Buddhist Illogic

BUDDHIST ILLOGIC
A Critical Analysis of
Nagarjuna’s Arguments
Avi Sion, Ph. D.

© AVI SION, 2002.
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CreateSpace Edition, 2014.
First published 2002.

By Avi Sion, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Library Cataloguing Information:
Sion, Avi.
Buddhist Illogic: A Critical Analysis of Nagarjuna’s Arguments.
No Index. No Bibliography.
ISBN 978-1495928628
ABSTRACT.
The 2nd Century CE Indian philosopher Nagarjuna

founded the Madhyamika (Middle Way) school of
Mahayana Buddhism, which strongly influenced Chinese
(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 of ordinary human cognitive means.
His writings include a series of arguments purporting to

show the illogic of logic, the absurdity of reason. He
considers this the way to verbalize and justify the
Buddhist doctrine of “emptiness” (Shunyata). These
arguments attack some of the basic tenets and techniques
of reasoning, such as the laws of thought (identity, non-
contradiction and the excluded middle),
conceptualization and predication, our common
assumptions of self, entities and essences, as well as our
beliefs in motion and causation.
The present essay demonstrates the many sophistries

involved in Nagarjuna’s arguments. He uses double
standards, applying or ignoring the laws of thought and
other norms as convenient to his goals; he manipulates
his readers, by giving seemingly logical form (like the
dilemma) to his discourse, while in fact engaged in non-
sequiturs or appealing to doubtful premises; he plays
with words, relying on unclear terminology, misleading
equivocations and unfair fixations of meaning; and he
‘steals concepts’, using them to deny the very percepts
on which they are based.
Although a critique of the Madhyamika philosophical

interpretation and defense of “emptiness”, Buddhist
Illogic is not intended to dissuade readers from
Buddhism. On the contrary, its aim to enhance personal
awareness of actual cognitive processes, and so improve
meditation. It is also an excellent primer on
phenomenological epistemology.
Contents
Foreword. .........................................................................5
1. The tetralemma.......................................................11
2. Neither real nor unreal. ..........................................19
3. Nagarjuna’s use of dilemma...................................31
4. The subject-predicate relation. ...............................35
5. Percepts and concepts. ...........................................47
6. Motion and rest. .....................................................75
7. Causality.............................................................. 103
8. Co-dependence. ................................................... 127
9. Karmic law. ......................................................... 147
10. God and creation. ............................................ 153
11. Self or soul. ..................................................... 177
12. Self-knowledge. .............................................. 195
Not ‘empty logic’, but empty of logic. ........................ 209
Appendix 1: Fallacies in Nagarjuna’s work. ............ 219
Appendix 2: Brief glossary of some basic concepts. .. 223
Works by Avi Sion ...................................................... 229
Foreword 5
Foreword.
This essay is a critical review of some of the main

arguments proposed by the Indian Buddhist philosopher
Nagarjuna (c. 113-213 CE), founder of the
Madhyamika (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 is Empty Logic - Madhyamika Buddhism from
Chinese Sources (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991) by
Hsueh-li Cheng, of Hawaii University (Hilo). The main
source-texts of this school of thought, to which Cheng of
course often refers, are the “three treatises” – the Middle
Treatise, the Twelve Gate Treatise and the Hundred
Treatise.1
1
Here abbreviated to MT, TGT and HT, respectively.
These texts are not all by Nagarjuna and no longer exist in the
Sanskrit original, but in Chinese translation (by Kumarajiva,
dating from 409 CE). Thus, the main verses of the first treatise
(MT) were by Nagarjuna; its commentaries were by Pingala.
The whole second treatise (TGT) was by Nagarjuna. The third
treatise’s (HT) main verses were by Aryadeva and its
commentaries were by Vasu. I shall be content to refer to
6 Buddhist Illogic
The title Empty Logic was not intended pejoratively by

its author, but simply to mean ‘logic of emptiness’, the
term “emptiness” (Shunyata) referring to the Buddhist
doctrine that (briefly put, very roughly) things have no
abiding core, no essence, no fixed nature. Cheng’s work
is a clear exposition of Madhyamika history and logical
techniques, but it makes no attempt to criticize those
techniques. All criticism of Madhyamika or Buddhist
logic, here, is my own.
The present essay is not a religious tract and has no
polemical intent. It is a work of philosophy, a fair-
minded logical evaluation of certain propositions and
arguments taken as philosophical positions open to
discussion like any other. It examines and discusses a
goodly array of Buddhist, and in particular Madhyamika,
doctrines, but does not pretend to be an exhaustive
treatment of all doctrines or of all aspects of those dealt
with.
However, I do not attempt here to develop a historical
perspective, or to list the various tendencies and their
Cheng, mentioning his occasional references these treatises;

but, in view of Cheng’s evident competence, I shall barely
distinguish between his say-so and his rare word-for-word
quotations of Nagarjuna.
Foreword 7
interrelations. Cheng’s book includes an interesting

exposition of the development of Madhyamika
philosophy, from Nagarjuna in the 2nd century CE
through to the Yogachara school and on. However, he
fails to investigate in sufficient detail the development of
Buddhist philosophy prior to Nagarjuna, barely
mentioning several centuries of earlier Theravada
(Hinayana) philosophy and the early phases (starting 1st
cent. CE, and before) of Mahayana reaction (e.g. the
Mahasanghikas)2. To better understand Nagarjuna’s
motives and goals, it would be well to be acquainted with
this background3.
2
Mahayana means ‘great vehicle’, Hinayana means
‘small vehicle’. The latter may be taken as a pejorative term
coined by the Mahayanists, implying that their interpretation of
Buddhism is superior. The alternative label, Theravada, is
preferable. In my view, Mahayana was in many respects a
more revolutionary than evolutionary development.
3
A text I can recommend is Part I of The Diamond
Sutra by Mu Soeng (Somerville, MA: Wisdom, 2000). It is also
very instructive to look at the development of Buddhism from a
point of view of comparative religion. For instance, the
Mahayana argument “that their sutras needed to be kept
secret for five hundred years” (p. 24) is familiar to students of
Judaism (a similar argument is used there, e.g. to explain the
historically late appearance of the ‘Ashuri’ Hebrew script used
in Torah scrolls, and in other contexts).
8 Buddhist Illogic
My naming the present essay Buddhist Illogic should not

be taken to imply that I consider all Buddhist philosophy
or even all Madhyamika as illogical. It merely reflects
my focus here on some of the (many) illogical arguments
used in Nagarjuna’s discourse. Indeed, some of
Nagarjuna’s arguments and beliefs have been refuted or
rejected by other Buddhist philosophers. Buddhist
philosophy is not monolithic, but a constellation of
philosophies with as their common ground the (alleged)
pronouncements of Buddhism’s founder. I do here
challenge some underlying Buddhist doctrines, but only
incidentally, not systematically.
I would have named this essay less pejoratively
‘Buddhist Logic’ if I had found some interesting new
thought forms to report. Buddhism and Nagarjuna do
indeed use valid as well as invalid forms of reasoning,
but these forms (those I found so far) are all familiar to
us today, and so not notable except for historical
purposes (where we would try and determine whether
Buddhist usage antedates usage in Greek or other
writings). However, my main justification is that much of
Buddhism itself, and particularly Nagarjuna’s version of
Foreword 9
it, cheerfully proclaims itself free of or beyond logic, or

illogical and even anti-logical.
On a personal note, I want to stress my admiration for
Buddhism in general, which has taught me much, both in
the way of living skills and through its philosophical
insights. So I cannot be accused of approaching this
subject with any antagonistic prejudice. I read Empty
Logic eager to learn from it, rather than to find fault with
it. As a philosopher and logician I am however duty
bound to analyze and judge philosophies dispassionately,
and this is what I do here. Generally speaking, I have
little interest in criticizing other people’s philosophical
works, because I could write thick volumes doing so.
Life is unfortunately too short for that, so I prefer to pass
it developing a constructive statement. Nevertheless, one
generally learns a lot through debate, and I can say that
challenging Nagarjuna has helped me to clarify various
philosophical problems and possible solutions.
Finally, let me say that the message of “Buddha” (the
enlightened) Siddhartha Gautama (563-483 BCE), about
“emptiness”, which as is well known is essentially non-
verbal, should not be confused with Nagarjuna’s or any
10 Buddhist Illogic
other writer’s attempted philosophical interpretation,

explanation and justification of related ideas. Thus, to
refute the latter does not necessarily deny the former.
The tetralemma 11
1. 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 hypotheses, note well, but as incontrovertible
premises of all rational human thought4.
Religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam, even
while adhering to these laws in much of their discourse
and paying lip-service to them, in their bids to interpret
their own sacred texts and to make their doctrines seem
reasonable to their converts, have often ignored these
same laws. This is especially true of mystical trends
within these religions, but many examples could be given
from mainstream writings. The same can be said of some
aspects of Buddhist philosophy.
4
See my Future Logic (Geneva: Author, 1996. Rev.
ed.), ch. 2 and 20, and later essays on the subject (published
on my website www.thelogician.net).
12 Buddhist Illogic
The tetralemma5 is a derivative of the laws of thought,

with reference to any two terms or propositions, labeled
A and B, and their opposites non-A and non-B. Four
combinations of these four terms are conceivable,
namely “A and B” (both), “non-A and non-B” (neither),
“A and non-B” and “non-A and B” (one or the other
only). According to Aristotelian logic, these four
statements are incompatible with each other (only one of
them can be true, because if two or more were affirmed
then “A and non-A” or “B and non-B” or both would be
true, and the latter implications are self-contradictory)
and exhaustive (at least one of them must be true, since if
they were all denied then “not A and not non-A” or “not
B and not non-B” or both would be true, and the latter
implications go against the excluded middle).
Now, what Nagarjuna does is insert the term A in place
of B (i.e. he takes the case of B = A), and effectively
claim that the above four logical possibilities of
combination apply in that special case – so that “A and A
5
See Cheng, pp. 36-38, on this topic. He there refers to
MT opening statement, as well as XVII:12a and XXIII:1a.
Etym. Gk. tetra = four, lemma = alternatives. Term coined in
contrast to the dilemma “A or non-A”.
The tetralemma 13
(=B)”, “non-A and non-A (=non-B)”, “A and non-A

(=non-B)”, “non-A and A (=B)” seem logically
acceptable. He then goes on to argue that there are
four existential possibilities: affirmation of A (A + A =
A), denial of A (non-A + non-A = non-A), both
affirmation and denial of A (A and non-A) and
neither affirmation nor denial of A (not A and not
non-A). He is thus apparently using the principles and
terminology of common logic to arrive at a very opposite
result. This gives him and readers the impression that it is
quite reasonable to both affirm and deny or to neither
affirm nor deny.
But in Aristotelian logic, the latter two alternatives are at
the outset excluded – “both A and non-A” by the Law of
Non-contradiction and “neither A nor non-A” by the Law
of the Excluded-Middle – and the only logical
possibilities left are “A” or “non-A”. The anti-
Aristotelian position may be viewed, in a positive light,
as an anti-Nominalist position, reminding us that things
are never quite what they seem or that things cannot be
precisely classified or labeled. But ultimately, they intend
14 Buddhist Illogic
the death of Logic; for without the laws of thought, how

are we to distinguish between true and false judgments?
The law of identity “A is A” is a conviction that
things have some identity (whatever it
specifically be) rather than another, or than no
identity at all. It is an affirmation that knowledge
is ultimately possible, and a rejection of sheer
relativism or obscurantism. Nagarjuna’s goal is to
deny identity.
It should be noted here that Aristotle is very
precise in his formulation of the law of
contradiction, stating in his Metaphysics “The
same attribute cannot at the same time belong and
not belong to the same subject in the same
respect” (italics mine). Thus, an alternative
statement of the laws of thought would be the
‘trilemma’ (let us so call it) “either wholly A, or
wholly non-A, or both partly A and partly non-A”,
which excludes the fourth alternative “both
wholly A and wholly non-A”. The Buddhist
attack on the laws of thought draws some of its
credibility from the fact that people
The tetralemma 15
subconsciously refer to this ‘trilemma’, thinking

superficially that indeed opposite things may
occur in the same place at different times or at the
same time in different places or in various
respects, without thereby giving rise to logical
difficulty incapable of resolution. But it should be
clear that the Buddhist position is much more
radical than that, accepting thoroughgoing
antinomy.
Similarly with regard to the law of the excluded
middle, which affirms the situation “neither A nor
non-A” to be impossible in fact. People are
misled by the possibility of uncertainty in
knowledge, as to whether A or non-A is the case
in fact, into believing that this law of thought is
open to debate. But it must be understood that the
thrust of this logical rule is inductive, rather than
deductive; i.e. it is a statement that at the end of
the knowledge acquisition process, either “A” or
“non-A” will result, and no third alternative can
be expected. It does not exclude that in the
interim, a situation of uncertainty may occur.
16 Buddhist Illogic
Nagarjuna’s position exploits this confusion in

people’s minds.
Nagarjuna interprets the limitation implied by the
dilemma “A or non-A” as an arbitrary ‘dualism’ on the
part of ordinary thinkers6. It only goes to show that he
misunderstands formalization (or he pretends to, in an
attempt to confuse gullible readers). When logicians use
a variable like “B” and allow that “non-A and B” and “A
and non-B” are both in principle possible, they do not
6
It is misleading to call this a ‘duality’ or ‘dichotomy’, as
Buddhists are wont to do, because it suggests that a unitary
thing was arbitrarily cut into two – and incidentally, that it might
just as well have been cut into four. But, on a perceptual level,
there is no choice involved, and no ‘cutting-up’ of anything. A
phenomenon appearing is one single thing, call it ‘a’ (a proper
name, or an indicative ‘this’), and not a disjunction. The issue
of ‘dichotomy’ arises only on a conceptual level. Negation is a
rational act, i.e. we can only speak of ‘non-a’, of what does not
appear, by first bringing to mind something ‘a’, which
previously appeared (in sensation or imagination). In initial
conceptualization, two phenomena are compared and
contrasted, to each other and to other things, in some
respect(s); the issue is then, are they similar enough to each
other and different enough from other things to be judged
‘same’ and labeled by a general term (say ‘A’), or should they
be judged ‘different’ or is there an uncertainty. At the later
stage of recognition, we have to decide whether a third
phenomenon fits in the class formed for the previous two (i.e.
falls under ‘A’) or does not fit in (i.e. falls under ‘non-A’) or
remains in doubt. In the latter case, we wonder whether it is
‘A’ or ‘non-A’, and forewarn that it cannot be both or neither.
The tetralemma 17
intend that as a generality applicable to all values of B

(such as “A”), but only as a generic statement applicable
to any consistent values of B. In the specific case where
B = A, the said two combinations have to be eliminated
because they are illegal (i.e. breach two of the laws of
thought).
The above-stated property of symbols, i.e. their
applicability only conditionally within the constraints of
consistency, is evident throughout the science of formal
logic, and it is here totally ignored by Nagarjuna. His
motive of course was to verbalize and rationalize the
Buddha’s doctrine that the ultimate truth is beyond nama
and rupa, name and form (i.e. discrimination and
discourse), knowable only by a transcendental
consciousness (the Twofold Truth doctrine). More
precisely, as Cheng emphasizes, Nagarjuna’s intent was
to show that logic is inherently inconsistent and thus that
reason is confused madness to be rejected. That is, he
was (here and throughout) not ultimately trying to defend
a tetralemma with B equal to A – or even to affirm that
things are both A and non-A, or neither A nor non-A –
but wished to get us to look altogether beyond the
18 Buddhist Illogic
distinctions of conceptualization and the judgments of

logic.
But as above shown he does not succeed in this quest.
For his critique depends on a misrepresentation of logical
science. He claims to show that logic is confused and
self-contradictory, but in truth what he presents as the
thesis of logical science is not what it claims for itself but
precisely what it explicitly forbids. Furthermore, suppose
logical theory did lead to contradictions as he claims, this
fact would not lead us to its rejection were there not also
a tacit appeal to our preference for the logical in practice.
If logic were false, contradictions would be acceptable.
Thus, funnily enough, Nagarjuna appeals to our logical
habit in his very recommendation to us to ignore logic. In
sum, though he gives the illusion that it is reasonable to
abandon reason, it is easy to see that his conclusion is
foregone and his means are faulty.
Neither real nor unreal 19
2. Neither real nor unreal.
But Nagarjuna also conceives ultimate reality

(“emptiness”7) as a “middle way” 8 – 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 context, Nagarjuna is
clearly relying on one of the above-mentioned logically
impossible disjuncts, namely “neither A nor non-A” (be
it said in passing). I want to now show why Nagarjuna’s
statement seems superficially reasonable and true.
As I have often clarified and explained9, knowledge has
to be regarded or approached phenomenologically (that is
the only consistent epistemological thesis). We have to
start by acknowledging and observing appearances, as
7
Beyond consciousness of “Shunyata” is a more vivid
awareness called “Mahamudra”, according to Chögyam
Trungpa, in Illusion’s Game (Shambhala: Boston, 1994). But
such refinements need not concern us here.
8
MT XIII:9a and XVIII:7.
9
See my Future Logic, ch. 60-62, and later essays on
the subject.
20 Buddhist Illogic
such, without initial judgment as to their reality or

illusion. At first sight all appearances seem real enough.
But after a while, we have to recognize that some
appearances conflict with other appearances, and judge
such appearances (i.e. one or more of those in conflict) as
illusory. Since there is nothing in our ‘world’ but
appearances, all remaining appearances not judged as
illusions (i.e. so long as they are not logically invalidated
by conflicts with other appearances) maintain their initial
status as realities.
That is, the distinction between appearances as realities
or illusions emerges within the world of appearances
itself, merely classifying some this way and the rest that
way. We have no concept of reality or illusion other than
with reference to appearance. To use the category of
reality with reference to something beyond appearance is
concept stealing, a misuse of the concept, an
extrapolation which ignores the concept’s actual genesis
in the context of appearance. To apply the concept of
illusion to all appearances, on the basis that some
appearances are illusions, is an unjustified generalization
ignoring how this concept arises with reference to a
specific event (namely, inconsistency between certain

appearances and resulting diminishment of their innate
credibilities). Moreover, to claim that no appearances are
real or that all are illusions is self-defeating, since such
claim itself logically falls under the category of
appearance.
The illusory exists even though it is not reality – it exists
as appearance. The real is also apparent – some of it, at
least. Therefore, appearance per se is neither to be
understood as reality (since some appearances are
illusory), nor can it be equated to illusion (since not all
appearances have been or can be found illusory).
Appearance is thus the common ground of realities and
illusions, their common characteristic, the dialectical
synthesis of those theses and antitheses. It is a genus,
they are mutually exclusive species of it. (The difference
between appearance and existence is another issue, I
have dealt with elsewhere – briefly put, existence is a
genus of appearance and non-appearance, the latter
concepts being relative to that of consciousness whereas
the former is assumed independent.)
22 Buddhist Illogic
None of these insights allows the conclusion that

appearances are “neither real nor unreal” (granting that
‘unreal’ is understood to mean ‘non-real’). All we can
say is that some appearances are real and some unreal.
Formally, the correct logical relation between the three
concepts is as follows. Deductively, appearance is
implied by reality and illusion, but does not imply them;
for reality and illusion are contradictory, so that they
cannot both be true and they cannot both be false.
Moreover, inductively, appearance implies reality, until
and unless it is judged to be illusion (by virtue of some
inconsistency being discovered).
More precisely, all appearances are initially classed as
real. Any appearance found self-contradictory is
(deductively) illusory, and its contradictory is
consequently self-evident and (deductively) real. All
remaining appearances remain classed as real, so long as
uncontested. Those that are contested have to be
evaluated dynamically. When one appearance is belied
by another, they are both put in doubt by the conflict
between them, and so both become initially problematic.
Thereafter, their relative credibilities have to be
tentatively weighed in the overall context of available

empirical and rational knowledge – and repeatedly
reassessed thereafter, as that context develops and
evolves. On this basis, one of these appearances may be
judged more credible than the other, so that the former is
labeled probable (close to real) and the latter relatively
improbable (close to illusory). In the limit, they may be
characterized as respectively effectively (inductively)
real or illusory. Thus, reality and illusion are the
extremes (respectively, 100% and 0%) in a broad range
of probabilities with many intermediate degrees
(including problemacy at the mid-point).
To be still more precise, pure percepts (i.e.
concrete appearances, phenomena) are never
illusory. The value-judgment of ‘illusory’
properly concerns concepts (i.e. abstract
appearances, ‘universals’) only. When we say of a
percept that it was illusory, we just mean that we
misinterpreted it. That is, what we initially
considered as a pure percept, had in fact an
admixture of concept, which as it turned out was
erroneous. For example, I see certain shapes and
24 Buddhist Illogic
colors in the distance and think ‘here comes a girl

on a bike’, but as I get closer I realize that all I
saw was a pile of rubbish by the roadside. The
pure percept is the shapes and colors I see; the
false interpretation is ‘girl on bike’, the truer
interpretation is ‘pile of rubbish’. The initial
percept has not changed, but my greater
proximity has added perceptual details to it. My
first impression was correct, only my initial
judgment was wrong. I revise the latter concept,
not through some superior means to knowledge,
but simply by means of further perception and
conception.
Strictly speaking, then, perception is never at
issue; it is our conceptions that we evaluate. It is
in practice, admittedly, often very difficult to
isolate a percept from its interpretation, i.e. from
conceptual appendages to it. Our perception of
things is, indeed, to a great extent ‘eidetic’. This
fact need not, however, cause us to reject any
perception (as many Western philosophers, as
well as Buddhists, quickly do), or even all
conception. The conceptual ‘impurities’ in

percepts are not necessarily wrong. We know
them to have been wrong, when we discover a
specific cause for complaint – namely, a logical
or experiential contradiction. So long as we find
no such specific fault with them, they may be
considered right. This just means that we have to
apply the rules of adduction10 to our immediate
interpretations of individual percepts, just as we
do to complex theories relative to masses of
percepts. These rules are universal: no judgment
is exempt from the requirement of careful
scrutiny and reevaluation.
Now, judging by Cheng’s account and certain quotations
of Nagarjuna therein, we could interpret the latter as
having been trying to say just what I have said. For
instance, Cheng writes11: “What Nagarjuna wanted to
deny is that empirical phenomena… are absolutely
real…. However, [this] does not mean that nothing
10
Adduction treats all conceptual knowledge as
hypothetical, to be tested repeatedly – in competition with all
conceivable alternative hypotheses – with reference to all
available logic and experience.
11
P. 42.
26 Buddhist Illogic
exists. It does not nullify anything in the world” (my

italics). I interpret this non-nullification as an
acknowledgment of appearance as the minimum basis of
knowledge. Nagarjuna may have had difficulties
developing an appropriate terminology (distinguishing
existence, appearance and reality, as I do above),
influenced no doubt by his penchant for paradoxical
statements seeming to express and confirm Buddhist
mystical doctrine.
But if that is what he meant, then he has not succeeded to
arrive at a “middle way” (a denial of the Law of the
Excluded Middle), but only at a “common way” (a
granted common ground). As far as I am concerned, that
is not a meager achievement – the philosophical
discovery of phenomenology! But for him that would be
trivial, if not counterproductive – for what he seeks is to
deny ordinary consciousness and its inhibiting rationales,
and to thereby leap into a different, higher consciousness
capable of reaching transcendental truth or ultimate
reality.
It is interesting to note that the Madhyamika school’s
effective denial of reality to all appearance was not
accepted by a later school of Mahayana philosophy, the

Yogachara (7th-8th cent. CE). Cheng describes the latter’s
position as follows12: “Every object, both mental and
non-mental, may be logically or dialectically proven
illusory. But in order to be illusory, there must be a
certain thought that suffers from illusion. The very fact of
illusion itself proves the existence and reality of a certain
consciousness or mind. To say that everything mental
and non-mental is unreal is intellectually suicidal. The
reality of something should at least be admitted in order
to make sense of talking about illusion” (italics mine).
That is the tenor of the phenomenological argument I
present above, although my final conclusion is clearly
not like Yogachara’s, that everything is consciousness or
mind (a type of Idealism), but leaves open the possibility
of judging and classifying appearances as matter or mind
with reference to various considerations.
The Madhyamika rejection of ‘dualism’ goes so far as to
imply that “emptiness” is not to be found in nirvana, the
antithesis of samsara (according to the earlier Buddhist
viewpoint), but in ‘neither samsara nor nirvana’. In truth,
12
P. 25.
28 Buddhist Illogic
similar statements may be found in the Pali Canon, i.e. in

the much earlier Theravada schools, so that it is not a
distinctly Mahayana construct. The difference is one of
emphasis, such statements, relatively rare in the earlier
period, are the norm and frequently repeated in the later
period. An example may be found in the Dhammapada, a
sutra dating from the 3rd cent. BCE13, i.e. four or five
hundred years before Nagarjuna. Here, samsara is
likened to a stream or this shore of it, and nirvana to the
further shore; and we are told to get beyond the two.
When you have crossed the stream of Samsara,
you will reach Nirvana… He has reached the
other shore, then he attains the supreme vision
and all his fetters are broken. He for whom there
is neither this nor the further shore, nor both….
Such a formula is legitimate if taken as a warning that
pursuing nirvana (enlightenment and liberation) is an
13
London: Penguin, 1973. This is supposedly the date of
composition, though the translator, Juan Mascaro, in his
Introduction, states “compiled” at that time, thus seeming to
imply an earlier composition. It is not clear in that commentary
when the sutra is estimated to have been first written down.
And if it was much later, say in the period of crystallization of
Mahayana thought, say in 100 BCE to 100 CE, the latter may
have influenced the monks who did the writing down. See ch.
26 (383-5) for the quotation.
obstacle to achieving it, just a subtle form of samsara

(ignorance and attachment); there is no contradiction in
saying that the thought of nirvana as a goal of action
keeps us in samsara – this is an ordinary causal
statement. The formula is also logically acceptable if
taken as a reminder that no word or concept – not even
‘samsara’ or ‘nirvana’ – can capture or transmit the full
meanings intended (i.e. ‘not’ here should more precisely
be stated as ‘not quite’). There is also no contradiction in
saying that one who has attained nirvana does not need to
leave the world of those locked in samsara, but can
continue to exist and act in it though distinctively in a
way free of attachment.
But it would be a contradiction in terms to speak of
‘emptiness’ as ‘neither samsara nor nirvana’, given that
nirvana as a concept is originally defined as non-
samsara; the truth cannot be a third alternative. At best,
one could say that emptiness is a higher level of nirvana
(in an enlarged sense), which is not to be confused with
the lower level intended by the original term nirvana, nor
of course with samsara. In that case, nirvana (in a generic
sense of the term, meaning literally non-samsara)
30 Buddhist Illogic
includes both a higher species and a lower one; and the

statement ‘neither samsara nor lower-nirvana’ is then
compatible with the statement ‘higher nirvana’. There is
a big difference between rough, poetic, dramatic
language, and literal interpretation thereof.
Nagarjuna’s use of dilemma 31
3. 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 X, then Y

(the major premises, or ‘horns’ of the
dilemma)
but either X or not X
(the minor premise, left un stated if
obvious)
therefore, Y
(the conclusion)
where “X” and “not X” refers to some propositions under

consideration and “Y” the (explicit or implicit)
intermediate and final conclusion. In Nagarjuna, “Y”
usually has the negative content “Z is meaningless or
impossible or absurd”, i.e. it asserts that the propositions
concerned (“X” or “not X”), or the concepts they
involve, are faulty.
32 Buddhist Illogic
The reasoning process involved is thus the following: the

major premises (or ‘horns’ or ‘prongs’), are intended to
show that the two theses, “X” and “not X”, each leads to
some proposition “Y”; the minor premise reminds us that
these theses are mutually exclusive and exhaust all
available alternatives (it “takes the dilemma by its
horns”), and the final conclusion is that only “Y”, their
common implication, is left over for us. This form of
argument is easily validated, for instance by
contraposing the major premises, to obtain “if not Y, then
both X and not X”; since “not Y” implies the paradox
“both X and “not X”, it follows that its contradictory “Y”
is true.
Note that the above dilemma is ‘two-pronged’, i.e. it
considers two alternative theses, “X” and “not X”; it is
also possible to – and Nagarjuna does so – engage in
dilemmatic argument with three (or more) prongs in the
major premise and a triple (or larger) disjunction in the
minor premise. These have the form (briefly put)
“if A or B or C…, then Y;
but either A or B or C…;
therefore Y”
Nagarjuna’s use of dilemma 33
and can be validated in the same way14.

Sometimes, Nagarjuna’s argument is not properly
dilemmatic in form, but only gives the impression that it
is so. This occurs when the content of “Y” is merely “Z
cannot be established as meaningful or as possible or as
consistent” – i.e. when it signifies a doubt rather than a
denial. Dilemma only works (i.e. can only be validated
as just shown) if the major premises are proper “if/then”
statements, i.e. provided “Y” is some assertoric
proposition that logically follows “X” or “not X”. It does
not work if “Y” is merely problematic given “X” and/or
“not X”. The form “if X, surely Y” should not be
confused with “if X, perhaps Y”; the former means “if X,
then Y” and the latter means “if X, not-then not Y”; the
latter is not logically equivalent to the former, but merely
a subaltern of it. Similarly, mutatis mutandis, in the case
of “if not X”, of course.
When one or both of the major premises has this less
definite form, all we can finally conclude is “maybe Y”
(i.e. the content “Z might be meaningless or impossible
14
Reductio ad absurdum: denying the conclusion while
maintaining the minor premise results in denial of the major
premise.
34 Buddhist Illogic
or absurd”) – which is the same as saying that we reach

no final conclusion at all, since “maybe Y” can be said
ab initio with regard to anything. At best, we might
consider “Y” as inductively slightly more confirmed by
the argument, i.e. the “maybe” as having incrementally
increased in probability; but that does not deductively
prove “Y”. Dilemma, to repeat, can only be validated if
the premises are assertoric; it has no validity if either or
both of them are merely problematic. Yet Nagarjuna, as
we shall see, sometimes considers such pseudo-dilemma
as equivalent to dilemma, and the non-conclusion
“maybe Y” as equivalent to a negative conclusion “Y”.
That is fallacious reasoning on his part.
As we shall see by and by, Nagarjuna indulges in many
other logical fallacies in his philosophical discourse. (I
have drawn up a list of the nine most striking ones in
Appendix 1.)
The subject-predicate relation 35
4. The subject-predicate relation.
Nagarjuna’s assault on reason includes an attempted

critique of verbal expression and the structure of
language15. 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 it functions somewhat on a
practical level, in a “conventional” way, within ordinary
consciousness. His goal is as usual to take us beyond
words and the illusions he claims they create, into the
higher mode of consciousness that puts us in contact with
ultimate reality. His means is to demonstrate that
language is illogical and futile, putting forward at least
two arguments:
(a) He asks, “is the subject identical with or different
from the predicate?” His answer is stated by
Cheng as follows. “If the subject is the same as
15
See Cheng, pp. 117-118. He there refers to MT V:1-5,
and TGT V:1 and VI:1.
36 Buddhist Illogic
the predicate, they would be one and it would

make no sense to call one a subject and the other
a predicate… the sentence would be a tautology.
If on the other hand, the subject is different from
the predicate, there would be no particular
connection between them.” In either case,
predication is found redundant.
(b) Furthermore, “what is the status of the subject
before predication? Does it already have
predicates predicated of it or not?” (i.e. predicates
“other” than the subject itself). “If a subject is
without any predicate predicated of it, it is
incomprehensible and non-existent. If a subject
without a predicate is non-existent, to what does
our predicate apply? If on the other hand, the
subject does have some other predicate
predicated of it before we ascribe a predicate,
what further function would be served by
ascribing an additional predicate since it already
has something predicated of it? If it needs this
predicate, then a second and a third can in
principle be applied. This would lead to infinite

regress.”
By such arguments, Nagarjuna seeks to give the
impression that language is structurally unreliable and a
stupid artifice. His arguments are shaped in such a way
as to seem logically orderly and exhaustive, i.e. to
consider all conceivable alternatives and eliminate them
one by one, so that we have no leg left to stand on. He
thus apparently uses some of the methodology of logic to
convince us. But of course the descriptions of the nature
and role of predication underlying his arguments
constitute merely one particular view16, so that his
premises are not in fact exhaustive and only serve to
show that his proposed view is faulty and to be rejected.
Thus, consider argument 4(a). Its first premise about
tautology is obvious and trivial, being itself tautological.
More important, the second premise is not at all evident.
The subject may well be “different from the predicate”
and yet have a “particular connection” to it. There is no
logical basis for Nagarjuna’s proposed implication; the
16
A view reminiscent of Kant’s and other Western
philosophers’, incidentally.
38 Buddhist Illogic
antecedent concept (“different”) and the consequent

concept (“unconnected”) are quite distinct. If X equals Y
in all respects, then ‘if X, then Y’ and ‘if Y, then X’ must
both be true (though it does not follow that if they are
both true, X = Y, since X and Y may well not be
simultaneous). X and Y are different, means ‘X does not
in all respects equal Y’, and so implies that X and Y are
either non-simultaneous, or that ‘if X, then Y’ and/or ‘if
Y, then X’ is/are false. Whereas X and Y are
unconnected, means that ‘if X, then Y’ and ‘if Y, then X’
must both be false, as any lesser such relations between
X and Y. Thus, the former concept is wider than the
latter, and does not imply it.
The subject-predicate relation under discussion may and
usually is posited as, for instance, a classificatory one – a
relation between an individual and a class, or a subclass
(species) and an overclass (genus), so that the former is
included in the latter without being equal in scope to it.
‘Does not equal’ does not exclude ‘is greater than’ or ‘is
smaller than’ or ‘exists before or after’, or any other non-
equal relationship. Nagarjuna suggests that if the terms
are not identical, they cannot be related by the copula ‘is’
– but this copula was never intended to mean total

equation. Nagarjuna cannot change the convention that
‘is’ is different from ‘equal’; or if he insists on doing so
and himself practices what he preaches, we can simply
invent another word for what we mean by ‘is’.
Since Nagarjuna’s second premise is unwarranted, his
attempted dilemma is dissolved.17
Now consider argument 4(b). The first leg mentions a
subject “without any predicate” and claims it
“incomprehensible and non-existent”, so that eventual
predication relative to it is senseless. The second leg
therefore suggests that a subject can only have one
predicate (if any, see earlier), and that ascribing more of
them to it implies in each case that the preceding one did
not fulfill its intended function (definition?) so that
unending predication would be called for – an impossible
task. But these arguments are worthless, because
Nagarjuna clearly misrepresents predication; his view of
it is a simplistic caricature.
What do we in fact mean by a subject or a predicate?
Primarily, an object of consciousness – an individual
17
See Appendix 1: fallacies D and A.
40 Buddhist Illogic
concrete or an abstract ultimately known through

comparisons of such concretes18. This does not imply that
we consider all existents as objects of consciousness, but
only that as of the moment we think of something (as
here) we must admit it as appearance and therefore as
existent. Moreover, we need not and do not consider
consciousness as invariably correct and all its objects as
real – we may well conceive of an illusory object, which
has no existence other than in the way of appearance.
Secondly, this object (be it real or illusory) may be, and
indeed has to be, cognized before we can name it and
verbally predicate anything of it.19 Predication, like its
terms, is an object of consciousness before it is put into
words. Consciousness of terms and propositions about
them may be wordless; words are merely useful
concretizations of intended objects of cognition. Also,
before terms are brought together in a proposition, the
18
By ‘concrete’ I mean an experienced or perceived
object, a phenomenon. By ‘abstract’, an object of reasoning or
conception. A third class of object I do not mention here (so as
not to complicate the issues) – objects of self-knowledge or
‘intuitions’; suffices in the present context to say that, in
relation to abstracts, they have the same position or role as
concretes (namely, given data).
19
See Appendix 1: fallacy G.
objects intended by the terms have to be known (or

believed, verbally or not) somewhat; the proposition
serves to add to that knowledge of the terms, by
observing or hypothesizing a certain relation between
them.
Nagarjuna tries to suggest the opposite, that we only
know things in the framework of predication (and
perhaps, of prior verbalization), and that predication
merely elucidates or restates knowledge (or belief)
already present in the terms. But we may reply that
something can well exist without/before being thought
of, and be thought of alone without/before being
verbalized; and even if/when named, it remains
comprehensible without/before being made the subject of
any non-verbal or verbal predications; and furthermore
that predications are themselves objects of consciousness
and that most of them enrich the meanings of both
subject and predicate rather than merely redundantly
repeating meanings already in them. Nagarjuna also
apparently confuses predication with definition, when he
considers that a single predication must suffice. In truth,
any number of predicates may be ascribed to a subject;
42 Buddhist Illogic
predicates are numerous because they are not tautologies

of the subject; every term is a complex with a potential
positive or negative relation to every other term. Even
definition has no ambition to tell us everything about
something, but merely claims to focus on one set of
predicates, which seemingly abide invariably and
exclusively with the subject; and a definition may turn
out to be erroneous.
In conclusion, Nagarjuna’s above arguments prove
nothing but the incoherence of the particular view of
discourse he presents, and do not succeed in invalidating
all discourse. The superficial form of his arguments is
usually logical enough. But it is not enough to give
logical form to our rhetoric, i.e. that the conclusion
follows from the premises – the premises themselves
have to be first be found obvious or reasonable. It is the
premises of Nagarjuna’s arguments that I above contest
as naïve and misleading; and my conclusion is merely
that his conclusion is not convincingly established.20 The
theory of predication and underlying processes that I
rebut his theory with may not answer all questions about
20
See Appendix 1: fallacy D.
these issues, but it is certainly more thought-out and

closer to the truth.
To the objection that his use of language to communicate
his ideas and arguments implies an assumption (which he
denies) that language contains knowledge of some
reality, Nagarjuna replies that language is
“conventional”. This vague accusation of divorce from
all reality has little content, so long as it leaves
unexplained just how – in convincing detail – such
convention functions otherwise (for language evidently
does function, as his using it admits). We can also point
out that although words are in principle mere
conventions, it does not follow that knowledge is
“conventional”.
First because that proposition, as a factual assertion,
claims to know something beyond convention about
knowledge; and as regards content, it claims the
impossibility of any non-conventional linguistic
knowledge (including, presumably, the knowledge the
proposition itself imparts); whence, to assert that
linguistic knowledge is conventional is self-
contradictory. Secondly, all conventions imply factual
44 Buddhist Illogic
knowledge: you have to know that there is a convention

and what that convention is supposed to be and how to
apply it correctly! You cannot have a convention about a
convention… ad infinitum – it has to stop somewhere
factual. Knowledge of conventions is also knowledge; a
convention, too, is a reality in itself. It cannot float on an
infinity of empty conventions, it has to finally be
anchored on some real appearance.
Thirdly, because the conventionality of words is
misunderstood. Affixing a label on something, arbitrarily
or by agreement, does not imply that the ‘something’
concerned need not be previously known. We can be
aware of things, and even think about them, without
words. Words merely help us record rational products;
giving us a relatively tangible instrument to manipulate.
The value of words is not in making conceptual and
logical thought possible, but only in making it easier
(facilitating memory, classification, communication).
Convention is therefore a secondary aspect of words;
what counts is their meaning. A language composed only
of meaningless words, each entirely defined by others,
would have to be infinite in size, and would anyway
communicate nothing outside itself. If the language is

finite, like ours, it is bound to be based on some
undefined prime words, and thus (since content is only
verbal, here) be devoid of content, incommunicado. It
could not even communicate its own conventions.
Thus, Nagarjuna’s dismissal of language as such is an
incoherent thesis, which upon closer scrutiny proves
inconsistent with itself.
46 Buddhist Illogic
Percepts and concepts 47
5. Percepts and concepts.
According to pre-Mahayana Buddhist (and other Indian)

philosophers, the world we experience and think about is
composed of “dharmas”21. This term has various
meanings22, 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 of experience; an appearance is an object of
cognition of any kind, whether perceptual (phenomena),
intuitive (objects of ‘self-knowledge’) or conceptual
(objects of rational knowledge, ‘universals’). Dharmas
are “momentary, particular and multiple”; they are “not
supported by substance or self” yet have their “own or
independent nature”; they are “distinct and separate, yet
appear and disappear in accordance with the principle of
causality”. Nagarjuna denies the “reality” and
21
MT VII:1-2,23,25 and XV:1-2, as well as TGT IV:2, VI:1, VII,
VIII:1.
22
See Cheng, p. 128, for a list.
48 Buddhist Illogic
intelligibility of dharmas, using the following main

arguments.
(a) He argues, “a momentary entity or impermanent
dharma” can be “divided into non-enduring or
non-abiding” segments, each of which “has,
analytically, no duration whatever. It disappears
as soon as it appears. Therefore, it cannot be said
to have true existence.” Yet, it is “supposed to
have some duration.” Whence, “to say that an
entity is impermanent is tantamount to saying
that what abides is non-abiding,” which is “a
contradiction in terms”.
(b) Against the contention that “impermanence” does
not signify “non-duration”, but refers to “the
reality of the phenomenal” that each thing
“arises, endures for a moment and then ceases to
be”, Nagarjuna replies: “how [does each of these
three] characteristics characterize a dharma?” Is
it “simultaneously or successively”? It cannot be
simultaneously, because “origination, duration
and cessation are opposed by nature: at the time
of cessation there should not be duration, and at
the time of duration there should not be

cessation.” It cannot be successively, because if
the characteristics occur at different times, there
would be three different phenomena” and “how
can different phenomena be true of the ‘same
thing’?”
(c) Furthermore, he argues: these three
characteristics – origination, duration and
cessation – must be either “created” or “non-
created”. If they are the created, then each of
them should in turn “have the three
characteristics”, each of which in turn, “like
other created things,” should have them, and so
on ad infinitum. If, on the other hand, “each
characteristic is non-created, how can it
characterize a created thing?” In either case,
then, we have a “conceptual problem”.
(d) Moreover, he argues: “what is the relation
between an object and characteristics?”23. Are
23
It is not clear here whether specifically the three
characteristics of arising, enduring and ceasing are meant, or
more generally any characteristics. But it does not affect the
argument.
50 Buddhist Illogic
they “identical” or “different”? “If identical,

there would be no distinction between them, and
it would be absurd to say that the one is object
and the other, characteristics.” Nor could one say
that they are identical in the sense that the object
is “the substance of” the characteristics, and the
characteristics are “the manifestation of” the
object. For to do so would, according to
Nagarjuna, imply their relation to be “reflexive”,
and therefore that “a thing would be subject and
object at the same time”, which is “clearly
impossible, because subject and object are
different”. If, on the other hand, an object is
“different from” its characteristics, “there would
be no internal connection between them.”
Therefore, “characteristics characterize objects”
cannot be said.
(e) He also argues, “whatever can be conceived to
exist has a cause. All things are produced by a
combination of various causes and conditions24.
24
In Buddhist philosophy, causes are relatively internal
or direct, conditions are relatively external or indirect. But the
word ‘cause’ may also be taken more broadly, to include such
When the conditions change, things will also

change and even disappear. To exist means to be
caused, conditioned, generated or dependent on
something. But by definition a dharma is an entity
which has its own or independent nature.”
Whence, he concludes, “to say that a dharma
exists would be the same as saying that an
independent thing is dependent”, i.e. the claim
“dharmas exist” is “a contradiction in terms” and
“absurd”.
Nagarjuna concluded from these arguments that the
concept of dharma upheld by his predecessors, Buddhist
or otherwise, was confused and untenable. Reality could
not, therefore, be understood through such conceptual
tools. But let us now look at his arguments more closely
and critically. As we shall see, they are far from
conclusive, and generally fallacious.
Argument 5(a) is simply a claim that when a duration of
time (moment) is infinitely divided, its constituent points
of time (instants) have zero duration and, therefore,
causes and conditions indiscriminately. See Lotus in a

Stream, by Hsing Yun (New York: Weatherhill, 2000), for more
details (pp. 80-82).
52 Buddhist Illogic
cannot be said to exist. This argument is already known

to Western philosophy through the paradoxes of Zeno of
Elea (born c. 490 BCE), and has been amply contested
since then by many philosophers, mathematicians and
physicists, on various grounds25. My own (additional, yet
essential) objection to it would be that Nagarjuna here
fails to analyze how and in what order the concepts he
uses arise.
What is under discussion here (viz. the dharmas), are
primarily phenomena, empirical givens. In fact, at any
one moment of experience, what we perceive is one
holistic phenomenon; the ‘cutting up’ of that total
phenomenon into smaller, individual phenomena
(different shapes, colors, sounds, etc.) is not in itself
perception, but one of the first rational acts. We
experience things in flux – coming, staying a while,
going. To understand such motion, we construct a
concept of time, which we gradually refine (with
measurements, mathematics, Relativity theory). Motion
25
See Ralph E. Kenyon Jr, Atomism and Infinite
Divisibility, a doctoral dissertation presented to the University
of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1994. The full text is available on
the Internet at http://www.xenodochy.org/rekphd/.
is an experience, but time is a concept. The concept of

time arises in response to the experience of motion, so it
has to be tailored to fit and cannot be used to deny such
experience. If a conflict occurs between the two, it is the
concept and not the experience that has to be put in doubt
and adjusted.26
Now, what is the ‘infinite division’ of a phenomenon that
Nagarjuna appeals to? It is not a physical act of slicing a
phenomenon with a knife, or anything of the sort. For we
have no experience of infinite division in the physical
realm; we may subdivide a material body or draw lines
on a piece of paper or a computer screen only so far, not
ad infinitum. Infinite division is an imaginary act. If the
phenomenon is of the ‘material’ kind, the division may
occur on a ‘mental’ image of it; if the phenomenon is
already of the mental kind, the division can occur
directly on it. But even in our heads, we do not in fact
divide infinitely. We may slice the image, then mentally
‘zoom in’ and slice that slice, then zoom in and slice
again a few more times, then we stop.
26
54 Buddhist Illogic
Now, the zooming in is merely production of a new

image – so we are not even, in fact, repeatedly
subdividing the same image; we merely say ‘suppose this
image is a detail of the preceding’. The new image has
the same size as the preceding, but its scale is declared
different. Furthermore, the subdivision process takes
time, and we do not anyway have an infinity of time – so
we have to stop it after a few sample shots, and then say
‘suppose I repeat this to infinity’. Thus, infinite division
is not even a real act in the mental field, but a mere
verbal statement – i.e. at best, a concept referring to the
intention to ‘cut’ and memory of recurrent events,
projected to a hazy ‘infinity’.
Furthermore, when we imagine division of a (two-
dimensional) phenomenon, we imagine (one
dimensional) line drawn somewhere in the middle of it.
But how is the geometrical entity known as a line (length
devoid of width) first conceived? It is derived from
experience of the visible boundaries of phenomena (with
length and width) in relation to their surrounds; there has
to be some difference between the two sides of a
boundary for it to be visible. A line in the middle of an
extended phenomenon is thus partly a concept, and not a

pure percept. We never entirely see a line, we always
have to some extent think it. We have to effectively
accompany it with the thought ‘this line has no width’.
Thus, the visualization of division does not in itself prove
infinite divisibility.
Nagarjuna, for all his supposed meditative introspection,
has clearly not paid attention to how his concept of
‘infinite division’ arose in detail.27 His argument or
‘thought experiment’ is without substance, because he
has in fact certainly not engaged in ‘infinite division’. He
has not shown experientially that dharmas of zero
extension in time are the building blocks of dharmas with
duration in time. He has therefore not demonstrated that
a contradiction exists in the concept of momentary
dharma.
Let us now move on to argument 5(b). It is true of all
phenomena that they are momentary. It does not follow
that all existents are momentary, but that need not
concern us here. Nagarjuna’s predecessors or opponents
are quite correct in their analysis of the momentary as
27
See Appendix 1: fallacy E.
56 Buddhist Illogic
something that appears, endures awhile then disappears.

Nagarjuna is correct in saying that these three
characteristics are opposed, i.e. cannot occur
simultaneously. But his definition of simultaneity as “at
the time of” is vague and misleading. His definition of
succession as occurrence “at different times” is also
incorrect. Both premises of his dilemma are therefore
confused, as we shall now see.
For the arising and the ceasing are conceived as at the
temporal boundaries of the duration, and so not as in it
nor quite as outside it. Arising occurs at the instant (the
unextended point of time) the duration starts, and ceasing
occurs at the instant the duration ends. The concept of
arising refers to just that instant of flip-over from absence
to presence, and the concept of ceasing to just that instant
of passing from presence to absence. The coming,
staying and going are successive, in the sense that the
arising and the ceasing are not simultaneous with each
other. But each of the latter is instantaneous and
contiguous (and in that sense only, simultaneous) with
the duration (at either end of it). They cannot therefore be
said to be ‘at different times’ from it. The arising cannot
be said to be ‘before’ the duration and the ceasing cannot

be said to be ‘after’ the duration; they are not time-
consuming processes (though such processes may
precede and cause them). The two limits of duration (be
it brief or long) cannot actually be dissociated from it.
The phenomenon remains one, even as we conceptually
distinguish three ‘characteristics’ of it.
We thus see that Nagarjuna’s argument is based on a
stupid or deliberate fuzziness of definition.28 The
confusions involved in his dilemma are entirely of his
own fabrication; he sows them to have pretexts for
criticism. He uses ‘at the same time’ to mean ‘in
overlapping durations’ and ‘at different times’ to mean
‘in separate durations’, whereas what is under discussion
is instants which are the edges of a duration. No wonder
then that he concludes that there is either contradiction or
separation.
Now study argument 5(c). Two arguments are
intermingled in it – one relates to the hierarchy of
concepts and percepts29, the other relates to causation.
28
See Appendix 1: fallacy F.
29
58 Buddhist Illogic
Nagarjuna claims that the three stages (arising, staying,

ceasing) of each phenomenon may be viewed as in turn a
phenomenon. What he relies on here is a reification of
the first and last stages; he tacitly implies that because
they have separate names they too have durations. The
distinctions between the three are thus erased. If we
consider the conceptual development involved, we see
that, in a first phase, ‘phenomenon’ refers to a unit of
perception (a piece of the perceptual field isolated by
mental projection, to be exact); in a second phase, we
distinguish within this event or thing an instantaneous
beginning, a momentary middle and an instantaneous
end, and accordingly form concepts of arising, enduring
and ceasing. The latter are abstract aspects of the
concrete phenomenon, and therefore in a sense ‘present
in’ it and ‘part of’ it.
But contrary to what Nagarjuna suggests, it does not
follow that arising and ceasing in turn have a beginning,
a middle and an end – since they are instantaneous. It
does not even follow that the middle part of the initial
phenomenon has another beginning, middle and end –
since we have already abstracted the two ends of the
phenomenon away from its middle. We thus have no

basis for an infinite regression of concepts; we remain
only justified in having one concrete phenomenon and
only three abstract aspects of it. The “characteristics” are
phenomenal in the sense of being distinguishable in a
phenomenon; but not being themselves ‘divisible’ in the
same way as it, they cannot rightly be called phenomenal
in the same sense as it. One cannot say that arising both
arises and ceases at once, or say the same about ceasing;
because neither of them has duration; that which arises
has to be absent for a while then present for a while, and
similarly in the opposite direction with ceasing.
Furthermore, whatever produces the primary
phenomenon also produces the three aspects of it we
have distinguished in it; they do not require additional
causes that will separately produce them. Even if we
regard, as did Nagarjuna’s philosophical forerunners,
everything in the phenomenal as having been “created”
(in the sense at least of being produced by preceding
causes and conditions), perhaps in an infinite chain, it
does not mean that such causality forks out repeatedly
and endlessly.
60 Buddhist Illogic
The “thing” caused, with all its characteristics, is one.

Ordinarily, the cause causes arrival, a minimum stay, and
if the event is momentary thereafter a departure. We may
in some cases identify something as causing the arrival of
that thing; a second as causing its staying on; and a third
as causing its departure. But even then the cause of the
arrival is also partially a cause of the staying on and of
the departure, since without arriving a momentary event
would not be able to stay or depart. Also, the cause of the
staying on is a partial cause – in a negative sense of a
hindrance – of the eventual departure. In such cases,
however, ‘the cause’ of the phenomenon as a whole
would simply be composed of a series of three subsidiary
‘causes’ – one determining the arising and a minimum
momentary stay, the next prolonging the duration after
arrival and preventing ceasing, and the last interrupting
duration and determining ceasing. This is merely an
analysis of causation and not a multiplication of causes
ad infinitum.
Thus, we have replied to Nagarjuna that the thing
characterized is not apart from its three characteristics,
and they do not in turn each have three characteristics.
Also, the respective causes of the three characteristics

together sum up to the cause of what they characterize,
and its cause is not apart from their causes. Nagarjuna
gives the impression of making logical analyses, but in
fact he glosses over details and nuances at his personal
convenience.30 His arguments give an appearance of
structure and order, but beneath them lies a great
carelessness in observation.
Now study argument 5(d). Are an object and its
characteristics “identical” or “different”? An individual
object could be regarded as the sum total of all
characteristics, permanent and transient, observable in it.
More precisely, if (or so long as) one or several, or one
or several combination(s), of these characteristics is
observed in the object and never in any other, we may
consider every such single or collective characteristic as
a sign of the object, i.e. as signifying its individuality or
essence. The single or collective characteristic(s)
exclusive to an object could thus be regarded as
“identical” with it for all intents and purposes, without
however wholly equating it/them to the object. For the
30
62 Buddhist Illogic
object as a whole should be taken to include its non-

distinctive attributes or actions, as well as its distinctive
essences.
So the answer to Nagarjuna’s question is as follows. His
terminology is as usual lacking in nuances31; for this
reason, the choices he gives us seem restrictive and force
us into dead ends. We have to first distinguish essential
(distinctive) characteristics (or sets of them) from
common (non-exclusive) ones. The individual object is
the totality of its facets and history, including both these
types of characteristics. The essential characteristics
could be considered as the “substance” of the object; the
non-essential ones, as its “manifestation”. This would
avoid any implication of “reflexive” relation. Thus, we
can regard some characteristics as “identical” with the
object (without however meaning equal to it); and others
as “different” from it (which does not imply them
disconnected from it). And we can well say that
“characteristics characterize objects”, while remaining
aware that the subject and verb of this proposition are of
variable meaning.
31
Of course, none of this tells us what the “relation”

between an object and its characteristics precisely is, i.e.
in what sense the later ‘belong’ to the former. We have
above just accepted that there are relations, which we can
in practice identify by observation and distinguish
between statistically. To better understand the relational
aspect, we need to develop a theory of ‘universals’ –
what are these things and how do we know them? What
we perceive are concrete objects; the ‘universals’ are
abstractions from these phenomena.
Abstraction is performed by comparisons and contrasts
between present phenomena and/or presumed memories
of past phenomena. Abstracts are apparent as the various
measures or degrees in the wave motions that constitute
phenomena. Phenomena of light, sound, etc. have various
intensities, frequencies, etc. These quantitative or
mathematical variations are inherent in the phenomena of
perception; some are measured roughly and
‘instinctively’, others, through conscious experiment and
careful calculation. In either case, rational work is
required to distinguish them out from their perceptual
context, and from each other; and to name, interrelate
64 Buddhist Illogic
and classify them; and to keep our theses concerning

them logically consistent. For this reason, we regard
them as objects of another level of cognition, the
conceptual, and say that abstracts are known by
conception.
In the Buddhist tradition preceding Nagarjuna,
“dharmas” are already said to be “empty”. This can be
rationally understood to mean, not that objects are devoid
of essential characteristics (in the sense above defined),
but that there is nothing non-phenomenal (or noumenal)
to consider behind the phenomenal. I would agree with
this proposition, and submit that when other Buddhist
philosophers combat the idea of “essences”, they are not
denying that abstract characteristics are distinguishable
within phenomena and that some of those are distinctive,
but are denying a particular philosophical development,
namely the notion that “an object” is more than (or even
other than) its evident phenomenal aspects and the
inductively justifiable abstractions therefrom (which, to
repeat, are merely measurements). The doctrine of
“emptiness” initially opposed such fanciful reification as
sidetracking our attention, and recommended we remain
focused on what is in fact apparent to us. Knowledge is

knowledge of actual phenomena, not of some imagined
‘reality’ behind them.
A lot of the confusion in this issue is due to
failure to make two distinctions. If we
perceptually knew all the phenomena ever
existing in the universe, we obviously could not
logically claim that there might be any further
phenomenon hidden behind them. But because we
conceptually know (having memory of our
changing scope of knowledge, and in any case the
uncertainty at all times that we have perceived
everything) that we have access to only some of
the phenomena in the universe, we can
legitimately suppose that there might be yet
unknown phenomena to consider, and that these
might in yet unknown ways affect known
phenomena. Furthermore, even if the totality of
existents appeared to us, i.e. even if we
experienced everything that ever is, was or will
be, on a concrete level, we could still additionally
abstract their similarities and differences, and
66 Buddhist Illogic
their statistical regularities and irregularities, and

point to such abstract aspects as underlying
substrata or causes.
Thus, two distinctions are called for. The first is a
distinction between a theoretical perceptual
omniscience, from which viewpoint by definition
no hidden phenomena are conceivable, and a
practical relativity of knowledge to limited
perceptual context, which viewpoint allows for
supposition of unknown but subterraneously
operative phenomena. In the former case,
‘existent’ and ‘apparent’ are co-extensive, but in
the latter case ‘existent’ is a genus of ‘apparent’.
Secondly, neither of these absolute and relative
positions excludes a category of being and
knowing other than the perceptual, viz. the
conceptual, from being appealed to. In both cases,
abstracts can still be posited as ‘underlying’
concretes. Here, the concept of ‘apparent’ is
enlarged to include not only concretes
(phenomena) but also abstracts (universals).
On this basis, we can ask what Buddhism means

when it says that “dharmas” are “empty”. Does it
mean that phenomena have no other phenomena
behind them? This may be affirmed by a proven
omniscient Subject, but the rest of us have to
always concede that there are probably
phenomena hidden to us (as we often discover
later), which may impinge on those known to us.
Does it, alternatively, mean that concrete
appearances (phenomena) have no abstract
appearances behind them? This cannot logically
be claimed without self-contradiction, since such
a claim is itself manifestly abstract; the fact of the
claim must itself be taken into consideration. One
may legitimately argue, discursively, about the
objectivity or subjectivity of the abstract, but not
about its ultimate validity in some way. Also,
whether the abstract is present in the object or in
the subject, it still abides – at least in the sense
that there is no time duration when it is absent
from existence.
68 Buddhist Illogic
Nagarjuna’s doctrine of “emptiness” includes not only

the previous denial of a noumenal world, but equally
denial of the phenomenal world.32 It is an attempted one-
upmanship on his predecessors. They were anti-
rationalist, in the sense of rejecting a certain excess of
rationalism, a sickness or error of rational projection that
ignores, obscures or eclipses experience. He typically
takes a more radical and extreme posture and rejects all
rationalism indiscriminately. But this is really a rejection
of experience, a claim that ultimate reality is beyond it –
i.e. it is in effect another form of noumenalism, a return
to the sickness his predecessors combated. He pretends
that his conclusion can be reached by logical means; but
his means are evidently not logical.
Finally, consider argument 5(e). Nagarjuna takes as one
of his premises that all conceivable existents have causes
of some sort. But that is debatable.33 We might accept a
statement that all phenomena (i.e. perceived existents,
concretes) have causes – though even that is debatable.
For such a general statement can only at best be known
32
33
inductively, by hypothetical generalization from cases

where causality has specifically been established; strictly
speaking, it is also conceivable that some phenomena (or
perhaps some unperceived concrete existents) are eternal
or spontaneous or free (i.e. uncaused in some sense). But
what of conceived existents (abstracts) – do they also, as
he claims, all have causes? That is even more debatable.
When we speak of a kind of thing causing another kind
of thing, we more precisely mean that instances of the
former cause instances of the latter. As for large
abstractions, like God or the universe as a whole, or even
just existence, we can conceive them as existing without
cause.
As a second premise Nagarjuna takes the idea of his
philosophical predecessors or opponents that a “dharma”
has “its own or independent nature” as meaning that it is
independent of causes. But this is not their intended
meaning, which is only that dharmas are “distinct and
separate”, i.e. each have a specific nature of their own.
This is evident in their explicit position that, as we have
seen, dharmas “appear and disappear in accordance with
the principle of causality”. So Nagarjuna is playing on
70 Buddhist Illogic
the equivocation of the term “independent”. He does so

to load the dice in favor of his desired conclusion,
making it seem as if they made self-contradictory claims
about dharmas.34
Nagarjuna thus has not disproved the statement that
dharmas exist. And in fact such a statement has no need
of rational proof, if it is understood to mean that
phenomena exist, for that is empirically evident. We
know for sure of the existence of “existence” only
through the experience of phenomena.35 The concept of
existence is based on that of phenomena, enlarging the
latter to include hypothetical unperceived concretes, and
at a later stage hypothetical abstracts and hypothetical
objects of intuition (self-knowledge).
What, anyway, do we mean by the “nature” of a thing?
My understanding of the term refers to the ‘laws’ of
behavior of the thing, signifying that things exhibit
certain regularities of behavior (being or doing). For
instances, something may have character X or do X
always (while in existence), or only when Y occurs.
34
35
Apparently, in our universe, things cannot be or do just

anything we imagine for them. Maybe, if everything is
just energy, they ultimately can; but the world as we
observe it so far seems to contain things with limited
behavior possibilities. We acknowledge this apparent fact
by saying that existents have a ‘nature’. We do not
thereby imply them independent of causes, as Nagarjuna
suggests, but on the contrary say that if things have
causes, they have a nature. Moreover, even something
without causes may have a nature, if it has limited
behavior patterns. Only something not subject to ‘law’ at
all has no ‘nature’.
Phenomena may yet be ultimately not subject to ‘law’,
i.e. devoid of ‘nature’. But to support that thesis,
Nagarjuna ought rather to have emphasized, like his
predecessors, the positivistic idea that phenomena exist
in succession, each moment caused by a previous and
causing the next, without an underlying continuity
between them across time. This concept remains
conceivable, if we gloss over our observations of
regularity, arguing that regularity is only known by
72 Buddhist Illogic
generalization. But generalization is justified as follows36.

We observe certain things that are X to always be Y; we
infer that all X are Y, because we refuse to assume that
there are Xs that are not Y until we have observed such
negative cases. On the other hand, to refuse to generalize
would be to admit such imagined changes in polarity
without empirical basis.
Thus, generalization (duly controlled by
particularization, when new observations belie it) is a
more empirical rational act than non-generalization; it
makes less assumptions. I have observed some Xs that
are Y, and maintain that all are since some are; but I have
not observed any Xs that are not Y, so how can I
presume the latter possible without specific additional
reasons? The notion that anything might become
anything is thus a very hard thesis to prove – one would
have to observe everything eventually turning into
everything else, one could not appeal to any
generalization whatsoever. One would also have to
explain why different things were transformed in
different sequences. One would therefore have to be
36
See my Future Logic, ch. 50 and 54-55.
omniscient to prove such a thesis. Or one would have to

find some convincing indirect theoretical reason to
believe it, such as experimental and mathematical
evidence that all energies are convertible into all others
(a unified field theory), which neither Nagarjuna nor
anyone has succeeded in doing yet.
To summarize, all five arguments proposed by Nagarjuna
in relation to the concept of dharmas are faulty (the three
middle arguments being inconclusive dilemmas37, the
other two not self-contradictory), and indeed probably
intentionally so. It is not the concepts he attacks that are
absurd or contradictory, it is his own discourse that
merits such condemnation. It may seem incredible that so
many people for so many centuries have studied his work
without crying ‘foul!’ – but, what can I say, that is the
way of the human psyche. It can allow itself to be
intimidated by someone’s prestige and submit
unthinkingly to authority, or to gloss over incredulity in
response to a promise of salvation dangled appetizingly
before it.
37
See Appendix 1: fallacy B.
74 Buddhist Illogic
Motion and rest 75
6. Motion and rest.
Nagarjuna denies the knowability and possibility of

motion and likewise of rest, and purports to refute them
by various arguments38, thus (by negation) proving the
truth of the “emptiness” doctrine. He does this by means
of outwardly logical argument forms, like (two- or three-
pronged) dilemmas or showing some propositions to be
self-contradictory or circular. But in all cases, it is
evident that some of the premises he appeals to are
arbitrary and designed to sow confusion so as to yield his
foregone conclusions. I shall first present his arguments,
then their rebuttal.
a) According to Cheng, Nagarjuna divides the “path
of motion” into three segments, the “already
passed”, the “yet-to-be passed” and the “being
passed”, and argues that if we examine each of
these, we cannot find “the act of passing” in it,
38
MT II:1-21. Nagarjuna’s claim that motion is impossible is
comparable to that of Zeno the Eleatic, but the latter does not
deny rest like the former; furthermore, their arguments are
very different.
76 Buddhist Illogic
concluding that “motion is impossible and cannot

be established”. The act of passing is not to be
found in the already passed, “because it has
already been passed”; nor in the yet-to-be passed,
“because it is not yet”; nor in the being passed,
“because if we are still examining whether there is
the act of passing, how can we use the ‘the path
which is being passed’ to establish the act of
passing?”
b) Similarly, Nagarjuna contends that motion cannot
even “begin”, in any of these three segments. Not
in the already passed, because is it is “the effect
of” the beginning to pass, which “is over”. Nor in
the beginning to pass, because it is “the starting
point of change” (i.e. it precedes the yet-to-be
passed), which “has no change yet”. Nor in the
being passed, which “is possible only if there is an
act of passing,” which in turn “is possible only if
there is a beginning of passing”. Additionally,
“since motion cannot even be started, how can we
talk about a place to go?”
Motion and rest 77
c) Similarly, it is claimed that “the mover or moving

entity cannot be established” and that “the mover
cannot move”. For “if someone moves… we
cannot say that ‘the one who has already moved’
moves because his action is over”; and “we cannot
say that ‘the one who has not yet moved’ moves
because that involves a contradiction”. Finally, we
cannot say “the mover means ‘the one who is
moving’”, since “there can be a mover only when
there is an act of moving, yet whether there is an
act of moving is the issue we are examining” and
so we would be “begging the question”.
d) It is also claimed doubly fallacious to say “the
mover moves”, because we would be asserting that
“the mover can be separated from the act of
motion” and that “there are two kinds of motion,
namely, motion in the mover and motion in the act
of moving”. Here, Nagarjuna questions the very
relation between mover and motion. Are the two
“identical or different”? If the former, then “the
mover would always be moving”. If the latter,
then “the mover can exist without motion, and
78 Buddhist Illogic
vice versa”. Both these assumptions are “absurd”,

so “neither motion nor mover could be
established”.
e) Lastly, we might be tempted to conclude, from the
preceding arguments against motion, that
everything is at rest; but Nagarjuna preempts this
way out, by arguing that even “rest cannot be
established” as follows. That which rests is either
a “mover (or moving thing)” or a “non-mover (or
non-moving thing)”. But “it is absurd to say that
the mover rests, because this involves
contradiction”; nor can it be said that “the mover
rests when he stops moving”, because “when
someone stops moving, he is not the mover
anymore”. It is also impossible to say that “the
non-mover rests… because rest means cessation of
motion,” and since “the non-mover does not
move” he “cannot cease to move (rest)”. Since
these are the only two alternatives, “rest is
impossible”.
f) Another argument with the same conclusion: rest
“must happen at some place or at some time”. It
Motion and rest 79
cannot happen “at that which is already passed

(or the past), or at that which is yet to be passed
(or the future), or at that which is being passed (or
the present)”, because “as pointed out previously,
there cannot be motion in any one of these
situations, hence there cannot be the cessation of
motion, or rest.” Cheng goes on to explain: “For
Nagarjuna, motion and rest are relative to each
other”, and he concludes “hence both are devoid
of specific character or nature, and neither is
real.”
Thus Nagarjuna apparently shows that “one cannot hold
that what is real is permanent or impermanent”. It would
follow that the beliefs relating to motion and rest,
generated by ordinary consciousness and by its logic, are
illusory and invalid; whence, we ought to instead adhere
to that other, superior way of knowledge defended by
Nagarjuna – awareness of the void. All this is of course
nonsense, as I shall now demonstrate.
Let us start with argument 6(a). At first sight, it may be
construed as an attempt to say, as the Greek philosopher
Heraclitus did, that you cannot step into the same river
80 Buddhist Illogic
twice – or indeed once, since as you are stepping into it,

its waters have already moved on. But the intent of such
a statement is merely to say that everything is always in
motion. This is indeed one of the tenets of traditional
Buddhism (“impermanence”, anitya), but not
Nagarjuna’s intent here, which is a denial of motion as
such.
His argument states that actual motion (“the act of
passing”) has to take place in past, future or present.
Being by definition present, actual motion admittedly
cannot take place in the past or future, as the first two
premises imply. But that does not mean that when the
past was present, motion was not actual in it; nor that
when the future becomes present, motion will not be
actual in it. The label “actual” is not static, but refers
dynamically to every instance of “the present”; as the
present changes position on the time-line, so does the
reference point of actuality. As for the third premise, it is
misleading, for we can well (and indeed must) say that
actual motion exists in the present.39 Nagarjuna suggests
that we have to prove (“examine” and “establish”) that
39
See Appendix 1: fallacy H.
Motion and rest 81
actuality is in the present before we can affirm it. But

even if this were granted, the inferred third premise
would be problematic, and not the assertion that actuality
is not in the present; in which case, the dilemma as a
whole would remain inconclusive, and not result in
denial that motion is possible and knowable.40
However, furthermore, we can prove that motion is
actual in the present. We can refer to the appearance of
actual motion in the present, and claim it as ‘empirical
evidence’. Such experience is logically sufficient to
prove the point at issue, even if only taken
phenomenologically, as mere appearance, irrespective of
the status of ‘reality’ or ‘illusion’ ultimately granted to
particular motions, and irrespective of the issue as to
whether what is perceived (the phenomenal) is material
or mental or whatever. Additionally, we have to ask how
the concepts of actuality, motion and present arise in the
first place. They arise in relation to such experiences, and
therefore cannot be required to be thereafter “proved” by
unstated means and standards to be related to them.41
40
41
82 Buddhist Illogic
There is no inconsistency or circularity in our position; it

is Nagarjuna’s position that deserves such criticism.
Next, consider argument 6(b). Without a doubt, when
motion begins, it must begin in past, future or present.
But incidentally, a fourth possibility exists, which
Nagarjuna does not mention – that of a motion without
beginning; so we should say when and if motion begins.
Even so, here all three horns of his dilemma are
incorrect.42
Motion may well begin in the past – even if later motion,
in the more recent past, is a consequence of such earlier
(beginning) motion; there is nothing illogical in this
scenario, and Nagarjuna’s rejection of it is arbitrary.43
Motion may also well begin in the future – it has indeed
not yet begun, but when and if it does, it will take place
in the segment of the time-line we now call the future;
this too is obvious and quite consistent. Nagarjuna seems
to have trouble understanding the tenses of verbs,
freezing some verbs (e.g. begin) in the present tense
while mixing them with others in the past or future
42
43
Motion and rest 83
tenses.44 Lastly, motion, when (and if) it begins, begins in

the present; “beginning of passing”, “act of passing” and
“being passed” are one and the same in the present
instant (point of time), though as the present stretches
into a moment (duration) the concepts may diverge.
Nagarjuna uses that ambiguity to suggest a conceptual
conflict, but there is none.45 Incidentally, similar
arguments could have been formulated with regard to
“ending of motion”, and similarly rebutted.
Let us now inspect argument 6(c). Here again,
Nagarjuna tries to confuse us with mixtures of tenses, in
his first two premises.46 We indeed cannot say that one
who has already moved now moves, but we can say that
he did then move; his action is now over, but was not
over then. Nor indeed can we say that one who has not-
yet moved is currently moving, but we can say without
contradiction that he may well later move. As for the
third premise, it is true that we cannot speak of a mover
44
45
46
84 Buddhist Illogic
(or moving thing)47 without referring to a movement, but

it is not true that whether there is a movement is an issue
under examination. As indicated earlier, the present
motion under discussion is an empirical given, not
requiring further proof of whatever kind. The concept of
it arises only in relation to such experiences (current, or
at least remembered), and all discussion about it is
subsequent; without such experience, the word ‘motion’
would be meaningless to all of us, including Nagarjuna,
and there would be nothing to discuss.48
Whether or not motion necessitates an underlying entity
(a mover or moving thing) is, however, an issue – we can
legitimately ask the question. The assumption of a
substratum to (empirical) motion is a more complex,
conceptual act, subject to the usual checks and balances
of inductive and deductive logic. On a naïve, pre-
philosophical level, we would argue that we never
experience instances of disembodied motion, but always
47
The terms ‘mover’ or ‘moving thing’ are clearly not
intended here to have causal connotations, i.e. to tell us who
or what is causing the movement or being caused to move.
That is not the issue under discussion, note well. The terms
are meant neutrally, to refer to the underlying entity
undergoing movement.
48
Motion and rest 85
things in motion. But further reflection puts this

