BUDDHIST ILLOGIC5.Percepts and concepts.According to pre-Mahayana Buddhist (and other Indian) philosophers, the world we experience and think about is composed of “dharmas”[1]. This term has various meanings[2], but the one focused on here seems to be equivalent to what we would call a phenomenon, or perhaps more broadly an appearance. A phenomenon is an object [...]

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC4.The subject-predicate relation.Nagarjuna’s assault on reason includes an attempted critique of verbal expression and the structure of language[1]. For him, words are conventions devoid of deductively absolute or inductively contextual meaning or relationships to each other. That he himself engages in criticism by means of language does not bother him, because he grants that [...]

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC3.Nagarjuna’s use of dilemma.As we shall presently see, Nagarjuna often frames his arguments in dilemmatic form. So let me here give you a primer on the formal logic of dilemma. The form he tends to use is what logicians call ‘simple constructive dilemma’, which looks like this:If X, then Y – and if not [...]

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC2.Neither real nor unreal.But Nagarjuna also conceives ultimate reality (“emptiness”[1]) as a “middle way”[2]– so that the world of experience is neither to be regarded as real, nor to be regarded as unreal (“there is nothing, neither mental nor non-mental, which is real” and it “cannot be conceived as unreal,” reports Cheng). In this [...]

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC1.The tetralemma.Western philosophical and scientific thought is based on Aristotelian logic, whose founding principles are the three “Laws of Thought”. These can be briefly stated as “A is A” (Identity), “Nothing is both A and non-A” (Non-contradiction) and “Nothing is neither A nor non-A” (Exclusion of the Middle). These are not claimed as mere [...]

BUDDHIST ILLOGICForewordThis essay is a critical review of some of the main arguments proposed by the Indian Buddhist philosopherNagarjuna(c. 113-213 CE), founder of theMadhyamika(Middle Way) school, one of the Mahayana streams, which strongly influenced Chinese (Ch’an), Korean (Sôn) and Japanese (Zen) Buddhism, as well as Tibetan Buddhism. Specifically, the text referred to here isEmpty Logic-Madhyamika [...]

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC TABLE OF CONTENTS.ABSTRACT.FOREWORD.(This is the opening chapter.)1.THE TETRALEMMA.2.NEITHER REAL NOR UNREAL.3.NAGARJUNA’S USE OF DILEMMA.4.THE SUBJECT-PREDICATE RELATION.5.PERCEPTS AND CONCEPTS.6.MOTION AND REST.7.CAUSALITY.8. CO-DEPENDENCE.9. KARMIC LAW.10.GOD AND CREATION.11.SELF OR SOUL.12.SELF-KNOWLEDGE.NOT ‘EMPTY LOGIC’, BUT EMPTY OF LOGIC.(This is the concluding chapter, or Epilogue.)APPENDICES 1. Fallacies in Nagarjuna’s Work.(This is a summary of findings.)2. Brief Glossary of Some Basic Concepts.(This [...]

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC:A Critical Analysis of Nagarjuna’s ArgumentsAbstractThe 2ndCentury CE Indian philosopherNagarjunafounded the Madhyamika (Middle Way) school of Mahayana Buddhism, which strongly influencedChinese (Ch’an), Korean (Sôn) and Japanese (Zen)Buddhism, as well as Tibetan Buddhism. Nagarjuna is regarded by many Buddhist writers to this day as a very important philosopher, who they claim definitively proved the futility [...]