Metaphysical Arguments of the Madhyamaka

This is the title of the third chapter of Dan Arnold’s book, Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology in South Asian Religion. New York: Columbia University Press, 2005. 318 pp. Index. $50.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-231-13280-0.

I am currently working my way through the Journal of Buddhist Ethics review of this book by Roy Tzohar (Columbia University) and came across a section worth digging into a tiny bit, as it relates to the correspondence between Buddhist and Kantian metaphysics (understanding of the fundamental nature of reality) and heightens the prospects of developing coherent comparative work in their ethics (my job).

… By this [transcendental argument] Arnold does not mean to argue that Candrakīrti was a sort of crypto-essentialist. Rather, arguing in op-position to some readings of the Madhyamaka as a form of global skep-ticism and antirealism, Arnold’s point is that the school’s radical appeal to conventionalism should be considered a bedrock presupposition (120, 127-130). This presupposition is that the only way anything can exist is conventionally and interdependently or in its epistemic version, that there cannot be anything more true than the world conventionally de-scribed (120, 140).

This claim, Arnold argues, is presented via a transcendental argu-ment (in the West classically associated with Kant) framed in such a way that one cannot argue against its claims without already presupposing them (124). Applied by the Madhyamaka, it demonstrates that there can be no explanation of our interdependent conventions that does not itself exemplify the same conditions (of interdependence).

Well, as it turns out, I don’t really have the time I’d hoped to dig into the issue, so I’ll leave it to you to tell me what you think it means! Unschoooled in Buddhism and Philosophy? Eh, give it a try anyhow – your answer can’t possibly be further off than those of some well-studied folks.

Another, earlier review by David Malcolm Eckel can be read here. I’ll put in my thoughts at a later time and/or in the comment-box.