impression in doubt, for we cannot empirically equate a
body experienced at one time to a body experienced at
another time. Such equation is very conceptual, requiring
a hypothesis of continuity. We may claim that hypothesis
as inductively true, if it is consistent and repeatedly
confirmed, and providing no counter-hypothesis of equal
or better coherence and credibility is found, but we
cannot claim it as a purely empirical or deductive truth.
“Whether there is an act of moving” is not an issue; the
issue is whether there is an abiding “mover or moving
thing” beneath that “act of moving”, or whether that “act
of moving” is a mere event of successive experiences
flashing forth. My own answer would be that even if
there are no individual entities behind successive
appearances, we can at least point to existence as such as
a substance, or the universe as a whole as an entity, and
regard that as necessarily abiding in the midst of its
successive, changing appearances. If this argument
establishes a collective substratum, then individual
substrata become more easily acceptable.
86 Buddhist Illogic
Moreover, the concept of a substratum is not an arbitrary

invention, but designed to register and explain the
enduring similarities between successive appearances
despite the dissimilarities we label as changes. We say
that change has occurred because we notice that two
appearances are in some respects different; we can also
say that something has endured because we notice that
the two appearances are in other respects the same.
Without the hypothesis of some constant underlying
change, we would have to regard the remaining
similarities between the two appearances as mere
coincidence. But it seems improbable to us that such
repetition would be just happenstance; explanation seems
called for. It is to calm our surprise at such recurring
coincidences that we posit a substratum or substrata.49
49
To give an example. A bird stays awhile in my field of
vision. Many of its features are constant (e.g. the shape of its
head); some vary (e.g. its wings may be folded or spread out).
If the bird appearance changed suddenly into the appearance
of a rabbit, then a tree, then a car, then an elephant – I might
well be tempted to consider appearances as without
substratum. But because this does not happen, at least not
within the brief and narrow scope of my experience of life, I
opt for the thesis that there is an underlying entity (that I call a
concrete “bird”). At a later stage, seeing many similar entities,
having in common various anatomical and biological
characteristics (such as wings, etc.), which distinguish them
Motion and rest 87
As already explained in the previous chapter, this

underlying constancy may in some cases be identified as
something concrete (i.e. a phenomenon to be sought and
found), whereas in other cases it remains merely abstract
(i.e. just an appearance of sameness in some respect).
The constancy may most appropriately be labeled a
substance or entity if it is phenomenal. But even in cases
where no phenomenal substratum can be pointed to or
found, but only the repetition over time of an abstract
characteristic, we may think of the latter as a substratum
of sorts, for abstract existence is also a category of being.
This is especially true if abstracts are regarded as
objective; but it is also true if they are considered
subjective, for in such case the continuity of something
within the Subject has to be admitted.
Thus, Nagarjuna’s third premise is wrong in some
respects and right in others. Ab initio, he is wrong in
doubting motion and alleging a circularity, but right in
effectively doubting a mover or moving thing. The
former is not inferred from the latter, but vice versa. The
former is empirical and requires no proof, the latter is
from other entities (e.g. winged insects), I additionally

formulate an abstract class of “birds”.
88 Buddhist Illogic
hypothetical and requires proof. But reason is able to

propose proof. The proof proposed by it is, however,
inductive, not deductive. The room for doubt that
inductive (as against deductive) proof leaves over, opens
a window of opportunity for the thesis of “emptiness”;
but that is not thanks to Nagarjuna’s wobbly reasoning.50
His Buddhist goal is still possible (perhaps through
meditation), but not his discursive means.
Now for argument 6(d). Let us first focus on
Nagarjuna’s claim that if mover and motion were
“identical” then “the mover would always be moving”.
He ignores that we may well call that which is moving a
mover during the duration of his motion, without
implying that this label remains applicable before or after
the motion.51 Furthermore, that motion and mover are
precisely co-extensive in time does not imply that they
are “identical”; if that was our belief, we would not use
distinct words for them (or we would consider them
synonymous) – our intention in doing so is to refer to
50
51
Motion and rest 89
distinct aspects of the whole event, the perceived change

of place and the conceived substratum of such change.
Likewise, his claim that if mover and motion are
“different” they could exist separately is gratuitous. Two
aspects of a single event may be distinguished
intellectually without signifying that they ever appear
separately on a concrete level. “Motion” and “mover” are
two types of concept, formed relative to the same
percepts. “Motion” as a concept refers to the abstract
common character of all concrete motions, known by
comparisons between them and contrasts to other things
(such as restful events). “Mover” is another sort of
concept, referring to a hypothetical explanation of the
existence of constancies as well as variations observed in
the course of motions, as above explained. Both refer
back to the same collection of concretes, yet each
concentrates on an abstract level on a different aspect of
what was perceived.
Furthermore, when Nagarjuna suggests that to say “the
mover moves” implies belief that the mover can be
concretely “separated” from the motion, and that there
are “two kinds of motion” (one “in” the mover and the
90 Buddhist Illogic
other “in” the moving), he is not showing commonplace

theses to be fallacious, but merely attacking red-herring
theses of his own interpolation. He takes advantage of
the equivocation in the word separation, to confuse
mental and physical, or more precisely intellectual
(abstract) and phenomenal (concrete), separation. And he
artificially adds a new and redundant third concept to
those of motion and mover, referring to motion “in” each
of them – although we never ordinarily regard motion as
itself moving52 or a mover as having a motion besides the
motion by virtue of which he is labeled a mover.
Thus, both horns of Nagarjuna’s dilemma are based on
mere equivocations, and therefore unfounded.53
Finally, let us examine argument 6(e). Here again,
Nagarjuna is playing on words. Certainly, as his first
premise remarks, we cannot without self-contradiction
say that “the mover rests” – but we can consistently say
that that which was previously moving is now resting.
The label “mover” is not forever fixed once applied to
something, but applicable only so long as that thing is
52
This is not to be confused with the concept of
acceleration, i.e. change of velocity.
53
See Appendix 1: fallacies F and B.
Motion and rest 91
considered in motion; thereafter, a new label must be

applied to it, that of “thing at rest”. Nagarjuna himself
admits this in the next breath, when he argues “when
someone stops moving, he is not the mover anymore”.
He adduces this to deny that “the mover rests when he
stops moving”, and then goes on to define rest as
“cessation of motion”, again contradicting himself. But
anyway, “rest” does not exactly mean cessation of
motion, it refers more broadly to absence of motion.
Cessation is a special case of absence, and not co-
extensive with it; something may be at rest without
precedent motion as well as after motion.
In his second premise, aiming to deny that the “non-
mover rests”, he conversely implies that the “non-mover”
was not previously moving and so could not have ceased
to move and so cannot be at rest. But we can reply
without self-contradiction that something may well be a
non-mover at present, and yet have been a mover in the
past (who ceased to move); or that anyway he may be at
rest now without having in the past moved and then
stopped moving. Our concept of time is built precisely to
deal with such issues. The label non-moving is not
92 Buddhist Illogic
inalienable, but tied to actual situations of rest and

inappropriate in all other situations; moreover, the
concepts and labels of “non-moving” and “rest” are
intended as identical (mere synonyms, and antonyms of
“moving” and non-rest”).
All these comments are of course obvious to everyone,
but have to be made here to show point-by-point the
tragicomedy of Nagarjuna’s word-games. Both premises
of Nagarjuna’s dilemma are dissolved, being based on
unfair fixation of terms.54
With regard to argument 6(f). Nagarjuna here recalls his
earlier arguments against motion, and infers from their
alleged conclusion that motion is impossible, that
cessation of motion, and therefore rest, are likewise
impossible. We can answer: indeed, if there was no
motion, there would be no cessation of motion; but since
motion was not successfully disproved, it cannot be
inferred that cessation of motion has also been disproved.
Furthermore, even if motion and cessation of motion
were disproved, it would not follow that rest is
impossible or unknowable, for rest is a genus of both
54
See Appendix 1: fallacies H and B.
Motion and rest 93
“cessation of motion” and “never in motion”, and to

deny one species does not necessitate denial of the other
(or else denial of anything would imply denial of
everything).55 In short, if there was no motion in the
world, it would just follow that everything is at rest – the
universe would simply be static56.
Thus, Nagarjuna’s cunning attempt to deny rest as well
as motion, and thereby to invalidate “dualistic” reason
and impose a “non-dualistic” consciousness, is easily
disabled. Both motion and rest remain conceivable and
consistent theses; his “logic” is fake throughout.
Nevertheless, we must address his last assumption, that
(as Cheng puts it) “motion and rest are relative to each
other”. Let us here generously ignore his specification of
rest as cessation of motion, and consider the term
properly to mean non-motion, because the issue is
important and moot. I have stated that motion has to be
accepted as undeniable empirical evidence, because even
if an apparent motion is judged illusory and not real, it
remains classifiable as motion.
55
See Appendix 1: fallacy C.
56
A vision seemingly adopted by Parmenides,
incidentally.
94 Buddhist Illogic
We cannot explain-away (perceived) physical

motion by supposing that it might be a figment of
imagination, for we would still have to admit or
explain-away the imaginary motion that we have
by our very supposition posited as existing.
“Imaginary motion” signifies a movement of
projected mental entities – that too is a perceived,
concrete event (differing from “physical” motion
only in respect of presumed underlying location,
substance and possible genesis – occurring “in the
head”, made of some “mental” stuff, and perhaps
“generated by the perceiver”). We might try to
explain imaginary motion away too, by claiming
that both physical and mental motion are “verbal
constructs”, i.e. that motion is a word without
reference to a concrete experience of any kind,
but defined by putting together previous words.
But this would just mean that we regard motion as
abstract, conceived – whereas, we clearly
concretely perceive motions. The experience of
motion has to be admitted, we cannot ignore it.
Whether this experience is imaginary or physical
Motion and rest 95
is another (conceptual) issue, which does not

affect it.57
Now, the question arises, is rest equally evident? Prima
facie, my answer would be: yes. Our experiences include
not only appearances of motion but also appearances of
rest. Whether perceived rest is at a conceptual level real
or illusory is irrelevant; that it is perceived suffices to
qualify it as empirical evidence. Here again, to claim that
the concept of rest is based on a mental projection on
dynamic physical phenomena, does not invalidate the
concept, for we are still left within that thesis with the
experience of static mental phenomena. Unfortunately,
when we formulate theories of motion, in a bid to
understand it, two broad hypotheses emerge:
• One (the “divisionist” theory) is that motion is
infinitely divisible, so that there is no time at which the
moving thing (be it physical or mental) is at rest. This
theory does not in itself exclude the possibility of rest,
since it leaves open the possibility that there are times
and places devoid of motion; it only specifies that, at
57
96 Buddhist Illogic
least when and where motion occurs, it is infinitely

divisible.
• The other (the “atomist” theory) is that motion is
discrete or “atomic”, a fitful succession of
instantaneous motions and momentary rests.
According to this theory, motion as such takes no time
(an instant is a point in time), only rest takes time (a
moment is a duration of time). When something
moves, it exists first in one place then in quite another
without traversing intermediate places. The moving
thing can never be said to have stopped existing
momentarily, i.e. for any duration of time, since it
switched places instantaneously, i.e. in zero amount of
time.
Both these theories are compatible with rest, as well as
motion. But the second one implies rest as real, whereas
the first one only allows for rest as real. Many
philosophers, including Nagarjuna as a Buddhist58, go
one step further and regard that everything is really in
constant flux, so that rest is only (somehow) illusory.
58
We have already cited Heraclitus as the first Western
philosopher known to have done so.
Motion and rest 97
This thesis, note well, is a possible though not necessary

offshoot of the first proposition, and logically implies it
since not compatible with the second. Now, we cannot
simply deny it as an arbitrary generalization, because it
has a lot going for it in a large context of empirical and
rational considerations. Namely, it seems implied by
modern physics, which seems to reduce everything to
wave motions (fields), and this idea in turn (generalized
beyond the physical realm) provides us with a neat
explanation of “universals” (i.e. abstracts) as the shapes
and measures of the waves constituting all things59.
So we have to conceive some respect in which rest might
differ from motion experientially, so that although both
are indubitably phenomenal (perceived, concrete,
experiential, empirical), whether on a physical or mental
level, we can still label the one illusory and the other
real. We might propose that physical rest is only
superficially apparent, due to our sensory inability to
observe the motion which constantly underlies it; that is,
59
It might be that waves and universals can be
assimilated by an atomist theory, but to my knowledge no one
has tried and succeeded in doing this – so in the meantime we
may assume it cannot be done.
98 Buddhist Illogic
because our sense-organs are limited in the degree of

detail they allow us to perceive – limited in both space
and time – we only perceive fragments of physical reality
and those fragments we fail to perceive we treat as
absent. Similarly with regard to imaginary entities (i.e.
mental projections) – we may not be perceiving all their
details.
This thesis is credible and consistent, and indeed
confirmed by various experiments. It does not appeal to a
concept of illusion based on the mind-body distinction,
but rather to an “optical illusion” effect (not limited to
the visual field, but analogously applicable to all the
sense-modalities, and to imagination). It does not say that
what we perceive is wrong (which would lead to self-
contradiction), but only that we do not perceive
everything that is there (conceptual considerations may
suggest this without self-contradiction). The issue is,
does this thesis succeed in differentiating experienced
rest from experienced motion, condemning the one as
illusory and justifying the other as real?
We might succeed, by saying that every (perceived)
fragment of (infinitely divisible) motion is still motion,
Motion and rest 99
whereas a (perceived) fragment of rest may upon further

division be found to conceal underlying motion. Thus,
although both motion and rest are undeniably present on
the perceptual level (in both the material and the mental
phenomenal fields), we may still on a conceptual level
give the one ontological precedence over the other. The
Atomist hypothesis implies both motion and rest to be
equally real, but the hypothesis of Divisionism only
demands that motion be real, allowing for the possibility
that rest be real (limited or moderate version) or unreal
(general or extreme version). We can thus conceptually
‘explain away’ the phenomenon of rest as imperfectly
perceived motion. Since the perception of rest is not
dismissed, but only conceptually ‘reduced’ from rest to
motion that has been only roughly experienced, this is
epistemologically acceptable.
Let us now return to Nagarjuna’s premise that “motion
and rest are relative to each other”. He does not
ultimately believe in either motion or rest, remember, but
considers these concepts tied within ordinary
consciousness. In the light of our above analysis, we
have to deny such a strong relationship between these
100 Buddhist Illogic
concepts. It is possible to affirm both motion and rest,

conceptually (through “moderate divisionism” or
“atomism”) as well as empirically – although we may
choose not to adopt this course for various reasons (such
as our need for a theory of “waves” in Physics or a
theory of “universals” in Philosophy). It is also possible
to affirm motion, while denying rest – we have just done
so, with reasonable consistency, at least on a hypothetical
level (in “extreme divisionism”). A world in universal
and continuous flux seems conceivable, even while
admitting the empirical status of both motion and rest, by
considering the coarseness or graininess of the objects of
perception. We cannot, however, affirm rest and deny
motion, or deny both rest and motion; motion must be in
any case affirmed. 60
60
Concepts like motion and rest, or like space and time,
do not concern abstracts. All our discussion, note well, has
revolved around concretes; abstracts are ultimately just
measures or degrees of these. As concretes come and go, so
in a sense do their abstract features (since features are tied to
what they feature, being but aspects of them) – but we regard
two similar concretes as having not two but one abstract in
common. That is the whole point of abstraction: to ignore
plurality and concentrate on unity. We might however talk of
change of an abstract, when the underlying concretes have
changed so radically that they no longer display a certain
abstract in common. For example, water may be changed into
Motion and rest 101
hydrogen and oxygen; the result is no longer water but other

chemicals; in contrast, when liquid water is changed to steam,
it remains water.
Causality 103
7. Causality.
Causality is a central concept in Buddhism. In Western

philosophy, the term is applied generically to causation
(a relation of “constant conjunction” between any two
events61 – physical events, and likewise “psychological”
events) and to volition (the relation between a conscious
being and an action willed by it). For Indian and
Buddhist philosophy, an additional connotation of
causality is the moral concept that has become colloquial
in the West under the name of karma (the belief that
good deeds are ultimately rewarded and bad deeds
punished, whether in a present lifetime or a later one –
and indeed that we have to be reborn to bear the
consequences of our actions, at least until we find
“liberation” from this cycle). Buddhism additionally (and
if I am not mistaken, originally and exclusively) has a
concept of “co-dependency” (according to which,
61
These events may each be positive or negative; we
shall clarify this further on. The point to note here is that cause
or effect here may be motions or qualities, and their purported
relation is “mechanistic”.
roughly put, nothing stands on its own, but everything

exists only by virtue of its direct or indirect causal
interrelationships with other things).
A definition of causality traditionally cited in Buddhism
is62: “When this is, that is; this arising, that arises; when
this is not, that is not; this ceasing, that ceases.” It is an
excellent definition of causation, or more precisely the
strongest type of causation – namely complete and
necessary causation. It is better than the definition
“constant conjunction”, proposed by some Western
philosophers, which only refers to complete causation63.
62
For this formula, see p. 84. The discussion of
Nagarjuna’s treatment of causality is found mainly in pp. 83-
88. Cheng there refers to MT XV:1a,2a,2b, XVII:1-33, XX:1-
4,16-17, XXIV:18,40, and Hui-cheng-lun, 72, as well as to
TGT I-III.
63
I am thinking of Hume, who (as I recall) apparently
only refers to constant conjunctions of positive events, say A
and B, failing to consider the flip side of constant conjunction
between their negations, non-A and non-B. He also ignores
(as do Buddhists, in the said definition) “hindrance”, i.e. cases
of constant conjunction between A and non-B, and between
non-A and B. Of course, if all such cases of causation are
considered as implicitly intended in the expression “constant
conjunction”, then it is equally acceptable. J. S. Mill’s later
treatment is much better, though also it has its faults. Note
additionally, that “when this is, that is; when this is not, that is
not” seem to logically imply “this arising, that arises; this
ceasing, that ceases”, so that the latter is redundant as
definition, though well to point out and remember.
Causality 105
But the said traditional formula is not accurate. First

because there are other, weaker types of causation,
namely, complete but contingent, partial though
necessary, and neither complete nor necessary – and
derivatives of these. And second, because causation does
not include volition. In truth, if we study the actual
descriptions of “co-dependency” in Buddhist texts, it is
easy to see that the causal relations referred to do not all
fall under the stated definition of causality (as “when this
is, that is”, etc.) but range far more widely over the many
other senses of the term.
For earlier Buddhists, and Buddhists of other schools,
causality is an objective fact, which gives rise to and
implies “co-dependency” and thence “emptiness”. But
for Nagarjuna and his school, all these concepts and
tenets are ultimately mere “conventional” truths, without
real validity. Thus, although they are Buddhist doctrines,
and he admits their value as initial teaching tools, he
regards it as necessary to ultimately disown them, so as
to go beyond the discourse they involve, into non-
discursive consciousness of actual emptiness. For him, it
is useless and counterproductive to talk about emptiness,
to analyze and reason it – it has to be lived. It should not

surprise us, therefore, that he tries to disprove causality,
to show all concepts of it to be confused and absurd.
(a) Let us first consider Nagarjuna’s argument
concerning “production”, as presented by
Cheng64. It has the same dilemmatic form as some
of his arguments about motion and rest. He
divides the “process of production” into three
parts. The part “already produced” is “finished”
and the part “yet to be produced” is “not yet”; so
neither of these can be “established”. The part
“being produced” can be “established” only if the
aforementioned two parts have been; so it too
cannot be “established”. Hence, “the act of
producing is impossible”; and therefore, “there
cannot be a producer”. They are both “unreal”
and “involve contradictions or absurdities”.
We can reply as follows. For a start, let us note that
Nagarjuna (in Cheng’s account, at least) does not even
define what he means by “production”, he merely takes
the term for granted. The full causal connotation of the
64
On p. 37.
Causality 107
term is admittedly hard if not impossible to define (no

one, to my knowledge, has so far succeeded in doing so),
but I submit that no concept can definitely be proved or
disproved without some definition, so we can doubt
Nagarjuna’s “refutation” of production on this ground
alone. But let us, like him, take the term as understood (I
do suggest a working definition further on), and consider
his reasoning anyway.
The first two premises typically rely on a possible
confusion in the reader between the present tense (“the
act of producing”) and the past and future tenses
(“already” and “yet to be” produced). Of course, if we
artificially freeze the present tense in the present, as he
does, we cannot find (“establish”) it in the past or future
tenses.65 But if we consider the past as having once been
the present or the future as the eventual location of the
present, there is no difficulty in saying that “the act of
producing” was in what is now and since then classed as
“already produced” or will be in what is now and until
then classed as “yet to be produced”. The reasons he
gives in his two premises, “it is “finished” and it is “not
65
yet”, beg the question and do not constitute proof that

production cannot be “established” outside the present.
His third premise, that the “act of producing” can be
“established” in the present only by being so in the past
and future, is gratuitous66, and only serves to again
demonstrate that his conclusions are foregone. Why
would we need to refer to past or future, to infer the
present situation? We can well find the “act of
producing” directly in the present, by empirical means.
Watching someone go through certain motions, which
are exclusively and invariably67 followed by certain
perceived changes in his environment, we name the
someone “producer”, his motions “production”, and the
changes “products” (this sentence, by the way, can serve
as an inchoate definition). Clearly, when I say this is
empirical, I mean empirically-based. The statistical
reasoning involved, and many other underlying
presuppositions such as memory of past instances and
66
67
To repeat, “exclusively and invariably” (making
possible and necessary) is only the strongest case; weaker
causations include exclusively but not invariably (only making
possible), invariably but not exclusively (only making
necessary), and others (partial contingent causation, i.e.
conditional causation).
Causality 109
comparison between instances, are conceptual and

logical. We cannot establish production by means of a
single present perception, but have to appeal to past
perceived instances and ensure that future perceived
instances keep concurring. Nevertheless, all that is more
direct than what Nagarjuna proposes.
In sum, Nagarjuna’s argument is merely an attempt to
delude us, and in no way justifies his conclusion against
the concept of production. As for the concept of
producer, further discussion is required. I have already,
higher up, discussed one issue involved, that of the
existence of a substratum to motion – for the producer is
conceived as an abiding entity. But of course, we also
have to here point to the implied issue of causality. The
term production is colloquially applied even to a
machine, but ultimately it signifies human invention,
initiation and supervision of a process – that is,
consciousness and will. A machine is merely a tool of
production, not a producer – the latter term only properly
applies to human beings (or entities with similar powers).
But we need not try to deal with this more difficult issue
here, as it does not arise in the context of Nagarjuna’s

above argument.
(b) Another argument of Nagarjuna’s relates to
whether an effect is “real in” or “unreal in” a
cause (“or an assemblage of causes and
conditions”). The meaning of this question will
become apparent as we develop his answer. For
him, the question is fourfold, not just twofold –
the effect might also be “both real and unreal in”
or “neither real nor unreal in” the cause (see
discussion of the tetralemma, above). Cheng
relates his argument as follows. First premise: “if
an effect is real in a cause,” it does not need to be
“produced again” – “there cannot be causal
production” since “nothing new is produced” in
such case. Second premise: “if an effect is at the
outset unreal in a cause and yet is produced by a
cause, then in principle anything should be
capable of being produced from anything else” –
“there would be no particular or distinct relation
between the two, and hence one would not be the
cause of the other.” Third premise: an effect
Causality 111
cannot be “both real and unreal in” a cause,

“because real and unreal are contradictory in
nature” and such things cannot be “together”.
Fourth premise: “to say that an effect is neither
real nor unreal in a cause is tantamount to
accepting that there is no causal relation between
cause and effect.” Conclusion: “none of these can
be established, and thus theories of causality
should be renounced.”
Many objections can be raised to this argument. For a
start, we can again point out that Nagarjuna (or perhaps
only Cheng) does not define causality precisely – so how
can he succeed in disproving it? Similarly, the
expressions “real in” and “unreal in” are left very vague.
Nevertheless, we can rephrase his question as, more
clearly: is the effect already present or not in the cause?
His first two premises are then: if yes, it did not need to
be caused; if no, how could it have been caused? My
answer is this: Nagarjuna is ignoring or obscuring the
(very Aristotelian) distinction between merely potential
presence and actual presence.68 We can say that the effect
68
is to some degree present, in the sense of potential, in the

cause; it only becomes fully present, in the sense of
actual, under appropriate conditions.
For example: a healthy woman has in her womb,
potentially but not actually, sons, grandsons, etc.
Concretely, that potential has actual expression in
her physiological characteristics (womb, eggs,
genetic make-up, etc.); but her descendants are
still not actual; they are actualized only when and
if certain existential and biological conditions are
met (she remains alive long enough, she has
intercourse and is fertilized, she bears a son, then
her son in turn finds a woman, and so forth). The
woman is not the complete “cause”, in any case
(other factors come into play, positively or
negatively); the son, grandson, etc. are not to the
same degree her “effects” (her son is more of an
effect of hers than her grandson, etc.) since more
and more conditions have to be met.
These concepts are quite reasonable, so Nagarjuna’s
attempted denial cannot be upheld. Furthermore, note
that the things we call the “cause” and the “effect” do not
Causality 113
merit this label until and unless causality takes place (and
is known to have done so); it is only after such event that
the terms become applicable, so that it is absurd to apply
them to things while denying such event, as Nagarjuna
tries.69 Also, it is important to clarify what we mean by
“the” cause or “the” effect. Nagarjuna focuses on one of
the conditions involved (in the example given, a woman),
and ignores the others (her healthy fertilization;
successive generations of women and their fertilizations,
in turn); likewise, he does not distinguish between direct
effects (her son) and indirect ones (her grandsons, etc.).
Thus, his first two premises are misleading – for an effect
is potentially present in a cause, in the sense that certain
conditions are actual in it; but the effect is not actually
present in that cause, because certain additional
conditions are not actual in it. When the latter conditions
are actualized, they – together with the already actual
former conditions – cause actualization of the effect. The
sum of the earlier and later conditions may be referred to
as “the” cause; whereas each of these sets of conditions
can only properly be referred to as “one of the causes”;
69
each is only a potential cause without the other.

