittgenstein's Conception of Philosophy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969), p. 68.Google Scholar

page 81 note 1 Wittgenstein, , op. cit. p. 45.Google Scholar

page 81 note 2 Ibid. pp. 51–2.

page 81 note 3 Ibid. p. 48.

page 81 note 4 Ibid. p. 47.

page 81note 5 Ibid. p. 49. Wittgenstein also said, ‘We must do away with all explanation, and description alone must take its place.’ Ibid. p. 47.

page 81 note 6 According to Henry Le Roy Finch, Wittgenstein's dualistic way of thinking is essentially Kantian: ‘Kant's innovation, the presuppositional method, dividing the world into the a priori and the a posteriori, is capable, we now see, of replacing the Cartesian division of inner and outerentirely. This is what Wittgenstein's philosophy showed, for it carried the Kantian method to the point of wiping out the inner world of private objects altogether… Wittgenstein, who put all meaning into the presuppositional (even when, as inthe later philosophy, this was regarded as only an aspect of the phenomenal), is the ultimate Kantian…’ Wittgenstein - The Later Philosophy: A Exposition of the Philosophical Investigations (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press, 1977), p. 248.Google Scholar

page 82 note 1 See Wittgenstein, , On Certainty, ed. Anscombe, G. E. M. and von Wright, G. H., trans. Paul, D. and Amscombe, G. E. M. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1969), pp. 115, 219Google Scholar, 341, 354, 450, 519 and 625.

page 82 note 2 Wittgenstein described ordinary certainty as ‘the foundation of all judging’ (Ibid. pp. 308 and 614); ‘the foundation of all operating with thoughts’ (Ibid. p. 401); ‘the substratum of all my inquiring and asserting’ (Ibid. pp. 88, 151 and 162).

page 82 note 3 The Twelve Gate Treatise, VI: I.

page 83 note 1 Ibid. V: I. See also the Middle Treatise, V: 1–5.

page 83 note 2 Wittgenstein stated that ‘It is only in normal cases that the use of a word is clearly prescribed; we know, are in no doubt, what to say in this or that case.’ Philosophical Investigations, p. 56.

page 84 note 1 The Middle Treatise, XVIII: 5b.

page 84 note 2 Chi-tsang, , The Meaning of the Twofold Truth, p. 94c.Google Scholar

page 85 note 1 Seng-chao, , op. cit. p. 153c.Google Scholar

page 85 note 2 For the detailed discussion of the influence of Mādhyamika thought upon Zen, see Cheng, Hsueh-li, ‘Zen and San-lun Mādhyamika Thought: Exploring the Theoretical Foundation of Zen Teachings and Practices’, Religious Studies, XV (September 1979), 343–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar