Westerhoff Jan. Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka: A Philosophical Introduction

Oxford University Press, 2009. — 256 p. — ISBN 0195375211, 0195384962.The Indian philosopher Acharya Nagarjuna (c. 150-250 CE) was the founder of the Madhyamaka (Middle Path) school of Mahayana Buddhism and arguably probably the most influential Buddhist thinker soon after Buddha himself. Indeed, in the Tibetan and East Asian traditions, Nagarjuna is frequently referred to as the ‘second Buddha.’ His main contribution to Buddhist believed lies is in the further development of the idea of sunyata or ‘emptiness.’ For Nagarjuna, all phenomena are with out any svabhaba, literally ‘own-nature’ or ‘self-nature’, and therefore with out any underlying essence. In this book, Jan Westerhoff provides a systematic account of Nagarjuna’s philosophical position. He reads Nagarjuna in his own philosophical context, but he doesn’t hesitate to show that the issues of Indian and Tibetan Buddhist philosophy have a minimum of family members resemblances to issues in European philosophy.Nāgārjuna the Philosopher,
Nāgārjuna‘s Works
Methodological Considerations
The Philosophical Study of Nāgārjuna in the WestOverviewInterpretations of Svabhāva
The Ontological Dimension
The Cognitive Dimension
The Role of Negation in Nāgārjuna’s Arguments
Nyāya Theory of Negation
Negation and Nondenoting Terms
Negation and Temporal Relations
The Catuṣkoṭi or Tetralemma
Two Kinds of Negation
Rejection of Two Alternatives
Rejection of Four Alternatives
Affirming Four Alternatives: The Positive Tetralemma
Causation
Causation: Preliminary Remarks,
Interdependence of Cause and Effect
The Four Ways of Causal Production
Temporal Relations between Cause and Effect
Analysis of Time
Motion
Arguments Concerning Motion
The Beginning of Motion
The Interdependence of Mover and Motion
The Second Chapter of the MMK in Its Argumentative Context
The Self
The Self and Its Parts
The Self and Its Properties
Epistemology of the Self
The Madhyamaka View of the Self
Epistemology
Means of Knowledge as Self-established
Means of Knowledge and Their Objects as Mutually Established
Temporal Relations between Means and Objects of Knowledge
The Aim of Nāgārjuna’s Arguments
Language
Nāgārjuna’s View of Language and the “No-Thesis” View
VV 29 in Context
The Semantic Interpretation
The Specific Role of Verse 29
Conclusion: Nāgārjuna’s Philosophical Project
Metaphysics
Personal Identity
Ethics
Epistemology
Language and Truth
Bibliography
Index