Similarly, we have to distinguish between an effect of
this total cause, and an effect of an effect of it, and an
effect of an effect of an effect of it, etc. In each case,
additional conditions come into play, and what was
admitted the cause of the earlier effect, may only be
regarded as a cause (among others) of the later effect.
Nagarjuna uses the terms cause and effect without any
effort at precision70; is it no wonder then that he
formulates false premises.71
With regard to his claim in the first premise that “nothing
new is produced”, then, we would reply that there is
novelty in the intensification of existence from a
inchoate, potential degree to an overt, actual degree. As
for the reasoning he uses in his second premise, the
following may be offered as rebuttal.
He argues that if an effect were not present at the outset
in a cause, then any other effect might “in principle”
70
It is interesting to note that Cheng earlier (on p. 85)
mentions, parenthetically, that a cause may be understood as
“an assemblage of causes and conditions”. For it shows that
Nagarjuna is aware that a cause is not necessarily monolithic,
and indeed this awareness is found in Buddhist doctrine from
its inception.
71
Causality 115
emerge from the cause, so that in fact no relation would

exist between the cause and any such effect. To make the
issue clearer, let us remove the terms cause and effect
from the sentence, since as already stated they may not
be used before a causal relation is established. Indeed,
“in principle” a thing might be accompanied or followed
by just anything. This only means that, at first glance,
before any data has been gathered, we must have an open
mind and look at the facts without prejudice, without
anticipation – this is the epistemological principle he
seems to be referring to, and the one we would admit. He
cannot be taken to appeal to an ontological principle, that
everything occurs by happenstance, without connection
to anything else – for that would be begging the question,
surely. But of course, Nagarjuna cunningly obscures the
wide and deep gulf between these two senses of the term
“in principle” to make his point.72
But this is in itself interesting, because it shows that he is
quite aware of the reason why we formulate a concept of
causality and believe in it, and of the inductive process
through which such a relation is established. If we lived
72
in a world (or field of appearances, to be more precise)

where, indeed, anything could happen, i.e. a world
without any regularity, then we would have no basis for a
concept of causality, and no such concept would even
occur to us.73 But we notice in our experience that some
things are constantly conjoined (and so forth – this is just
one of the many types of regularity), and therefore – in
order to record and explain such uniformities in our
experience – we form a concept of causality.
Furthermore, we use these very same observed
regularities to determine whether or not the label of
causality may be applied in particular cases. There is thus
nothing arbitrary in the concept, nor in its applications; it
is experience that suggests it, and experience that
establishes it.
There is nothing circular in the concept, either.
Nagarjuna denies that causation can be established with
reference to experience, saying that this “begs the
question”74. Even though “we have seen sesame produce
sesame oil, but have never seen sand produce sesame
73
74
Cheng, p. 87.
Causality 117
oil,” we are not justified to “seek sesame oil in sesame

but not in sand” because “causation or production has not
yet been established, and so one cannot legitimately
make that claim.” But as just explained, this is not the
order of things in knowledge. Both the concept and its
particular applications come from the same experiences.
We have a concept of causation because we observe
regularities and these same regularities tell us where to
apply it. There is no basis for a demand that the concept
be known independently of experience. The reason why
the concept seems to exist “independently” of any one of
its empirical instances, is that it is the common feature of
many and indeed all instances of regularity, and does not
merely refer to the one regularity under scrutiny at one
particular time.
Thus, Nagarjuna should have said the following: if some
thing and another thing are always apparent together and
never apparent apart, then we may call the one “cause”
and the other “effect” and their relation to each other
“causality” (this is only the strongest form of causation,
to repeat, but I do not want to needlessly complicate the
issue here); but if no such regularity (nor a lesser degree
of regularity) occurs in their appearances (i.e. our

experience of them, in a first phase, and by
generalization, their existences), then they cannot be
called thus. Had he formulated the sentence in this way,
he would have had no argument. He chose to confuse the
issue or was himself confused, by anticipating
application of causal terminology, and by failing to
distinguish between epistemological and ontological
aspects.
Let us turn now to his last two premises. They logically
add nothing to the present argument about causality, but
they are interesting as denials by Nagarjuna himself of
his previously expressed or implied views about the
tetralemma (see higher up). Here, he admits that
contradictories (like “real in” and “unreal in”) cannot “be
together”. Likewise, he admits that negative
contradictories in conjunction (like “not real in” and “not
unreal in”) are not a further kind of meaningful relation
(in the present case, a “causal relation”). This shows that
he understands the Laws of Non-contradiction and the
Law of the Excluded Middle, and appeals to them when
Causality 119
he finds it convenient for his ends. It makes us, once

again, doubt his sincerity.
(c) Cheng lists another five issues concerning causal
relations raised by Nagarjuna, but does not present the
latter’s arguments about them, other than to say that he
“criticized each relation more or less the same way.” We
may infer from this that Nagarjuna tried to show, using
his usual methods, these various questions about
causality unanswerable or absurd in some way. The
questions he asked were the following.
• Is a cause “identical” or “different” to an
effect?
• Do a cause and an effect “appear
simultaneously” or not?
• Does a cause “become” an effect or not?
• Does a cause “before it ceases to be, give a
causal nature to” an effect or not?
• Is a cause “within” an effect or is an effect
“within” a cause?
Let us consider what his arguments might be, and how
we would answer his questions and preempt his skeptical
conclusions.
With regard to the first issue, my guess is that Nagarjuna

would argue, as he did in similar circumstances75, that if
cause and effect are “identical” there is no point in
naming them distinctively, and if they are “different”
there can be no connection between them. But we can
easily reply that they are not identical, and that difference
does not imply disconnection.
With regard to the second issue, knowing Nagarjuna, he
would presumably complain that if two things appear
simultaneously we cannot regard one as causing the
other; and if they do not appear simultaneously, how can
we establish that they are linked? Philosophers who insist
that causality requires that the effect temporally follow
the cause, are focusing on one mode of causal relation,
that in dynamic process (as for instance, in natural
causation); but in truth, we also commonly acknowledge
static causal relations (in the extensional mode)76, and
75
With regard to the subject-predicate relation, in
argument 4(a), and the object-characteristics relation, in
argument 5(d).
76
That this is acknowledged in Buddhism is evident in
the traditional definition of causality earlier mentioned. The
statements “when this is, that is; when this is not, that is not”
refer to static causation; the statements “this arising, that
arises; this ceasing, that ceases” refer to dynamic causation.
Causality 121
even simultaneous events in dynamic processes may be

causally ordered. It is only after we have established that
two things, features or events are regularly together
and/or apart to some degree, and therefore causally
related, that the decision as to which to regard as cause
and which as effect arises. This issue may in some cases
be quickly resolved with reference to time’s arrow: the
cause is the temporally earlier, the effect is the
temporally later. But this is only one resolution, the
simplest case. If the two items are simultaneous, we can
still order them on other, more conceptual grounds. For
instance, we will consider the more generic item as
cause, the more specific as effect, judging the former as a
‘deeper’ (more widely present) aspect of nature than the
latter.
With regard to the third issue, I am not sure what
Nagarjuna means by a cause becoming an effect (or not).
Perhaps he is referring to the frequently used Buddhist
These statements are (I seem to remember and presume)

attributed to the Buddha himself in some sutra, and
demonstrate commendable precision of thought. Static and
dynamic causation may be viewed as two aspects of the same
relation, or we may view the latter as a special case of the
former (since given the former, we can infer the latter).
image of a seed becoming a plant? I would guess in such

case that he plays on the ambiguity of the word “plant”,
i.e. on whether it refers to any of its stages (including as
a seed) or to a developed plant (excluding the seed). If
so, we can forewarn that the word ‘becoming’ has two
colloquial senses: a stronger sense of mutation (for which
let us reserve the same word) and a weaker sense of
alteration (for which let us prefer the expression ‘getting
to be’). In mutation, the change is from ‘X and not Y’ to
‘Y and not X’; whereas in alteration, it is from ‘X and
not Y’ to ‘X and Y’77. Thus, in our example, the plant is
initially a seed, then ‘gets to be’ a developed plant; or, in
other words, the seed (undeveloped plant) ‘becomes’ a
developed plant.
The fourth question is likewise unclear – what does he
mean by the cause “giving causal nature to” the effect? I
presume the pronoun in “before it ceases to be” refers to
the cause, and that he is asking whether some sort of
power of causation is transferred from cause to effect in
causal chains. If that is his concept, or the concept he
attributes to ordinary thinking, I would beg to differ. We
77
See my Future Logic, ch. 17.
Causality 123
do not regard that, in all causal chains, cause A gives its

effect B the power to be cause B of effect C, i.e. that A
does not merely cause B, but also causes B to cause C.
This may be true when both the successions A-B and B-
C are invariable, i.e. in the one case of complete
causation; for in such case, we may say that A is
invariably followed by both B and C, i.e. that A causes C
as well as B. But this is one special case of regular
succession – when the causations involved are of mixed
determination, the syllogism is not always possible.
Furthermore, in some instances (where A is not a
necessary cause of B) it is still possible for “B causes C”
to occur in the absence of A, when B is caused by
something other than A.
One might anyway wonder at the legitimacy of an
iterative causal concept “causing to cause”, in the above
implied sense, for we regard “B causes C” as a relation
and event that just “is”, a fact of (“caused by”, if you
like) “Nature” – not as something that something else
(viz. “A”), itself within nature, might “cause”. The
iterative concept occurs somewhat legitimately in
volitional situations, where we may say that an agent A
(a person) influences or forces another, B, to perform

some action, C. But in such cases, the causality involved
is very different, clearly. ‘A influences B’ is a sort of
causality, but it does not mean A causes B in the sense of
causation. Nor is ‘B does C’ a causation, but a volition.
So in this case, the iterative concept is quite different in
meaning.
As for the fifth issue, I presume we have already dealt
with the question as to whether the effect is “within” the
cause when we discussed whether the effect is “real in”
the cause. So only the question, is a cause “within” an
effect? remains to be answered. Supposedly Nagarjuna
has in mind here some kind of lingering existence of the
cause in its effect. This could be conceived, and is indeed
used as an explanatory hypothesis in some causal
situations. Thus, Newton’s theory of motion of physical
bodies after impact postulates that “energy” is the
substratum of motion; the first body’s motion is an
expression of the energy in it, and when it hits the other
some or all of that energy is passed on to the second,
which therefore moves or changes velocity and/or
direction in accord with precise formulas. This theory
Causality 125
involves calculated predictions, which are empirically

confirmed78. In this context, the second body is caused to
move by the first, but the underlying cause of both their
motions is “energy”.
In that case, we might say to Nagarjuna that we have a
case in point, where the cause is “within” the effect. I do
not, however, think that this is necessarily or always
appropriate, in every causal relation, or even in every
causation, to say that the cause is “within” the effect. For
we establish causation primarily with reference to
constant conjunction of presences and/or absences of two
things, without prejudice as to whether some third thing
is passed on from the one to the other. For us, causation
is at first just a happenstance of regularity observed in
the field of appearances. A theory may later be
inductively established that some sort of transfer always
occurs in it, but this would at best be a generalization
warranted by confirmed predictions, not a deductive
necessity. We should at least remain open-minded to
either outcome in principle.
78
Later, the energy transfer idea is found valuable in
other contexts or domains. Later still, be it said in passing, the
theory is corrected by Einstein, for greater empirical precision.
In sum, having with reference to his five vague questions

anticipated Nagarjuna’s possible additional arguments
against causality, we can safely say that his intended
refutations of the concept are here again likely to be
fallacious and inconclusive.
Co-dependence 127
8. Co-dependence.
• One further argument mentioned by Cheng79 goes

like this: Nagarjuna questions the legitimacy of an
“ontological interpretation of causation” that
claims “an entity which has essential nature” can
be “something which is caused”. In his view such
claim is contradictory, for “an entity is supposed to
have essential nature and a thing of essential
nature is not produced but independent of other
things” and “to be caused is to be conditioned or to
be dependent”.
This argument evidently refers back to the belief of
Indian philosophers that an existent is either permanent
and uncaused or momentary and caused. But these
temporal and causal notions are not as tied together as
Indian philosophers assumed. If we look at their actual
genesis in the formation of human knowledge, we see
that they in principle allow for intermediate
79
See pp. 87-88. Cheng there refers to MT XV:1a,2a,2b,
XVII:1-33, XXIV:18, and Hui-cheng-lun, 72, as well as to TGT
II.
combinations, like “caused and henceforth permanent” or

“momentary yet uncaused”.
Furthermore, the concepts of “entity” and “essence” are
very confused in Nagarjuna’s and the Buddhist mind.
They do not fully realize that these concepts refer to
continuities, individual (in the case of “entity”) or
collective (in the case of “essence”), which are assumed
so as to register and explain experienced repetition of
objects. These are not mysterious, arbitrary inserts in the
course of human knowledge, but statistical tools for
recording and comprehending certain pluralities of
experience.
In attacking causality, Nagarjuna effectively also attacks
the Buddhist concept of co-dependence, which is
normally considered one of the main bases for, or the
causal expression of, the fact and doctrine of
“emptiness”. Here, as elsewhere, he is not antipathetic to
Buddhist belief, but convinced that only by disowning all
concepts and doctrines – including causality and co-
dependence – can we in fact get in contact with what
they merely point to. The finger pointing at something,
Co-dependence 129
however accurately, gets in the way and distracts us from

that thing, and is therefore best dropped.
Let us venture more deeply into the Buddhist doctrines at
issue. I cannot here engage in their detailed analysis,
thorough treatment requires a whole book (see my
forthcoming publication on causal logic). But I will make
a few pointed remarks. The Buddha was previously
understood as regarding all phenomena as mutually
causally related, interdependent, ‘co-dependent’ –
suspended together in the field of appearance without
underlying causes and unable to exist in it without
mutual sustenance.
Admittedly, all that we perceive is a succession of
present phenomenal fields. But by means of our rational
faculty, we then subdivide such overall phenomena into
constituent phenomena (discernment), and by
comparison and contrast find them same or different in
various respects and degrees (abstraction), and thereby
variously group and name them (classification), and then
interrelate them (e.g. causally, with reference to
perceived regularities). Such rational work is admittedly
hypothetical, but that does not mean it is automatically
false. It does not have the same epistemological status as

empirical evidence, but may be relied on with various
degrees of probability, to the extent that it takes such
evidence into account and is guided and regulated by the
three Laws of Thought, and the rules of deductive and
inductive logic derivable from them.
Our belief in “entities”, as already explained, arises in
order to explain the apparent similarities between
phenomena that have succeeded and replaced each other
in our experience. Such phenomena are partly different
(changed), but also partly the same (abiding). If they
were only different, we would have no call for a concept
of “entity”; but because they are also the same, we do
need such a concept to register the fact. Note that
sometimes, assumption of an “entity” underlying
perceived phenomena is reference to an additional, not
yet perceived phenomenon; other times, assumption of an
entity is simply reference to a collection of already
perceived phenomena, i.e. the entity is no more than the
conjunction those phenomena. Once thus understood, the
concept of entity is seen to have nothing antithetical to a
positivistic approach to knowledge.
Co-dependence 131
Similarly with our belief in “essences”, which arises in

response to our experiences of similarity as well as
difference between phenomena, even in static situations.
If, in our experience, nothing resembled anything else
(extreme multiplicity) or if everything seemed identical
with everything (extreme uniformity), the thought of
“essences” would not even dawn on us. Assumption of
an “essence”, once we demystify it and remove its
idealistic connotations, and understand it as an
expression of work of comparison, it loses the scarecrow
status given it in Buddhist epistemology.
“Causality”, as we have already shown, may be similarly
justified with reference to regularities of conjunction of
phenomena (or more precisely, their presences and/or
their absences). Thus, these fundamental concepts have
empirical basis, they are not merely arbitrary constructs.
Now, let return to Nagarjuna’s ideas. One of them is that
an entity or essence cannot come and go or be caused. It
has to be seen that this is a particular (not to say,
peculiar) thesis proposed by Indian philosophers, and not
one inherent in the concepts involved. This proposition is
not analytically obvious, and may only be regarded as an
additional hypothesis to be synthetically established. It is

not deducible from the initial conceptions, which (as
above described) refer to various sorts of uniformities or
regularities; it would have to be demonstrated by
induction (grounded in some sort of empirical evidence)
that these uniformities and regularities coincide as
proposed. Otherwise, it is arbitrary (from our ordinary
consciousness point of view, though it may be obvious to
enlightened consciousness).
The initial concept of an entity only stipulates continuity
in the midst of change; it does not preempt that such
assumed substratum as a whole may itself appear or be
generated, or disappear or be destroyed. Indeed, the fact
that we commonly speak of entities as limited in time
and as susceptible to initiation or termination shows that
we do not ordinarily view entities so rigidly. For
example, those who believe in a soul may view it as
naturally arising (an epiphenomenon of matter) or as
divinely created (an injection into matter), as temporary
or eternal (in past and/or future) – the concept of soul
leaves such issues open to debate. Similarly, the initial
concept of an essence only requires that the abstract exist
Co-dependence 133
wherever and whenever the concretes it is attached to

exist; when and where the concretes come or go or are
caused to come or go, the abstract may in a sense be said
to similarly behave or be affected (though strictly
speaking such concepts are inapplicable to abstracts, as
already discussed).
Another Buddhist idea, that of ‘co-dependence’, which
might stated broadly as each thing exists only in relation
to others; and furthermore, since each other thing in turn
exists only in relation to yet others, each thing exists in
relation to all the others. The relation primarily intended
here is causality, note. We tend to regard each thing as
capable of solitary existence in the universe, and ignore
or forget the variegated threads relating it to other things.
We ‘do not see the forest for the trees’, and habitually
focus on individual events to the detriment of overview
or long view.
For example, consider a plant. Without the
sunlight, soil and water it depends on, and
without previous generations of the same plant
and the events that made reproduction possible
and the trajectories of each atom constituting and
feeding the plant, and without the cosmic

upheavals that resulted in the existence of our
planet and its soil and water and of the sun and of
living matter, and so forth ad infinitum, there
would be no plant. It has no independent
existence, but stands before us only by virtue of a
mass of causes and conditions. And so with these
causes and conditions, they in turn are mere
details in a universal fabric of being.
The concept of co-dependence is apparently regarded by
Buddhists as an inevitable outcome of the concept of
causality. But reflection shows, again, that this doctrine
is only a particular thesis within the thesis of causality.
That is, though co-dependence implies causality,
causality does not imply co-dependence. Moreover, it is
a vague thesis, which involves some doubtful
generalizations. The above-cited typical example of co-
dependence suggests three propositions:
• everything has a cause (or is an effect),
• everything has an effect (or is a cause);
and perhaps the more radical,
Co-dependence 135
• everything causes and is caused by

everything.
The first two propositions are together what we call ‘the
law of causality’. It has to be seen that these
propositions do not inevitably follow from the concept of
causality. The latter only requires for its formation that
some regularity of co-existence between events be found
in experience, but does not in itself necessitate that every
event in experience be found to have regular co-existence
with some other event(s). The concept of causality is
valid if it but has particular applications; the law of
causality does not automatically follow – it is merely a
generalization from some experiences with this property
to all existents. There may well be things not found to
have regular co-existents, and thence by generalization
assumed to have no cause and/or no effect. A universe in
which both causality and non-causality occur is quite
conceivable. Furthermore, the first proposition does not
logically imply the second or vice versa – i.e. we may
imagine things with causes but no further effect, and
things with effects but no preceding causes.
“Early Buddhists”, Cheng tells us, “believed in the

principle of causality to be objectively, necessarily,
eternally and universally valid.” Many Western
philosophers have concurred, though not all. Today, most
physicists believe that, on a quantum level at least, and
perhaps at the Big Bang, there are events without
apparent cause. I do not know if events without effect are
postulated by anyone. In any case, we see that even on
the physical level “chance” is admitted as a possibility, if
not a certainty. The law of causality can continue to serve
us as a working principle, pressing us to seek diligently
for causes and effects, but cannot in any case be regarded
as an a priori universal truth. Causal logic has to remain
open-minded, since in any case these “laws” are mere
generalizations – inductive, not deductive, truths.
Furthermore, the law of causality just mentioned is only
at best a law of causation. Philosophers who admit of
volition80 cannot consistently uphold such a law as
80
And at least some Buddhists seem to. For instance,
the statement in the Dhammapada (v.165) that “by oneself the
evil is done, and it is oneself who suffers: by oneself evil is not
done, and by one’s Self one becomes pure. The pure and the
impure come from oneself: no man can purify another” – this
Co-dependence 137
universal to all existents, but only in the ‘mechanistic’

domains of physical and psychological events. With
regard to events involving the will, if we admit that a
human being (or equivalent spiritual entity, a higher
animal or God) can ‘will’ (somehow freely produce) a
physiological event (i.e. a physical movement in his
body) or a psychological event (i.e. an imagination, a
mental projection), or even another soul (at least in the
sense of choosing to reproduce), we have to consider this
as an exception to such universal law of causation.
Also, if we consider that the Agent of will is always
under the influence of some experience or reason, we
might formulate an analogical law of causality with
reference to this. But influence is not to be confused with
causation; it does not determine the will, which remains
free, but only strengthens or weakens it, facilitating or
easing its operation in a certain direction. Moreover, it is
not obvious that will cannot occur ‘nihilistically’,
without any influence; it may well be free, not only to
resist influences but also to operate in the absence of any
motive whatsoever. In the latter case, the law of causality
statement seems to imply existence of a self with

responsibility for its actions.
would again be at best a working principle, not a

universal fact that volition requires a motive.
Let us now consider the more extreme statement that
‘everything causes and is caused by everything’, which
could be construed (incorrectly) as implied by co-
dependence. To say this is effectively to say
paradoxically (as Nagarjuna would no doubt have
enjoyed doing!) that nothing causes or is caused by
anything – for causality is a relation found by noticing
regularities in contrast to irregularities. If everything
were regularly co-existent with everything, we would be
unable to distinguish causality in the first place. It
follows that such an extreme version of the law of
causality is logically untenable. Causality cannot imply
that ‘everything causes everything’ or ‘everything is
caused by everything’ – and to deny the latter statements
does not deny the concept, note well. The concept is not
derived from such a law, but independently from
observation of regularities in experience; our ability to
discern such regularities from the mass of experience
implies that there are irregularities too; whence, such an
extreme statement cannot be consistently upheld. We
Co-dependence 139
must thus admit that things do not have unlimited

numbers of causes or effects.
Although ‘everything causes everything’ implies ‘co-
dependence’, the latter does not imply the former; so our
refutation of the wider statement does not disprove co-
dependence, only one possible (extreme) view of it. My
criticism of co-dependence would be the following. For a
start, the doctrine presented, and the illustrations given in
support of it, do not use the term causality with any
precision. First, as we have suggested above, causality, is
a broad term, covering a variety of very distinct
relations:
• causation or ‘mechanistic’ causality within the
material and mental domains, and causation
itself has many subspecies;
• volition, or action by souls on the material or
mental or spiritual domains, and will has many
degrees of freedom; and
• influence, which refers to limitations on
volition set by material or mental or spiritual
entities.
The doctrine of co-dependence glosses over the profound

