Jan Westerhoff (University of Durham)

"Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka:
Some Philosophical Problems"

The ancient Indian Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna maintained that everything is empty of substance, that emptiness is itself empty, and that the very assertion of "emptiness" is empty too. According to the philosopher Jan Westerhoff, this position has certain philosophical problems.

In his lecture to the Columbia Society for Comparative Philosophy ("Nāgārjuna's Madhyamaka: Some Philosophical Problems"), Westerhoff argues for an interesting parallel between Madhyamaka and contemporary discussions of antirealism. It is his thesis that both schools of thought share a way of resolving their potential problems, if they adopt a radical view of language.

 
 

 

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