《Nagarjuna and the Limit of Thought (Garfield) paper 2016》.pdfVIP

¯ ¯ NAGA RJUNA AND THE LIMITS OF THOUGHT Jay L. Garfield Department of Philosophy, Smith College and School of Philosophy, University of Tasmania Graham Priest Department of Philosophy, University of Melbourne ‘‘If you know the nature of one thing, you know the nature of all things.’’ Khensur Yeshe Thubten Whatever is dependently co-arisen, That is explained to be emptiness. That, being a dependent designation, Is itself the middle way. (MMK XXIV : 18) Introduction Nagarjuna is surely one of the most difficult philosophers to interpret in any tradi- ¯ ¯ tion. His texts are terse and cryptic. He does not shy away from paradox or apparent contradiction. He is coy about identifying his opponents. The commentarial tradi- tions grounded in his texts present a plethora of interpretations of his view. None- theless, his influence in the Mahayana Buddhist world is not only unparalleled in ¯ ¯ that tradition, but exceeds in that tradition the influence of any single Western phi- losopher in the West. The degree to which he is taken seriously by so many eminent Indian, Chinese, Tibetan, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese philosophers, and lately by so many Western philosophers, alone justifies attention to his corpus. Even were he not such a titanic figure historically, the depth and beauty of his thought and the austere beauty of his philosophical poetry would justify that attention. While Nagarjuna may perplex and often infuriate, and while his texts may initially defy ¯ ¯ exegesis, anyone who spends any time with Nagarjuna’s thought inevitably develops