Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka A Philosophical Investigation Jan Christoph Westerhoff Department of Philosophy University of Durham 50 Old Elvet Durham DH1 3HN United Kingdom westerhof f Qcantab.net This dissertation is submitted for the degree Doctor of Philosophy at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. O c t o b e r 2007 l ProQuest Number: 10731457 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 10731457 Published by ProQuest LLC(2017). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 Abstract This dissertation constitutes a discussion of Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka as contained in his six main philosophical works. It presents a synoptic pre­ sentation of the main topics Nagarjuna investigates. Particular emphasis is put on an analysis of the philosophical content of Nagarjuna’s Madhyamaka. Apart from discussing the soundness of Nagarjuna’s arguments for particular conclusions I also want to examine to which extent Nagarjuna’s philosophy forms a coherent philosophical system rather than a collection of individual ideas. The dissertation consists of four parts. In the first part (chapter 2) I dis­ cuss the central concept of Madhyamaka philosophy, the notion ofsvabhava. This is a notion of considerable complexity; for the purposes of understanding Nagarjuna’s arguments I argue that it is particularly important to distinguish two of its conceptual dimensions: an ontological and a cognitive one. The second part (chapters 3 and 4) discusses some properties of the form of Nagarjuna’s arguments, properties which are, however, also intricately connected with their contents attempting to establish the Madhyamaka the­ ory of emptiness. The two topics investigated are the place of negation in Nagarjuna’s philosophical assertions and his use of the argumentative frame­ work known as the catuskoti or tetralemma. An analysis of the background of these formal aspects is indispensable for an understanding of Nagarjuna’s 3 4 arguments presented in the following chapters. The third part (chapters 5 to 9) discusses Nagarjuna’s arguments dealing with particular topics, such as causation, motion, the self, epistemology, and language. Here Nagarjuna sets out to establish the absence of svabha- va in areas which are particularly central to our cognitive interaction with the world. He investigates both the world around us (for the examples of causation and motion), the subjective world (the self) as well as the way in which the two are connected (by our epistemic faculties and by language). The final fourth part (chapter 10) attempts to present a concise synoptic overview of Nagarjuna’s conclusions described in the preceding chapters and sets out to evaluate them from a systematic point of view. I also discuss how these various conclusions form a coherent philosophical whole and attempt to evaluate some of them in the light of the contemporary philosophical discussion. Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisors Ulrich Pagel and David Seyfort Ruegg for their advice and guidance in putting together this dissertation. Their knowledgeable comments and criticism provided many insights and helped me to avoid numerous errors. Thanks are also due to the following people who contributed in one way or another to the completion of this work: Naomi Appleton, Yoshihiko Arita, Jay Garfield, Yuka Kobayashi, Ralf Kramer, Jowita Kramer, Alexan­ dra Leduc, Charles Ramble, Ulrike Roesler, Sherab Gyatso, Mattia Salvini, and Tom Tillemans. Whilst working on this dissertation I received some support from the Spalding Trust and the Society for South Asian Studies which is gratefully acknowledged. J.C.W. 5 Contents Preface 2 A bstract 3 Acknowledgements 5 Abbreviations 10 1 Introduction 13 1.1 Nagarjuna the philosopher............................................................. 15 1.2 Nagarjuna’s works .......................................................................... 16 1.3 The philosophical study of Nagarjuna in the W est................... 19 1.4 Overview .............................................................................................. 24 2 Interpretations of svabhava 34 2.1 The ontological dimension............................................................. 35 2.1.1 Essence- svabhava ................................................................. 36 2.1.2 Substance- svabhava ..................................................................40 Dependence relations...............................................................45 The rejection of substance-svabhava ................................. 50 The property argument....................................................... 53 The mereological argument................................................. 59 6 CONTENTS 7 The argument from change................................................. 62 2.1.3 Absolute s v a b h a v a .............................................................66 Ames’ solution .................................................................... 68 Tsong kha pa’s solution .................................................... 69 Absolute svabhava as essence-sv a b h a v a .......................... 71 2.2 The cognitive d im en sio n.................................................................... 75 3 Negation 84 3.1 Nyaya theory of negation................................................................ 85 3.2 Negation and non-denoting term s................................................ 88 3.3 Negation and temporal relations..................................................... 100 4 The catuskoti or tetralemma 104 4.1 Two kinds of n e g a tio n......................................................................106 4.2 Rejection of two alternatives............................................................ 109 4.3 Rejection of four alternatives............................................................113 4.3.1 Distinctness of the four alternatives...................................115 4.3.2 The status of the third alternative ...................................... 124 4.3.3 Rejection of four alternatives: the case of relations . 133 4.4 Affirming four alternatives: the positive tetralemma .................. 137 5 Causation 141 5.1 Causation: preliminary rem arks ......................................................143 5.2 Interdependence of cause and effect ............................................... 146 5.3 The four ways of causal production............................................... 153 5.3.1 Self-causation .......................................................................... 154 Identity of cause and effect ...................................................154 Cause and effect related as part and w h o le ......................157 5.3.2 Causation by another o b je c t ................................................ 160 CONTENTS 8 5.3.3 Causation by itself and another o b ject .......................... 168 5.3.4 Absence of c au satio n .......................................................... 171 5.3.5 Identity, difference, and svabhava ....................................173 5.4 Temporal relations between cause and effect ................................175 5.4.1 Cause and effect as successive ............................................ 176 5.4.2 Cause and effect as o verlapping ......................................... 182 5.4.3 Cause and effect as simultaneous ......................................184 5.4.4 Cause and effect as one e v e n t .............................................187 5.4.5 Temporal relations and sv a b h a v a ...................................... 188 5.5 Analysis of tim e ................................................................................... 191 6 Motion 195 6.1 Arguments concerning m otion.........................................................197 6.1.1 The property-absence a rg u m e n t......................................... 198 The ‘mathematical’ interpretation......................................201 6.1.2 The property-duplication argument...................................204 6.2 The beginning of m otion.................................................................. 212 6.3 The interdependence of mover and m otion.................................. 220 6.4 The second chapter of the MMK in its argumentative context 224 7 The self 228 7.1 The self and its p a r ts .........................................................................230 7.2 The self and its p ro p e rtie s............................................................... 236 7.3 Epistemology of the s e l................................................................... f 239 7.4 The Madhyamaka view of the s e lf ...................................................241 8 Epistemology 245 8.1 Means of knowledge as self-established ......................................... 248 8.1.1 Means of knowledge compared to f i r e................................249 CONTENTS 9 8.1.2 The problem of the independence of means of knowledge from their objects255 8.2 Means of knowledge and their objects