differences between these different senses of the terms
‘cause’ and ‘effect’, using them as if they were uniform
in all their applications.
Also to be included as ‘causal relations’ in a broader
sense are the negations of these relations. Even if some
philosopher doubts one, two or all three of these
(positive) relations, he would have to consider them.
Concepts of ‘chance’ or ‘spontaneity’ are not simple, and
can only be defined by negating those of causality;
likewise, the concept of ‘determinism’ requires one of
‘free will’. It is only in contrast to causality concepts,
that non-causality can be clearly conceived. Furthermore,
co-dependence ignores that some things are not
(positively) causally related to each other, even if they
may have (positive) causal relations to other things. That
something must have some cause or effect, does not
imply that it has this or that specific thing as its cause or
effect; there are still things to which it is not causally
related. If everything had the same positive causal
relation to everything, and no negative causal relation,
Co-dependence 141
there would be no such thing as causality, nothing

standing out to be conceived.
Secondly, if we consider chains (or, in discourse,
syllogisms) of causal relations, we find that the cause of
a cause is not necessarily itself a cause, or at least not in
the same sense or to the same degree. For instance, with
reference to causation, we can formally prove that if A is
a complete cause of B and B is a complete cause of C,
then A is a complete cause of C. But if A is a complete
cause of B and B is a partial cause of C, it does not
follow that A is at all a cause of C. Similarly, when we
mix the types of causality (e.g. causation and volition in
series), we find that causality is not readily transmitted,
in the same way or at all. It is therefore logically
incorrect to infer transmission of causality from the mere
fact of succession of causal relations as the theory of co-
dependence does.
Thirdly, those who uphold co-dependence tend to treat
both directions of causal relation as equivalent. Thus,
when they say ‘everything is causally related to
everything’, they seem to suggest that being a cause and
being an effect is more or less the same. But something
can only be regarded as a cause of things occurring after

it in time or below it in conceptual hierarchy, and as an
effect of things occurring before it or above it. Upstream
and downstream are not equivalent. Thus,
‘interdependence’ cannot be taken too literally, using
‘causal relation’ in a too vague sense, without attention
to the distinction between causal and effectual
relationship.
Fourthly, the doctrine of co-dependence suggests or calls
for some sort of law(s) of causality, and as already
discussed higher up, no universal or restricted law of
causality is logically necessitated by the concept of
causality, although such a law may be considered a
hypothetical principle to be validated inductively. The
concept of causality only requires that some causality
occur, without prejudicing how much. So, though co-
dependence implies causality, causality does not imply
co-dependence.
Fifthly, the concept of ‘co-dependence’ is upheld in
contrast and opposition to a concept of ‘self-subsistence’.
Something self-subsistent would exist ‘by itself’, without
need of origination or support or destructibility, without
Co-dependence 143
‘causal conditions’. Buddhism stresses that (apart

perhaps from ultimate reality) nothing in the manifold
has this property, which Buddhism claims ordinary
consciousness upholds. In truth, the accusation that
people commonly believe in the self-subsistence of
entities is false – this is rather a construct of earlier
Indian philosophy.
People generally believe that most things have origins
(which bring them into existence), and that all things
once generated have static relations to other existents (an
infinity of relations, to all other things, if we count both
positive and negative relations as ‘relations’), and that
things usually depend for their continued existence on
the presence or absence of other things (i.e. if some of
the latter come or go, the former may go too). What is
doubtful however, in my view, is the vague, implicit
suggestion of the co-dependence doctrine, that while a
thing is present, i.e. during the time of its actual
existence, it has a somehow only relative existence, i.e.
were it not for the other things present in that same
moment, it could not stand.
This is not essentially a doctrine of relativity to

consciousness or Subject (though Yogachara Buddhism
might say so), note well, but an existential incapacity to
stand alone. This is the aspect of co-dependence that the
Western mind, or ordinary consciousness, would reject.
In our world81, once a thing is, and so long as it is,
irrespective of the causes of its coming to be or the
eventual causes of its ceasing to be, or of other things co-
existing with it in time and its relationships to those
things, or of its being an object of consciousness, it
simply exists. It is a done thing, unchangeable historical
fact, which nothing later in time can affect. It cannot be
said to ‘depend’ on anything in the sense implied by
Buddhists, because nothing could possibly be perceived
or conceived as reversing or annulling this fact.
What Buddhism seems to be denying here is that ‘facts
are facts’, whatever their surrounding circumstances, and
whether or not they are cognized, however correctly or
imperfectly. It is a denial that appearances, whatever
their content and whether they be real or illusory, have
81
We can, incidentally, imagine a world where only one
thing exists, without anything before it, simultaneous to it or
after it.
Co-dependence 145
occurred. We cannot accept such deviation from the Law

of Identity.
Such considerations lead me to the conclusion that ‘co-
dependence’ is not easy to formulate and establish, if at
all. Nevertheless, I regard it as a useful ‘way of looking
at things’, a valuable rough and ready heuristic principle.
Also, to be fair, I remain open to the possibility that, at
some deep level of meditative insight I have not reached,
it acquires more meaning and validity.
Karmic law 147
9. Karmic law.
Finally, let us consider Nagarjuna’s comments on the

moral principle of ‘karma’ (as we commonly call it). He
denies karmic law – for him, “necessary connections
between good deeds and rewards, and bad deeds and
punishments” are, as Cheng describes82, “not
objective laws in nature and society, but subjective
projections of the mind”. This is of course not an
argument, but a statement, so his reasoning cannot be
evaluated. The statement is notable, considering the
context of Indian and Buddhist belief. And again,
Nagarjuna makes this statement, not out of a desire to
oppose normative Buddhism, but in an attempt to be
consistent with his own overall philosophical programme
of consciousness beyond reason, the ‘middle way’.
I will take this opportunity to make a few comments of
my own regarding karma. The claim that there is moral
order in the world is partly, but only partly, based on
82
See p. 88. Cheng there refers to MT XVII:1-33,
XXIV:18, and Hui-cheng-lun, 72, as well as to TGT II.
empirical grounds. Without prejudice as to what

constitutes morality, we can agree that certain actions
have certain consequences, and that some of those
actions and consequences happen to be morally orderly
by our standards. The ‘actions’ referred to are actions of
a person; the so-called ‘consequences’ referred to are
things happening to that person beyond his control.
It so happens that sometimes a person who has acted in a
way he (or an observer) considers ‘good’ (e.g. being kind
to others, or whatever) is soon after or much later a
recipient of something he (or the observer) considers
‘positive’ for himself (e.g. health or children or wealth,
whatever). Similarly, a ‘bad’ action may be followed by
‘negative’ events. In some of those cases, a causal
relation may be empirically established between the
‘action’ and ‘consequence’, without appeal to a moral
principle. For instance, the man works hard and prospers.
Such cases can be considered evidence in favor of a
karmic law. In other cases, however, the causal relation
is merely assumed to occur subterraneously, because it is
not empirically evident that such ‘action’ produces such
‘consequence’. For instance, the man gives charity and
Karmic law 149
prospers. It would be begging the question to use cases of

the latter sort as evidence in favor of karmic law, since it
is only by assuming karmic law that we interpret the
events as causally connected.
Furthermore, it so happens that sometimes, despite good
actions, no positive consequences are forthcoming or
only negative ones follow; or despite bad actions, no
negative consequences are forthcoming or only positive
ones follow. The saint suffers and the evil man enjoys.
These cases are all empirical evidence against karmic
law, granting the value judgments involved, since we are
not assuming karmic law to establish the causal relations
between such actions and so-called consequences (be
they happenstance or evidently produced by the actions).
Of course, one might mitigate this conclusion somewhat,
by stating that one has to know all the life of a person
because no one only suffers and no one only enjoys, and
that anyway it is difficult to estimate the merits of a good
deed or demerits of a bad deed.
Thus, whereas karmic law might be viewed as a
generalization from the cases where actions are
empirically causally connected to consequences, it
cannot be inferred from the cases where such connection

is not established without presuming karmic law, and it is
belied by the cases where the order of things predicted by
karmic law is not matched in experience. In order to
nevertheless justify karmic law, religions may introduce
the concept of rebirth, on earth as a human or other
creature, or elsewhere, in heaven or in hell, suggesting
that if the accounts do not balance within the current
lifetime, they do in the long run balance. But again, since
we have no empirical evidence of such transmigration
and the process is anyway very vaguely described, such
argument begs the question, making the assumption of
karmic law superficially more palatable, but not
providing clear concept or inductive proof of it.
Some might hang on to karmic law all the same, by
arguing that what we have been calling good or bad, or
positive or negative, was wrongly so called. These
postulate that a set of moral standards, of virtue and
value, might be found, that exactly coincide with
empirically evident causal processes, or at least which
are not belied by such processes. Good luck.
Karmic law 151
But what bothers me most about the assumption

of karmic law is this: it logically implies that
whoever suffers must have previously done evil.
For instance, the millions of Jews (including
children) murdered by the Nazis during the
Holocaust. This seems to me an unforgivable
injustice – it is an assertion that there are no
innocent victims of crime and that criminals are
effectively agents of justice! Thus, in the name of
morality, in the name of moral order – merely to
satisfy a ‘rationalist’ impulse to uphold a ‘law of
karma’ – justice is turned upside-down and made
to accuse the innocent and exonerate the guilty.
Clearly, the idea of karmic law is inherently
illogical. We have to conclude that the world
functions differently than such a principle
implies.
We seem to have reached, with regard to karma, the
same negative conclusion as Nagarjuna, though perhaps
through a different argument. If there is no karmic law, is
there then no need for liberation, no utility to virtue and
meditation? It does not follow. Even if souls come and
go, like bubbles in water, it may be good for them to

realize their true nature while they are around. ‘Virtue is
its own reward’ and the benefits of meditation are
obvious to anyone engaged in it.
God and creation 153
10. God and creation.
Nagarjuna sought to show83 that it is “unintelligible to

assert the existence of God as the creator or maker of the
universe”84. He does this by means of several arguments,
which I shall try to summarize, based on Cheng’s
account, and to evaluate. Let me say at the outset that I
personally do not believe we can prove or disprove the
idea of God85, so I cannot be accused of having an ax to
grind on this issue. If Nagarjuna’s conclusion is deemed
a disproof and denial of the concept, I am showing it
erroneous. But if it is deemed a mere denial that the
concept can be proved, I agree with him but am showing
83
See Cheng, pp. 89-96 on this topic. He refers to MT
XXII, as well as to TGT X, XII:1 and the last chapter.
84
Note that Nagarjuna identifies God with the Indian
deity Isvara. Cheng wonders in passing whether this was
warranted; a more accurate identification would in my view
have been with the Brahman of Hinduism. However, this need
not concern us here, for the attributes used by him to describe
God correspond to those any Western philosopher would
grant.
85
I normally follow a Jewish tradition that the word
should be written incompletely, as “G-d” – but this has proven
confusing for many people. The reason for the tradition is to
avoid that the word be taken into an impure place or be
physically torn or deleted.
his reasoning in favor of such conclusion logically

inadequate.
(a) One argument proceeds as follows: “if there is a
fact of producing, making or creating… what is
produced?” It is either the “already produced” or
the “not yet produced” or the “being produced”.
These three alternatives can, according to
Nagarjuna, be “refuted in the same way as the
concept of motion”, whence production “cannot
be established” and therefore “it makes no sense”
to affirm a “creator or maker”.
The pattern and content of this argument are by now
familiar to us (see higher up), all Nagarjuna does here is
repeat it with reference to the universe and God. But
since, as we have already shown, the argument against
production is logically worthless, the conclusion against
creationism and God drawn from it is also without
credibility.86 But note additionally that Nagarjuna does
not, as philosophers often do, make any radical
distinction between “production” in the sense applicable
within the universe (which is a mere reshuffling of
86
preexisting elements) and “creation or making” in the

sense applicable to the universe (which is ex nihilo, or at
least a conversion of the spiritual substance of God into
material and other substances).
(b) The next argument we shall review is more
interesting. Let us suppose that something
(symbolized by an ‘x’) is “made or produced by
someone or something”. Now, x has to be made
either “by itself” or “by another” or “by both” or
“by no cause”. But, firstly, x cannot be made by
itself, for that would imply that “it makes its own
substance”, and “a thing cannot use itself to make
itself” for that would be “reflexive action”, i.e. the
thing would be “both subject and object at once,”
which is impossible since “subject and object are
different.” Secondly, x cannot be made by some
other thing, because the latter would be “causal
conditions” and these ought to be considered as
“its substance” and so would be “the same” and
not “other”. It follows that x cannot be made both
by itself and by another. Lastly, x cannot be made
by no cause, because “there would be a fallacy of

eternalism”.
It is not clear to me what or who is the subject, x, of this
argument. It might be intended to be the universe or God.
In either case, the argument seems to be that a thing can
neither be self-created, nor be other-created, nor be both,
nor be uncreated (i.e. neither). With regard to self-
creation, I would agree with Nagarjuna that the concept
is nonsensical. His second thesis, denying that something
can be “made by another”, is however not convincing.
He claims that the causes or conditions of something
have to be counted as part (of the substance) of that
thing, so that the alleged “other” is in fact not “other”
(implying that the concept of other-creation is self-
contradictory). But we do not ordinarily count all “causal
conditions” of a thing as part of it or of its substance; we
might do so in some cases, if such antecedents are
exclusive to that thing and no other factors can be used to
define it, but usually we would regard them as separate
events that bring it about.87
87
The third thesis, against “both” self and other creation,

could be admitted offhand since we have admitted his
first thesis that a thing creating itself (wholly, ex nihilo)
is impossible. Alternatively, we could interpret the third
thesis as referring to something partly created by another,
and then that part proceeding to create the remaining
parts. If we so conceive Nagarjuna’s third option, as
other and self creation in sequence, we have to disagree
that this is impossible. As for the fourth thesis, that a
thing may be created by neither self nor other, i.e. may
be uncreated, again two interpretations are possible. One,
which Nagarjuna mentions, is that the causeless was
always there; Nagarjuna considers that impossible, in
accord with Buddhist doctrine that eternity is a fallacious
concept, but I have seen no logical justification of that
viewpoint and to my Western mind eternity (of God or of
the universe) is quite conceivable. Another interpretation,
which Nagarjuna apparently ignores, is that something
might arise spontaneously, i.e. pop into existence out of
nothing; this is an idea which some find unconscionable,
but we may accept it as at least imaginable.88
88
See Appendix 1: fallacy C.
To summarize, Nagarjuna conceives of four scenarios for

creation, and claims to find reason to reject all four,
concluding that the idea of God creating universe is
unthinkable and therefore that God is unintelligible. We,
however, are not overwhelmed by his arguments. Only
his rejection of self-creation makes sense. His rejection
of other-creation is forced. His interpretations of “both”
and “neither” are incomplete, and we can offer additional
ones, which leave the issues open. The dilemma as a
whole is therefore inconclusive, and Nagarjuna may not
logically draw the conclusions he draws.89 However, let
us return briefly to Nagarjuna’s second thesis, for he
might be trying to formulate a more complex thought
than appears.
Let us suppose Nagarjuna is discussing whether God
created the universe. If we take “the universe” as an
open-ended concept including whatever happens to exist
at any one time, then God was himself the whole
universe before He created the rest of the universe90.
89
90
Cheng at one point (p. 92) recalls Bertrand Russell’s
argument against God and creationism – that while it is
reasonable to inquire about the causes of particular
Viewing creation thusly, we are not talking about ex

nihilo creation, which is a confused concept since it
ignores or obscures the preexistence of something (God)
doing the creating – but of an earlier universe, with only
God in it, giving rise to a later universe, with God plus
other things (matter, people with minds) in it91. The
mystery of creation in that case is simply, how can a
spiritual entity, such as the God we conceive, produce
phenomena, it is nonsensical to inquire about a cause for the

totality of all phenomena. This is of course a very forceful
argument, considering that (as we have seen) the concept of
causality arises only in response to perceived regularities of
conjunction between phenomena (here including in this term,
as well as sensory or mental perceptions, intuitive experiences
and conceptions). It is true that the search for causes of
phenomena is always a search for other phenomena that
might be regularly conjoined with them. But Russell’s
argument is not logically conclusive. For if God existed, and
we could one day perceive Him (or a “part” or “aspect” of
Him), He would simply be one more phenomenon. In which
case, creation would refer not to causation of the totality of
phenomena (by a non-phenomenon), but simply to causation
by one phenomenon of all other phenomena – which is a quite
consistent viewpoint. If “the universe” is understood in a fixed,
narrow sense, of course it is absurd to seek for a cause of it
beyond it. But if the term is taken as open to all comers, no
difficulty arises. A term with similar properties is the term
“Nature” – if we understand it rigidly, “miracles” are possible;
but if we take it flexibly, the concept of something
“supernatural” like that becomes at best merely conventional.
91
Of course, Nagarjuna would reject the proposition that
God is eternal and at some time chose to create the world,
since he does not admit of eternity.
matter, either from nowhere (i.e. without self-

diminishment) or out of itself (as the tsimtsum concept of
creation of Jewish Kabbalah seems to suggest)? The
latter idea, that God might have given something of
Himself to fashion matter, does not seem too difficult to
accept philosophically (though some may consider it
sacrilegious, as it implies that God either was diminished
thereby or consented to transform part of His spirituality,
if only a tiny speck of it, to the lower status of material
substance).
It should be pointed out here that ‘creation’ does
not simply mean causality by God of (the rest of)
the universe. The presumed type of causality
involved is volition, a free act of will, rather than
causation. Furthermore, God is not conceived as
the direct cause of everything in the universe, but
merely as First Cause and Prime Mover, i.e. as
the cause of its initial contents and their initial
movement, as well as of the ‘laws of nature’
governing them. This might be taken to mean, in
a modern perspective, the core matter subject to
the Big Bang, the ignition of that explosion and
the programming of the evolution of nature

thereafter, including appearance of elementary
particles, atoms of increasing complexity, stars
and planets, molecules, living cells, evolution of
life forms, organisms with consciousness and
will, and so forth (creationism need not be
considered tied to a literal Biblical scenario).
Once God has willed (i.e. created) inchoate
nature, it continues on its course in accordance
with causation, with perhaps room for
spontaneous events (as quantum mechanics
suggests) and for localized acts of volition (by
people, and perhaps higher animals, when they
appear on the scene). As already mentioned, there
are degrees of causation; and when something
causes some second thing that in turn causes
some third thing, it does not follow that the first
thing is a cause of the third, and even in cases
where it is (thus indirectly) a cause, the degree of
causation involved may be diminished in
comparison with the preceding link in the chain
(dampening). Similarly with volition, the cause of
a cause may be a lesser cause or not a cause at all.

It is therefore inaccurate to regard a First Cause,
such as God is conceived to be relative to nature,
as being ‘cause of everything’ lumped together
irrespective of process. The succession of causal
events and the varieties of causal relations
involved, have to be taken into consideration.
Spontaneity of physical events and freedom of
individual (human or animal) volition are not in
logical conflict with creation, because they still
occur in an existence context created by God.
God may well be the indirect cause of
spontaneous or individually willed events, in the
sense of making them possible, without being
their direct cause, in the sense of making them
necessary or actualizing them. Furthermore, to
affirm creation does not logically require that we
regard, as did some Greek philosophers, God as
thereafter forced to let Nature follow its set
course unhindered. It is conceivable that He
chooses not to interfere at all; but it is equally
conceivable that He chooses to interfere
punctually, occasionally changing the course of

things (this would be what we call ‘miracle’, or
more broadly ‘providence’), or even at some
future time arresting the world altogether. His
being the world’s initiator need not incapacitate
Him thereafter from getting further involved.
All that I have just described is conceivable, i.e. a
consistent theory of creation, but this does not
mean that it is definitely proven, i.e. deductively
self-evident or inductively the only acceptable
vision of things in the context of all available
empirical data. Note well that I am not trying to
give unconditional support to religious dogmas of
any sort. Rather, I am reacting to the pretensions
of many so-called scientists today, who (based on
very simplistic ideas of causality and causal logic)
claim that they have definitely disproved creation,
or who like Nagarjuna claim that it is logically
not even thinkable. Such dogmas are not genuine
philosophy. One should never let oneself be
intimidated by either priestly or academic
prestige, but always remain open-minded and
consider facts and arguments impartially and

fairly.
Alternatively, Nagarjuna could be supposed to discuss in
his second thesis whether God was created by something
else. In that case, I would agree with his rejection of the
idea. We could claim that God is uncreated, on the
ground that we have conceived God as an explanation of
the world appearing before us, and cannot go on looking
for an explanation of the explanation and so on, ad
infinitum. This position can however be legitimately
contested, on the ground that if we demand one
explanation, consistency requires that we demand an
infinite regression of them. So we are in a quandary,
faced with either a lack of explanation or an overdose of
explanations, neither of which is logically satisfying.
We might oppose an atheist conclusion by arguing that if
we consider it acceptable to offer no explanation for the
world, then we could equally well be allowed to offer
none for God. However, there is a difference between
these two positions, in that the world is empirically
evident before us, whereas God is not92; furthermore,

explanations are meant to simplify problems, whereas the
assumption of God introduces new and more complex
questions compared to the assumption of a world without
God.
In conclusion, the ideas of God and creation are certainly
full of difficulties, as Nagarjuna asserts (though for the
wrong reasons), but altogether abandoning them also
leaves us with difficulties, which Nagarjuna does not
consider. The currently most rational position is probably
an agnosticism leaning towards atheism. This does not
preclude a personal leap of faith, based not on reason but
on more emotional grounds – that is precisely what we
mean by ‘faith’93. It is interesting to note, concerning
Buddhism, that “when someone asked Buddha the
92
The theory that God exists counts the existence of the
world as empirical evidence for itself, since that is what the
theory is constructed to explain. But this confirming evidence
is not exclusive to that theory, since it is also claimed by
contrary theories. This standoff could only be resolved,
deductively, if some inextricable inconsistencies were found in
all but one theory; or inductively, if some empirical detail were
found which is explicable by one theory and not by the others.
93
Even Buddhism calls on its adherents to have faith –
faith enough to pursue enlightenment by meditation or
whatever practices, till they get there and see its truth directly
for themselves.
question whether the world was made by God, he did not

answer”94.
Cheng tells us that “the true Madhyamika approach” is
“neither theistic nor atheistic”, but merely that God
“cannot be conceived of as existing”. Nagarjuna does not
really infer from the latter (though at times he seems to)
that God does not exist, because “only a significant
statement can be significantly negated or contradicted”.
Thus, even agnosticism is rejected by him, since it
considers the issue meaningful. Clearly, I am
disagreeing, and maintaining that God is (somewhat)
conceivable, but is neither provable nor disprovable; i.e.
a reasonably intelligible and consistent theological theory
can be formulated, but it remains speculative as we have
no way to verify or falsify it.
(c) Other issues raised by Nagarjuna include the
following:
• He asks who in turn created God, and who in turn
created that creator of the creator, ad infinitum?
This is of course a serious logical issue, legitimately
raised. We have already addressed it, without claiming
94
Cheng, p. 93.
to have finally resolved it. The important counter-

argument to note here is that atheism, too, leaves an
unanswered question: how come existence exists?95
• Nagarjuna asks in what place God was staying
when he created the world, and in what place he
put the world he created, and whether he or
another created those places; and he claims that
such considerations give rise to infinite regress of
creations and creators. This query is also legitimate,
but more easily opposed. One might hypothesize that
God takes up no space and created space as well as its
contents. One might add the more modern view, that
space is not independent of matter, nor ‘occupied’ by
it, but a relation between material items. It is also
interesting to note that modern physics postulates
certain basic constituents of matter as without spatial
extension.
• He asks why, if God (as we conceive Him) is
omnipotent and omniscient, and so unhindered by
obstacles, He did not create the world “in its
totality at one and the same time”. To me this
95
See Appendix 1: fallacy I.
question does not seem very unsettling – we can just

answer, why not? I mean, if God had done so,
Nagarjuna would be asking: why not create a world of
process?96
• He should rather have asked why, if God (as we
conceive Him) is complete and self-sufficient, and so
lacking nothing and so desiring nothing, He created
the world at all. What might possibly have been His
motive? That is a $64,000 question, for which no
answer is forthcoming from anyone! Nagarjuna
perhaps senses this question, when he argues that
“God wanted to create all creatures” implies
antecedent “causal conditions”, i.e. that “all things
were produced from karma”. But it must be pointed
out that if creation is an act of volition, it might well
be without motive, and even if it has a motive such
motive would be an influence but not a deterministic
cause. There is no inconsistency in regarding free will
as occasionally motiveless, or when motivated as
unforced by its motives. That is precisely what
distinguishes volition from mechanical action: it
96
See Appendix 1: fallacy I.
remains free and the responsibility of the Agent

irrespective of all surrounding circumstances.
• Nagarjuna also brings up “the problem of evil”
(what we today call theodicy, i.e. the justice of
God): if God (as we conceive Him) is omnipotent,
omniscient and infinitely good, just and
compassionate, why does He let “moral evil and
physical suffering” exist in the world? “Evil men
enjoy happiness and… good men suffer” and yet
God will not or cannot prevent it. “If God cannot
prevent evil he is not omnipotent, and if he can but
will not, he is not all good.” Thus, at least two of
the attributes we assign to Him, omnipotence and
perfect goodness, are mutually contradictory, given
that “obviously, there is evil in the world” (and
being omniscient, He must be aware of it).
Therefore, God is either “not omnipotent” or “not
all good” (or both), which in either case would
mean a lack of the attributes we conceive him as
having to have to be God, so that “he is not God”
and “God cannot be conceived to exist”.
This is of course a big issue for theists to face, and

Nagarjuna’s reasoning here is generally valid.
However, the problem is not logically insurmountable
and Nagarjuna’s conclusion is too quick and radical.
For we can suppose that God has a more complex
accounting process in mind (regarding reward and
punishment, tit for tat), or that He has instituted a
system of trials for our ultimate greater good. What
we view as inexcusable suffering of innocents, may in
God’s view not be as serious as we think, because (as
Buddhism itself ultimately suggests) suffering is
superficial and illusory. We may even have
volunteered to be born into this world of apparently
unjust suffering, to fulfill some purpose for God. And
so forth – the concepts involved are logically too
vague and uncertain to allow us to draw a definite
conclusion.
Before leaving this topic, I would like to make some

comments regarding Buddhism in general. At its core,
the Buddhist doctrine is not theistic, in the sense of
believing in a creator, nor particularly anti-theistic,
though effectively atheistic. However, having arisen in

Indian culture, it adopted ideas of gods, in the sense of
supermen or supernatural beings, who were however
themselves still ultimately subject to the Four Noble
Truths, i.e. though they were very high-minded and
heavenly, due to their good karma, they too eventually
had to find liberation from the karmic cycle or face a
lesser rebirth. At a later stage, as Cheng says, “the
Buddha was deified”, not in the sense of being regarded
as creator, but in the sense of having the other “main
admirable characteristics of God or divine being” that we
have listed above. Initially a saintly man, he was
promoted by his disciples to the highest rank of
godliness, above all the other gods just described,
because no longer subject to ignorance and karma. He
had, as it were, dissolved in the universal unity (reality,
nirvana) underlying the world of multiplicity (illusion,
samsara), and thus merged with what might be called
God.
Another aspect to be mentioned is that of idolatry, i.e. the
worship of statues representing gods. This practice was
present in Indian culture when Buddhism arose, and in
other Asian cultures when Buddhism later reached them.

Buddhists soon adopted this practice too, making and
worshipping statues of the Buddha, and later other
presumed Buddhas, boddhisattvas and arhats (saints). For
at least some Buddhist sects, prayer and offerings to such
statues seems to be the main religious activity. It is very
surprising that Buddhism did not from its inception
firmly discard such polytheism and idol worship. One
would have thought, considering the otherwise
‘scientific’ mindedness of core Buddhist doctrine, that it
would have sharply criticized and inhibited such
irrelevant and dubious tendencies. No doubt, the initial
motive was tolerance, taking potential converts as they
were and avoiding conflict; but this attitude effectively
perpetuated primitive habits.97
97
I have never seen idolatry even questioned in any
Buddhist text, ancient or modern! But anyway my historical
analysis is confirmed in Christmas Humphreys’ Buddhism
(Harmondsworth, Mx.: Penguin, 1955. Rev. ed.). He states:
“As it gently flowed into country after country… [Buddhism]
tended to adopt, or failed to contest the rival claims of, the
indigenous beliefs, however crude. In this way the most divers
and debased beliefs were added to the corpus of ‘Buddhism’,
and embarrass the student to-day” (p. 12). Later, he writes:
“Certainly within a hundred years of the death of Asoka… from
a human being the Buddha had become a super-human
being, and his spiritual Essence had entered a pantheon
But it ought to be emphasized that the worship of

carvings of Buddhas is in direct logical
contradiction with the ‘nothing has a self’
doctrine of Buddhism, since it involves a mental
projection of selfhood into statues. The fact is
that, in the idol worshipper’s mind, the figure he
calls to and bows to is somehow a part of or an
emanation of or a conduit to the transcendent
deity, and so possessed of a (derivative) ‘soul’.
Thus, idolatry perpetuates one of the main
psychological errors of people, according to
Buddhism. If it is ignorance to assign soul to a
living being, which at least seems to have
consciousness, emotion and volition, how much
more foolish it is to assign it to stone (or paper or
even, finally, mental) images! Ordinary Buddhists
surely cannot hope to attain the ideal of
Buddhism by such practices, which have exactly
the opposite educational effect.
All this to say that, whereas the core Buddhist doctrine is
not especially concerned with theological ideas or issues,
nearly as large as that of the Hinduism from which it largely

derived” (pp. 48-49).
but with promoting wise and loving attitudes and

behavior patterns, tending to enlightenment and
liberation, Buddhism in practice is, for most of its
adherents still today, a theism of sorts.
It should moreover be stressed that the attack on Creation
is a distraction. The main underlying problem of the
beginning of things remains, even for non-theists.
Physicists have to face it, and so do Buddhists. In the
latter context, in the beginning is the “original ground” of
Nirvana. Its nature and essence is stillness, quietness,
peace, perfection and fulfillment. All of a sudden, it stirs
and subdivides; then more and more, till it engages in a
frenzy of motion and distinctions. Samsara is born and
proceeds. Since then, according to Buddhism, existence
is suffering; and the meaning of all our lives is to
intentionally return to the original mind state, by means
of meditation and good deeds. So, what caused this
madness? Was the original ground unstable or
dissatisfied? Was it an incomprehensible “spontaneous”
event or was it a stupid “act of will”? Buddhism does not
really explain.
Very similar notions are found in Judaism. Note

first the ambivalence about Creation, which is
presumed by Rabbinical commentators to be an
‘act of love’ by God for his creatures (on the
principle that whatever God does has to be good),
but at the same time is admitted as an act that
gave rise (at least since the Garden of Eden
incident) to empirically evident “evil” in the
world. In particular, while procreation is
prescribed so as to perpetuate life, the sex act is
viewed as involving the “evil impulse”. Note also
the Jew’s duty to work his/her way, through
study, prayer and other good deeds (mitzvoth),
towards – according to kabalistic interpretations –
a renewed fusion with God (teshuvah). If we draw
an analogy between the Jewish idea of God (one,
unique, universal, infinite) and the less
personalized Buddhist idea of Nirvana, we see the
equivalence between the questions “why did God
create the world?” and “why did Nirvana
degenerate into Samsara?”
Self or soul 177
11. Self or soul.
Nagarjuna, together with other Buddhists, denies the

existence of a real “self” in man98, i.e. that the “I” of each
person is a soul or spiritual entity distinct from his
physical body. This concept, referred to as the “atman”,
was regarded in Indian (Hindu) tradition as “the feeler of
sensations, thinker of thoughts, and receiver of rewards
and punishments for actions good and bad”, something
that “persists through physical changes, exists before
birth and after death, and remains from one life to the
other”, something “constant and eternal” and “self-
subsistent”, which was ultimately “ontologically
identical with Brahman, the essential reality underlying
the universe” (i.e. God). The atman, or at least the
ultimate Brahman essence of every atman, was
considered as the most “real” of existents, because unlike
the transient phenomena of experience, it was
“permanent, unchanging and independent.”
98
For this topic, see Cheng, pp. 74-76. He there refers
to MT IX, XVIII:1a,1b,6, XXVII:4-8, and to HT II.
(a) Nagarjuna attacks this view, arguing that if to be

“real” means to be “permanent, unchanging and
independent”, then the phenomena apparent to
us would have to be regarded as “illusions”, since
they are transient, changing and dependent. It
would follow that transience, change and
dependence – being only manifested by
phenomena – are also not “real”. To Nagarjuna
this seems “absurd”, because “moral disciplines
would lose their significance and spiritual effort
would be in vain.”
(b) Furthermore, he asks whether or not “changing
phenomena”, i.e. “our bodies or physical
appearances”, are “characteristics of the atman”,
and if so, what the relation between the atman
and its characteristics might be, are they
“identical” or “different”? If they were
“identical”, then atman would be subject to birth
and death (and so forth) like the body, in
contradiction to the definition of atman. If they
are “different”, then the atman “would be
perceived without characteristics”, which “it is
Self or soul 179
not”, because “nothing can be perceived without

characteristics”. On the other hand, if the atman
is “without any characteristic”, it would be “in
principle, indefinable and hence inconceivable”.
(c) Moreover, to the argument that “although the
atman differs from the characteristics and cannot
be perceived directly, its existence can be
inferred”, Nagarjuna replies that “inference and
analogy are inapplicable in the case of knowing
the atman” because they are only “applicable
among directly perceivable phenomena”. He
therefore considers that “it is unintelligible to say
that atman exists behind changing appearances.”
Nagarjuna thus comes to the conclusion that “nothing has
selfhood” and “atman is empty”. This does not constitute
a rejection on his part of a “conventional” idea of the
self, as a mere “collection of different states or
characteristics” such that “the self and characteristics are
mutually dependent”. This artificial construct of a self,
being entirely identified with the perceivable phenomena
we attribute to it, is not “permanent, unchanging and
independent”. Allow me now to debate the issues.
Let us start with argument 11(a). I would agree with

Nagarjuna here, that reality and illusion should not be
defined as his predecessors do with reference to eternity,
constancy and causal independence or their negations. As
explained earlier, “reality” and “illusion” are
epistemological judgments applied to “appearances”.
These two concepts arise first in relation to phenomena.
Phenomena (perceived things) are considered, in practice
and in theory, to be prima facie “real”, and then demoted
to the temporary status of “problematic” if contradictions
are apparent between two of them, until either or both of
these phenomena is/are dumped into the category of
“illusion”, on either deductive or inductive grounds.
There is no concept of “reality” or “illusion” apart from
appearance; they merely refer to subcategories of
appearances.
At a later stage, these concepts are enlarged from
perceptual appearances to conceptual and intuitive
appearances. Both the latter appearances similarly have,
as soon as and however vaguely they are conceived or
intuited, an initial credibility, which we call the status of
reality. But being less evident, more hypothetical, their
Self or soul 181
effective status is closer to problematic, and they have to

be immediately and repeatedly thereafter further defined,
and tested for internal consistency, for consistency with
empirical data, and by comparison to alternative theses.
The answers to these questions determine the degree of
probability we assign to concepts or intuitions.
Eventually, if they are found contrary to experience, or
inconsistent with themselves or a larger conceptual
context, or less credible than their alternatives, they are
relegated to the status of the illusory.
For us, then, all appearances are equally ‘real’ in the
primary sense that it is a fact that they exist and are
objects of consciousness99. Moreover, as earlier
explained, with reference to inductive and deductive
issues, pure percepts (concrete appearances, phenomena)
are always ‘real’; but concepts (abstract appearances),
including the conceptual admixtures in percepts, may be
regarded as to various degrees ‘real’ (or inversely,
‘illusory’).
99
Some might say, exist as objects of consciousness –
but even that is existence.
This analysis of reality and illusion as ontological

qualifications based on epistemological considerations,
shows that there is no basis for Hindu philosophy’s
identification of them with eternity, constancy and causal
independence or their negations. The latter seems to be a
poetic drift, an expression of devotion to God: the
presumed common ground of all selves is hailed as the
only “real” thing, in contrast to which everything else is
mere “illusion”. “Real” in that context means significant
to the world, worthy of attention and pursuit – it is a
value judgment of another sort.
If we look to the epistemological status of the concept of
God, we would say that it is conceivable to some degree;
but not to an extreme degree, because there are
considerable vagueness and uncertainty in it (see the
previous topic of the present essay). An appeal to
revelation is not a solution, because revelations to
prophets are for the rest of us mere hearsay; and anyway
different prophets have conflicting visions, so that even if
we grant that they had the visions, we have to regard
some (and therefore possibly all) of them as having
misinterpreted their respective visions. Faith is always
Self or soul 183
involved and required with reference to God. But even

supposing God is admitted to exist, and that He is one100,
eternal, invariant and completely independent, it does not
follow that this is a definition of reality. The universe,
which evidently exists, is also still real, even if it is but a
figment of God’s imagination, even if it and all its
constituents are transient, changing and dependent. A
short-lived event may still be real; a flux may still have
continuity, a caused event may still have occurred.
Thus, we may confidently agree with Nagarjuna’s
rejection of the Hindu definition of reality. We may,
nevertheless, doubt his argument in favor of that
rejection, namely that “no evil person could be
transformed” if the phenomenal world were illusory in
the Hindu sense. Even agreeing with him that people can
morally improve, we have to consider that concepts of
morality, or of good and evil, come much later in the
100
This characteristic of God, one-ness, is not mentioned
by Cheng, but philosophical Brahmanism is ultimately
monotheistic, even though many Hindus are in practice
polytheistic. It should be mentioned, however, that one-ness is
not logically implied by eternity, invariance and independence;
i.e. one could conceive two or more entities with these
characteristics (certainly the first two, at least – independence
would be open to debate). Perhaps Zoroastrianism is a case
in point?
development of knowledge than the concepts of reality

and illusion, and so cannot logically be used to define or
justify them. Furthermore, concepts of morality depend
for their meaning on an assumption of volition operating
in a world subject to time, change and causality; morality
has no meaning in a world with only determinism or
chance, or in a static multiplicity or unity.
Let us move on to argument 11(b). The question asked
here is what the relation between a soul and “its” body
and other perceivable phenomena (such as imaginations
and emotions) might be. In my view, and I think the view
of many ordinary people and philosophers, the soul is a
spiritual entity (i.e. one of some stuff other than that of
the material body or of mental projections), who is at
once the Subject of consciousness (i.e. the one who is
cognizing phenomena and other appearances – i.e. the
“feeler of sensations and thinker of thoughts” mentioned
above) and the Agent of volition (i.e. the one who
evaluates, who makes choices and decisions, who puts in
motion acts of will, who has attitudes and tendencies, and
who is within certain parameters free of determinism,
though not unaffected by influences and motives – i.e.
Self or soul 185
the “receiver of rewards and punishments for actions

good and bad” mentioned above).
Thus, the relation of soul to other existents within the
universe, according to this view, is that the soul is
capable (as Subject) of cognizing to some extent concrete
and abstract appearances, and (as Agent) of interfering to
some extent in the course of natural events, influenced
and motivated by them through his cognition of them,
but still free to impose his will on some of them. To
affirm powers of cognition and will to the soul does not,
note well, imply such powers to be unlimited or
invariable; one may be free to act within certain
parameters and these parameters may under various
circumstances widen or narrow in scope. By ‘influence’,
I mean that the events external to the soul may facilitate
or make more difficult its actions, to degrees below 100%
(such extreme degree being the limiting case of
deterministic causality, i.e. causation). This view leaves
open the issue as to whether the soul is of limited
duration (i.e. bounded by the lifetime of the body, which
it would be if it is an epiphenomenon of matter clustered
in living cells and the complex organisms they compose),

or eternal (which it would be if it is a spark of God).
Returning now to Nagarjuna’s argument, we would say
that soul is not “identical” with its perceptible
“characteristics”. The soul may inhabit or be an
epiphenomenon of the body, but is in either case
something other than the body. The soul perceives and
conceives the body (including visceral sentiments) and
matter beyond it and mental phenomena within it (i.e.
imaginations), through sensory and brain processes, but
these processes are not identical with its cognition of
their results. The soul acts on the body (or at least, the
brain), and through it on the matter beyond it and on the
projection of mental images, but this action (that we call
will, a power of spirit over matter101) is a special sort of
causality neither the same as mechanical causation nor
mere happenstance. The “characteristics” of the soul are
thus merely perceptible manifestations (sensations,
movements, emotions) of deeper events (consciousness,
101
Granting the universality of law of conservation of
energy, we would have to presume that spirit’s will somehow
releases energy locked in matter, rather than inputting new
energy into it. Perhaps volition affects the wave-form of energy
without affecting its magnitude.
Self or soul 187
will) occurring at the interface of matter and spirit and

more deeply still within spirit.
This theory of the soul differs from the Indian, in that it
does not imply that the soul is imperishable or that it
does not undergo internal changes or that it is entirely
causally independent. Nor does it imply that the soul is
separable (though distinguishable) from the body,
existing before or after or without its biological activity,
in the way of a disembodied ghost. So Nagarjuna’s
criticism that birth and death are contradictory to a
concept of soul is irrelevant to this theory; for his
criticism only applies to the specific Indian definition of
“atman”. But even if the soul is granted to be eternal, I
do not think Nagarjuna’s criticism is valid; for even an
eternal spiritual entity may conceivably have momentary
effects – as in the case of God, as we conceive Him,
creating or interfering in the world. Note that we
commonly regard the human soul, too, as acting on (the
rest of) the natural world, without considering it
necessarily eternal.
With regard to the second alternative of Nagarjuna’s
argument, considering the possibility that soul be
“different” from its perceivable “characteristics”, our

reply would be, not only that they are distinct (though
related as cause and effect, remember), but that we need
not accept his claim that the soul’s imperceptibility
implies it to be “inconceivable” and “indefinable”. We
agree that the soul cannot be perceived, i.e. does not
itself display perceptible qualities, i.e. is not a
phenomenon with sense-modalities like shape and color,
sound, smell, taste or touch aspects. But we may
nevertheless to a considerable extent conceive and define
it. The proof is that we have just done so, above;
furthermore, if Nagarjuna did not have a concept and
definition, however vague and open to doubt, of soul to
work with, he would have been unable to discuss the
issue at all. There is no epistemological principle that the
imperceptible is inconceivable and indefinable; if there
were, no concept or definition would be admissible, not
even those that Nagarjuna himself uses, not even those
involved in the statement of that alleged principle.
Concepts are precisely tools for going beyond
perception. Complex concepts are not mere summaries of
percepts, but imaginative departures from and additions
Self or soul 189
to perceptual knowledge, nevertheless bound to the latter

by logical and adductive rules. Even simple concepts,
purporting to be summaries, are in fact regulated by these
same rules.
Which brings us to argument 11(c). Here, Nagarjuna
contends that inferences and analogies from experience
may be valid in specific cases, but not in the case of soul.
He claims that we can for example infer fire indirectly
from smoke, because we have previously seen fire
directly in conjunction with smoke, whereas in the case
of soul, we have never perceived it so we cannot infer it
from perceptible “characteristics”. We can reply that,
though fire and smoke provide a valid example of
inference, this is a selective example. Many other
examples can be brought to bear, where we infer
something never perceived from something perceived.
For example, no one has ever directly sensed a magnetic
‘field of force’, but if you hold two magnets opposite
each other, you feel the pull or push between them; you
can also see a nail moving while a magnet is held close
to it without touching it. The concept of force or field is
constructed in relation to an experience, but is not itself

an object of experience.
Nagarjuna’s discourse is itself replete with such
‘indirect’ concepts. For instance, consciousness is
imperceptible, perception is imperceptible, and so on.
One of his favorites, namely “emptiness”, is per se
without perceptible qualities. So he is using a double
standard when he denies such concepts, in support of his
denial that soul is intelligible. Such concepts are
constructed by imaginative analogy (e.g. I may draw a
magnetic force as a line or arrow) and by verbal
definitions and descriptions (using words referring to
relations first conceived with reference to empirical
events – for instance, “whatever causes this motion, call
it a force” or “force equals mass times acceleration
caused”). Such creative construction is merely a first
stage; it does not in itself validate a concept. The
proposed concept must thereafter be tested and tested
again, with reference to the totality of other empirical
knowledge and theory, before it can be considered as
valid. Its validity is also a function of its utility, i.e. the
Self or soul 191
extent to which it helps us to better understand and order

our experience of the world.
I personally do not regard that the concept of soul can be
entirely based on such construction from experience. It
seems evident to me that consciousness implies someone
who is being conscious, a Subject-soul, as well as
something one is conscious of, an Object. But I am
sensitive to the objections by many philosophers,
including Buddhist ones, that this thought may just be a
prejudice incited by grammatical habit. And, as already
admitted, if one introspects and looks for phenomenal
manifestations of a self being aware, one finds none.
Some, including Nagarjuna, would say that the concept
of consciousness is itself in doubt, that all one can
empirically claim is appearance. As for the concept of
volition, let alone that of soul as the Agent of will, many
doubt or deny it, in view of the difficulties in its
definition and proof.
But I think it is very important to realize that all Buddhist
accounts (at least all those I have encountered) of how an
illusion of selfhood might conceivably be constructed by
a non-person fail to avoid begging the question. A
theory is required, which answers all possible questions,

before such a revolutionary idea as that of denial of real
self in man can be posited with confidence; and no
theory without holes or inconsistencies has to my
knowledge been proposed. We may readily admit the
existence of an illusory self (or ‘ego’), constructed and
suffered by a stupid or misguided real self. But an
aberration or delusion with no one constructing it or
subject to it, seems like an absurd concept to me. It
implies mere happenstance, determinism, without any
consciousness, volition, values or responsibility.
Indeed, if you examine attempted such theories they
always (overtly or covertly) describe an effective person
(the pronoun ‘he’) constructing a false self. They never
manage to escape from the sentence structure with a
personal subject; typically: ‘he gradually deludes himself
into thinking he has a self’. They do not provide a
credibly detailed and consistent scenario of how
unconscious and impersonal elements and processes
(Nagarjuna’s “characteristics”) could possibly aggregate
into something that has the impression (however false) it
is someone! A machine (or robot with artificial
Self or soul 193
intelligence) may ‘detect’ things (for us) but it has no

consciousness; it may ‘do’ things (for us) but it has no
volition; it may loudly proclaim ‘I’ but it has no soul.
There is also to consider the reverse process of
deconstruction, how an ultimately impersonal artificial
self (non-self) would or could go about freeing itself
from illusion. Why would a non-self have any problem
with remaining deluded (assuming it could be), and how
if it has no personal powers would it intelligently choose
to put in motion the prescribed process of liberation from
delusion. A simple sentence like ‘to realize you have no
self, make an effort to meditate daily’ is already a
contradiction in terms, in my view.
Self-knowledge 195
12. Self-knowledge.
Let us therefore consider how we might argue in favor of

a soul, consisting of a Subject and his consciousness and
an Agent and his will. If I do not mention feelings much
here, it is only because I consider them derivatives of the
other two powers of the soul; but the soul as author of
evaluations (value-judgments, choices, affections) is
intended here too.
As already stated, I agree that the soul has in itself no
perceptible (i.e. visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory or
tactile) qualities, comparable to those in or around the
‘body’ (matter) or in mental projections (imaginations,
dreams). This can be taken to simply mean that it is not
made of material or mental substance, granting that
“matter” (in a large sense, here, including physical and
imaginary concrete phenomena) is whatever has these
qualities; for this reason, let us say that soul is made of
some distinctive substance, call it spirit.102 All we have
102
We can leave as an open issue, parenthetically, the
possibility that matter and spirit are respectively coarse and
fine manifestations of one and the same substance.
done here is hypothesized, by analogy to the phenomenal

realm, an entity (soul) of different stuff (spirit); this is
logically legitimate, provided we go on and justify it
further.
This concept of a soul is constructed to explain certain
phenomena, on the basis of a mass of observations and
theory-building. The soul is posited as the Subject of
consciousness (or cognition) of, first, concrete
phenomena (percepts) and, second, abstract appearances
(concepts); and at a later stage as the Agent of will, the
presumed cause (in a special sense) of certain perceptible
actions of bodily organs (eye movements, speech,
motions of arms and legs, and so on) as well as of
intellectual organs (imagination, attention, thought
processes, and so on). But if soul is reduced to such a
conceptual construct, we only succeed at best in giving a
general description of its powers and activities.
Such a theoretical approach leaves us without
justification for our day-to-day propositions concerning
our own particular thoughts and deeds at any given time.
For conception cannot proceed from a single event; it is
the outcome of comparisons and contrasts between two
Self-knowledge 197
or more events. Whereas, statements about an individual

person’s present situation are not made in comparison
and contrast to other persons or situations. A general
proposition can serve as major premise of a syllogism,
but to obtain a particular conclusion, we need a particular
minor premise. Indeed, to obtain the general proposition
in the first place, we need to admit some particular cases
of the same kind, which we can then generalize and
apply to other particular cases (that is what syllogistic
inference is all about).
That is, when we say, for instances, “I believe so and so”
or “I choose so and so” or “I wish so and so”, we are
evidently not referring to phenomena perceptible at the
moment (belief, choice, wishing have no immediate
concrete manifestations, though they may eventually
have perceptible effects), and we are evidently not
conceptually inferring such propositions from any
perceptual phenomena (i.e. what these propositions refer
to are not abstract appearances). Yet these propositions
are significant to each of us, and can fairly be declared
true or false by us. Their truth or falsehood is, to repeat,
not exclusively based on experience and on rational
considerations, as Buddhists suggest, but is immediately,

directly known by introspection.
This is what I would call ‘self-knowledge’; and since this
type of cognition is neither perception nor conception, it
deserves a special name – say, ‘intuition’. My use of this
term should not be taken to imply acceptance of
knowledge of other people’s souls, thoughts, wills or
emotions (which is another issue, open to debate,
solipsism not being excluded) – it is here restricted to
self-intuition. I do not use the term ‘introspection’,
because this may be used with reference to perceptible
phenomena, such as one’s mental imaginations or bodily
feelings.
Thus, in this view, the soul is cognized by three types of
cognition: directly by intuition, and indirectly by
conceptualization based on the soul’s perceptual effects
and its intuited states and activities. Of course,
‘cognition’ is one and the same in all three cases; only
the object of cognition differs in each case. If we limit
our consideration only to perceptual effects and concepts
derived from them, we can only construct a theoretical
‘soul’ and refer to ‘powers’ of soul. To obtain and claim
Self-knowledge 199
knowledge of an individual soul and of its actual

perceptions, conceptions, beliefs, intentions, acts of will,
value-judgments, affections, etc., we have to admit a
direct cognition other than perception, namely ‘intuition’.
Thus, we could refer to soul with several terms: the ‘I’ of
my own intuitions, the ‘self’ when assuming that others
have an ‘I’ like mine (on the basis of similar perceptible
effects), and the ‘soul’ when referring to the conceptual
construct based on my ‘I’, your ‘I’ and their perceptually
evident (presumed) effects. Granting all this, it is no
wonder that if we seek definition or proof of the ‘I’ in
phenomenal effects, we will not find it!
Let us now return to these intuited propositions, for a
moment. Consider this well. If I say to you “I believe (or
disbelieve or am unsure about) so and so” – did I infer
this from anything and can you deny me? Sure, I have to
mean what I say to you, be sincere. Sometimes, too, I
may lie to myself, and claim to believe something (e.g.
some complimentary claim about myself, or some
religious or political claim), when in fact I do not really
believe it. The human psyche has its complexities, and
we can hide and not admit things even to oneself. In such
cases, the truth of the statement can be verified with

reference to a larger context, checking if my feelings and
actions are consistent with my claimed belief. But this
does not mean that all such personal claims are known by
reference to perceptible side-effects, as Buddhists claim.
It only means that, just as in the perceptual and
conceptual fields, appearances have an initial credibility
but have to be faced off with other appearances, so in the
field of intuition, an inductive process of verification
goes on, through which some intuitions are found to be
doubtful (due to their conflicts with other intuitions,
and/or perceptible phenomena and conceptual
considerations).
Furthermore, it should be stressed that not all statements
of the form “I-verb-object” (object being optional) are
based on intuition alone. Some have perceptual and/or
conceptual basis only, or also. For example, “I am
thinking that we should go there” involves perceptual
factors, perhaps a mental image of our bodies (mine and
yours) walking along in some direction, as well as
conceptual factors, perhaps a reasoning process as to why
we should go there. But some such statements are purely
Self-knowledge 201
intuitive, e.g. “I believe so and so” is final and

independent, whatever the reasoning that led up to the
belief. Furthermore, such statements need not be
verbalized. The words “I”, “believe” etc. involved in the
statement are of course products of conceptualization;
but the intent of the sentence as a whole is a particular
intuition, which the words verbalize.
Also to note well is that a proposition like “I believe so
and so” cannot be based on a coded message from the
brain, to the effect that “so and so should be declared as
‘your belief’ at this time”, for the simple reason that we
have no awareness of any perceptible message of this
sort. Therefore, such a statement is not a translation in
words of a special kind of percept (just as conceptual
statements are not). Perhaps the statement “I believe so
and so” itself is the perceptible message from the brain?
If so, we would be justified in denying any intuition of
soul and its states and activities. But it is evident from
introspection that we know what we want to say before
we put it in words. The words merely verbalize an object
already cognized; and this cognition must be ‘intuition’,
since it is neither perception (having no perceptible

qualities) nor conception (since it is particular).
It seems justified, in conclusion, to hypothesize, in
addition to perception and conception, a third source of
knowledge, called intuition, a direct cognition whose
objects are the self (I) and its actual cognitions (I know
what I am seeing, hearing, imagining, thinking, etc., right
now), volitions (I know what I choose, decide, want,
intend, will, etc., at this moment) and affections (I know
what I like or dislike or am indifferent to, what I hope or
fear, etc., at this time). I know these most intimate of
things – who can tell me otherwise, how would they
know better than me what the imperceptible contents of
my consciousness are? Soul and its presumed powers –
cognition, volition, affection – cannot be conceived by
comparison, since I do not see any souls other than my
own; it can only be conceived by inference from
perceptible and intuitive phenomena that we hypothesize
to be its effects. The objects of intuition may be “empty”
of perceptible qualities; but they may still have an
existence of sorts, just as abstracts are not themselves
perceptible but may credibly be affirmed.
Self-knowledge 203
Suppose, for example, I meditate, watching my breath;

my random thoughts cause my attention to stray for
awhile103; I drag my attention back to the object of my
meditation, my breath. Here, the direction and intensity
of my attention require an act of will. The straying away
of attention from the breath is not my will; my will is
what makes it return to the breath. Phenomenally, the
attention on the breath and the loss of this attention (or
rather the breath phenomenon and the lack of it) are on
an equal plane. What allows me to regard the one as
mine and the other as not mine, is the awareness that I
had to make an effort in the one case and that no effort104
was involved in the other case. This ‘effort’ is the
intuited volition and that it is ‘mine’ signals intuition of
soul. I may focus on the effort alone, or by an additional
act of will focus on the fact that it is mine. There is no
103
As we meditate, countless thoughts pop up, tempting
us to follow them. Eventually, one manages to hook us,
grabbing our interest and hurtling us through a series of
associations. Thus totally absorbed, we forget our object of
meditation for a while, until we realize we have been
distracted.
104
The thoughts I strayed into may have involved
voluntary processes, but my straying into them was
involuntary.
‘reflexive act’ involved in this self-consciousness,

because it is one part of me watched by the rest of me.
Of course, this is all very mysterious. When we say “I
think this” or “I will that”, we have no idea where this or
that event came from or how it popped up. Certainly the
deep source and manufacture of a thought or will of the
soul is unknown to us, so we cannot claim to wholly own
it. We do not have a plan of action before the thought or
will, through which we consciously construct the latter.
Each thought or will, finally, just is. There are no steps or
stages, we just do it. But it is still not just happenstance;
there is an author, ourselves. We are able to distinguish,
in most cases, between thoughts or wills that just ‘happen
to us’, and others that ‘we author’; we may even identify
them as voluntary or involuntary to various degrees.
All this to say that Nagarjuna’s critique of soul and its
powers, and of the knowability of these things, is far
from conclusive. Buddhists are justified in doubting and
inquiring into the issues, but from a purely philosophical
point of view the Madhyamika conclusion of
“emptiness” may be considered too radical and extreme.
It may be obviously valid from the perspective of
Self-knowledge 205
someone who has reached some higher form of

consciousness (which, I know, I have not), but their
rational arguments are not decisive. Most important, as
we have seen, Nagarjuna bases his denial on one
particular theory of soul (the atman theory), and has not
considered all conceivable theories. To rebut (or more
precisely, to put in doubt) his arguments, it is therefore
sufficient to propose one alternative theory (as above
done) that he has ignored; the alternative does not need
to be proved – if it is just conceivable (coherent,
consistent), that is enough.
Nagarjuna does not, in my view, satisfactorily answer
questions like ‘who is it that perceives, thinks, desires or
acts?’, ‘who is it that meditates in pursuit of liberation or
eventually reaches it?’, when he explains away the soul
as a mere cluster of percepts or concepts, as something
(illegitimately) inferred from perceptible phenomena by
a presumed cause-effect relation.
In passing, it is worth noting that, although the doctrine
of no-self is fundamental to Buddhism, not all Buddhists
have interpreted it as a total rejection of soul (in some
sense of the term). One Theravada school, known as the
‘Personalists’, dating back to about 300 BCE, whose

adepts in the 7th century CE included almost one third of
all Buddhist monks in India, “motivated by
commonsense, maintained that in addition to impersonal
events, there is still a ‘person’ to be reckoned with.”105
According to the Abhidharmakosha, a Mahayana work
by Vasubhandu (4th century CE), the Personalists
interpreted the no-self doctrine of the Buddha as
signifying simply that “something which is not the true
Self is mistaken for the true Self”.
It is thus possible to understand the doctrine of not-self
as a rejection, not of ‘soul’ (‘real or deep self’), but rather
of ‘ego’ (‘conventional or superficial self’). The ego is a
confused construct of ‘selfhood’ by the soul, due to the
latter’s self-identification with delusive opinions
(acquired by itself and through social influences), and
consequently with certain attitudes and actions it engages
in, in the way of a self-protective reaction. By
predefining itself and its world, the soul imprisons itself
in patterns of response appropriate to that definition. It is
105
According to Edward Conze, in Buddhist Scriptures
(Penguin: England, 1959). See pp. 190 and 192-7.
Self-knowledge 207
up to the soul to rid itself of the ego-centered viewpoint,

by realizing the stupidity and avoidability of it.
Afterword 209
Not ‘empty logic’, but empty of

logic.
I shall stop here, save for some concluding remarks,

though a lot more could be said. As we have seen,
Nagarjuna is motivated by very good intentions: he
wishes to help us achieve enlightenment or liberation, by
freeing us from all obstacles to cognition of the
“emptiness” underlying the phenomenal and conceptual
world. For him, the principal obstacle is Reason: as he
says, “if conceptualizations are permitted there will arise
many, as well as great, errors”106. His strategy is therefore
to invalidate for us our every logical tool.
From a practical point of view, we might well agree with
and congratulate Nagarjuna. When one is engaged in
meditation, it is appropriate to stop all thought, or at least
to dissociate oneself from all imaginative and rational
processes till they stop by themselves. One may also
make one’s whole life a meditative process, and
106
Cheng, p. 37 – quoting MT XVII:12a.
legitimately choose to altogether abstain from rumination

and cogitation. There is no doubt in my mind that in such
context thought is useless, and indeed a hindrance to
progress, apart perhaps from some initial theoretical
studies and reflections to put oneself on the right track, as
well as a minimum of ongoing thought to deal with
routine aspects of survival.
But that is not what is at issue, here. Our concern in this
paper is with Nagarjuna’s theoretical discourse, his
philosophical theses and claims to ‘logic’. We may well
doubt these, in view of the underhanded means he is
willing to use to achieve his ends, including ignoring,
eclipsing or distorting relevant facts, diverting attention
from controversies or lying outright, begging the
questions (circular arguments), stealing concepts (using
them even while undercutting them), contradicting
himself, manipulating readers in every which way.
However noble his motives may be, they cannot justify
such methods of discourse.
One may legitimately ask whether Nagarjuna’s “Middle
Way” corresponds to the Buddha’s original concept with
the same name. The Buddha’s teaching is a practical one,
Afterword 211
eschewing the behavioral extremes, the fanaticism and

asceticism, that religious desperation and enthusiasm
tend to generate. Nagarjuna’s is not a teaching of equal
moderation in theoretical issues, but an extremist
position, one I would characterize as nihilistic. This has
been made evident again and again in the above
exposition.
When I picked up the book Empty Logic, earlier this year
in Bangkok’s Khaosan Road, I was eager to learn more
about Buddhism, and in particular about Nagarjuna and
his Madhyamika school (having read many positive
appraisals of them in other books, and some quotations).
As a logician, I was especially pleased at the prospect
that there might be a ‘logic of emptiness’, perhaps forms
of reasoning still undiscovered in the West.
Unfortunately, thanks to Cheng’s very competent
presentation, I soon discovered that Nagarjuna work
contains no new field of logic, but is basically empty of
logic, a ferocious mauling of logic. What a
disappointment!
Please note well that I have nowhere tried to deny107

Buddhism’s thesis that ultimate reality cannot be
accessed through rational means, but only through some
fundamental change of cognitive paradigm. I nowhere
claim to know what “emptiness” is, only what it is not. I
remain open to such an idea, though I cannot claim to
have achieved such deep levels of meditation that I can
confirm it firsthand. I expected Nagarjuna to help me
break through to such higher knowledge, not by
attempting to destroy my lower knowledge but by
proposing some evolutionary process.
Just as conceptual knowledge complements and
improves on perceptual knowledge, without dismissing
all perception, so may we expect meditative knowledge
to correct the errors of and enlarge what came before it,
without ignoring and belying all conception. I would not
resist a fundamental rejection of logic, if some
convincing means were used to this end; it is not
attachment which prevents me. The way offered by
Nagarjuna is unconvincing to anyone with high standards
107
To reject arguments offered in favor of a conclusion
does not imply rejection of the conclusion concerned, since it
might be reached by other arguments.
Afterword 213
of knowledge; it is merely a malicious parody of logic.

What revolts me here is the shameless sophistry engaged
in by Nagarjuna, in his impossible attempts to give
logical legitimacy to his anti-logical ideas. (See
Appendix 1 for a list of fallacies he uses repeatedly.)
If someone sincerely believes that no words have true
significance, would he write his skeptical words and
expect others to understand them? If someone thinks or
writes about motion, even to deny it, is he not thereby
engaging in motion? If someone writes about causality,
denying it so as to convince others to give up the idea,
surely it shows that he himself believes in causality, in
his ability to influence others and in their ability to
choose a different cognitive path. Read his lips – if he
did not believe in these things, why would he bother
writing about anything? Like many Western skeptics,
Nagarjuna does not take the trouble to harmonize his
words and deeds, testing his thoughts on his own
thinking; if knowingly indulged, this is hypocrisy. Like
many religious apologists, Nagarjuna considers logic, not
as a tool of research and discovery, but as a weapon of
rhetoric in defense of preconceived ideas; if knowingly

indulged, this is cheating.
It is legitimate to draw conclusions about someone on the
basis of his arguments; this is not to be confused with ad
hominem argumentation, which is judging the arguments
with reference to the person making them. We might
excuse Nagarjuna as a sloppy thinker, but it is evident
that he has logical capabilities, so we must infer deceit.
Occasional errors of logic are human – but such
systematic misuse or selective use of logic is monstrous.
He evidently takes people for fools, who will swallow
whatever he dishes out. Worse still, he does not fear to
intellectually incapacitate generations and generations of
young people. Philosophy is a responsibility, like the
medical profession. It should be an attempt to increase
the mental health and efficacy of one’s fellow humans,
not a pastime for dilettantes or jokers or a cruel con
game.
All this makes one wonder whether Nagarjuna himself
achieved the supreme consciousness he attempts to guide
us towards. If he is already enlightened, where are the
honesty and sincerity, the realism and healthiness, the
Afterword 215
compassion and loving-kindness, one would expect from

such consciousness? If he is not yet enlightened, how can
he claim firsthand knowledge that abandoning logic is
the way to such consciousness? In the latter case, he
would have done better to stick to meditation, rather than
speak out prematurely.
The overall result of his philosophical action (at least,
those aspects of it we have encountered here) is,
counterproductively, to cast doubt on Buddhism itself.
For if one respected figure claiming, or being claimed, to
have achieved enlightenment is uncertain to have done
so, why not the others? But, as with all hearsay evidence
on esoteric claims, Buddhists have to rely on faith,
anyway. Also, fortunately, Buddhism is a lot richer, has
much more going for it, than the few philosophical ideas
and arguments treated in the present essay.
And presumably the same can be said for Nagarjuna (I
have not read all his work). If we view his arguments as
serious logical discourse, we are bound to condemn him
as above done. But perhaps we should view it all more
generously as a guru’s tongue-in-cheek mimicry of
logical discourse, intended purely as a koan for logically
minded persons (like me) to mull over and go beyond. In

that case, it is not the content of the discourse which
counts for him, but its psychological effect. He wants us
to ‘die’ of laughter.
Avi Sion
Afterword 217
The Heart Sutra states: form is no other than emptiness,

emptiness no other than form. Form is emptiness,
emptiness is form. And the same is true for sensation,
perception, conception and consciousness.
Hakuin comments: “Striking aside waves to look for

water when the waves are water! Forms don’t hinder
emptiness; emptiness is the tissue of form. Emptiness
isn’t destruction of form; form is the flesh of
emptiness… Form and emptiness are not-two. If you pass
these strange apparitions without alarm, they self-
destruct. Forms sensation perception conception are
sparks in the eye.”108
108
Zen Words for the Heart, translated in by Norman
Waddell (Shambhala: Boston, Mass., 1996). “The Heart Sutra
was probably composed in India about 1500 years ago”, which
means a few hundred years after Nagarjuna. The commentary
is by Hakuin Ekaku (1686-1768), a Japanese Zen master.
Appendices 219
Appendix 1: Fallacies in Nagarjuna’s

work.
The following are the main fallacies that I have found

Nagarjuna committing in his philosophical treatment of
“emptiness”.
A. Fallacy of the Tetralemma.
This consists in treating the combinations “both A
and non-A” (contradiction) and “neither A nor non-
A” (inclusion of the middle) as formal possibilities.
But these are in all cases (i.e. whatever “A” stands
for) logically forbidden at the outset.
B. Fallacy of the Inconclusive Dilemma.
This consists in making a dilemma appear
conclusive, when in fact one (or all) of its horns
(major premises) is (or are) problematic rather than
assertoric. Dilemmatic argument can be validated
only when its major premises are all proper if-then
statements, not when any of them is an “if – maybe-
then” statement.
C. Fallacy of the Denial of One and All.
This consists in denying one theory about some issue,
and making it seem as if one has thus denied all
possible theories about it. The denial, to be thorough,
must indeed consider all alternative theories before
drawing such negative conclusion about the issue.
D. Fallacy of the Ungranted Premise.

This consists in taking for granted a premise which is

not generally accepted and which has not been
adequately supported, or indeed which is generally
unaccepted or which has been convincingly refuted.
E. Fallacy of the Unclear Theory or Term.
This consists in glossing over relevant details or
nuances, which make all the difference in the
understanding of the term or theory concerned. A
term or theory should be defined and made precise so
far as possible in the context of knowledge
concerned, so that relative propositions can be
properly tested.
F. Fallacy of Equivocation.
This consists in using a single term in two (or more)
different senses within one’s thesis, so as to make it
seem that what has been established in relation to
one of the senses has been established in relation to
the other(s). This is made possible by fuzziness in
definition of terms.
G. Fallacy of the Concept Doubting Percept.
This consists in using a concept to put in doubt the
very percept(s) which has (or have) given rise to it in
the first place. The order of things, i.e. the genesis of
the concept in knowledge, how it arises in relation to
certain percepts, must always be acknowledged and
respected.
H. Fallacy of the Inappropriate Fixation.
This consists in pretending that a term that has
intrinsically variable meaning has fixed meaning.
Notably, terms like “this”, “here” or “now” are
Appendices 221
intrinsically variable, in that the same word is always

used, even as the actual object, time or place referred
to differs; such terms do not remain stuck to their
referents once and for all.
I. Fallacy of the Double Standard.
This consists in being severe towards one’s
opponent’s argument while being lenient with regard
to one’s own argument, although the two arguments
are formally similar or have similar strengths and/or
weaknesses.
Appendices 223
Appendix 2: Brief glossary of some

basic concepts.
Chögyam Trungpa (1940-1987), a modern philosopher of

Tibetan Buddhism, popular in the West, wrote that
Nagarjuna “much preferred to approach truth by taking
the arguments of other philosophical schools on their
own terms and logically reducing them ad absurdum,
rather than himself offering any definitions of reality.”109
We have seen in the present essay that such claims to
logic by Madhyamika philosophy are highly pretentious.
Of Shunyata, the same disciple of Nagarjuna has this to
say: “we impose our preconceptions, our ideas, our
version of things onto phenomena, instead of seeing
things as they are. Once we are able to see through our
veil of preconception, we realize that it is an unnecessary
and confused way of attaching handles to experiences
without considering whether the handles fit or not.”110
This view, that conceptualization imposes something
artificial and distortive on direct perception, may seem
superficially credible, but upon reflection it is based on
confusions. There are two aspects involved.
The first aspect is psychological – the fact of distraction.
It is evident during meditation that extraneous thoughts
keep popping up against our will, like a sort of
enervating background noise. The brain continuously
109
Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism. Boston, Ma.:
Shambhala, 1973. (P. 191.)
110
Op. cit. (P. 207)
offers the mind topics of conversation, spontaneously or

by association. We may with effort ignore them, but
eventually one may grab our attention and drag us
through a long interlude of useless images and inner
sounds, memories, anticipations, discourse and emotions.
Such “thoughts” obstruct our attempts at concentration,
although if we persevere in our meditation they dampen
and eventually disappear. During ordinary observation or
thinking, too, there is a similar interference of irrelevant
reflections, which hinder cognitive efficiency and
efficacy. But it does not follow that cognition is thereby
incapacitated.
Another aspect of Trungpa’s statement is epistemological
– the fact of fallibility. Human thought is admittedly not
automatically and always correct in its observations,
conceptualizations, categorizations and verbalizations,
predications and generalizations, argumentations and
other rational processes in pursuit of knowledge.
However, it does not follow that thought is automatically
and always wrong! Indeed, one could not make such a
generalization without thereby denying one’s own
skeptical claim; so one must admit some efficacy to
rational cognition, including the ability to spot one’s own
errors.
What our study of Nagarjuna’s arguments has clearly
shown is that his rejection of human reason is not based
on any profound understanding of the processes involved
in it. Rather, his personal failure to carefully observe and
reflect on the actual genesis in human knowledge of the
concepts he criticizes made them seem arbitrary to him.
But although we all often err in our thinking, and few of
us take time or have the intelligence to analyze its
founding concepts, it does not follow that these concepts
Appendices 225
are invalid and useless, and that they can or should be

abandoned.
Let us here very briefly recall what we said about some
of these basic concepts in the present work. The reader
can then see clearly that these concepts are not
“preconceptions” that throw a “veil” over the percepts
they are based on, but merely attempts to summarize
information, so that more and more of it can be taken
into consideration in any judgment, be it verbal or not.
They are not “unnecessary and confused… handles”,
applied without regard to whether they “fit or not”, but
legitimate tools of knowledge, which like all tools have
to be properly used to do their job. Human knowledge is
not built on a purely deductive model or by arbitrary
imposition, as Trungpa’s (and Nagarjuna’s) skeptical
statements imply, but is an inductive development from
experience.
• Motion, rest. The facts of motion (in the broad sense
of change) and rest (constancy) are given in
experience, found both within present phenomena
and in the comparison and contrast between present
and remembered phenomena. The concepts of motion
and rest are developed in opposition to each other,
with reference to such experiences.
• Entity, individual. Comparing and contrasting our
memories of successive moments in the stream of
phenomena appearing before us, we observe that
some aspects seem different and some seem the
same. From such experiences (assuming ‘memory’
and ‘time’) we infer the existence of ‘change’ and the
existence of ‘substrata’ to change (or individual
entities). The inference involved is adductive, i.e.
hypothesis, logical prediction and continued

confirmation in experience.
• Essence, kind. Comparing and contrasting two or
more such entities, we observe that some seem to
have certain characteristics in common and
exclusively (statistical sine qua non). A characteristic
apparently common to two or more phenomena
(concretes) is called an abstraction, being a presumed
unity (of measure) in plurality (of instances). When
(or so long as) such an abstraction is found
distinctive, it is called an essence (or essential
characteristic) and it can be used for purposes of
definition. Individuals with the same essence are said
to belong to the same kind or class.
• Naming, verbalization. Phenomena are first referred
to in discourse by pointing and saying ‘this’ (or
‘here’ or ‘now’ or the like) to include, and ‘but not
that’ (or ‘there’ or ‘then’ or the like) to exclude.
Entities and kinds, concepts derived from collections
of similar and distinct phenomena, may be associated
with (respectively proper or common) words for the
purposes of memory and discourse. Verbalization
need not be final, but may be adapted as required; i.e.
what is included or excluded under a name is
flexible, provided consistency is maintained.
• Nature. The nature (or identity) of some individual
or kind is the sum of the (categorical or conditional)
‘laws’ exhibited by it, i.e. a generalization of the
apparent regularities in its attributes and behaviors,
subject to review and particularization if new
appearances do not match the old. Attributes or
Appendices 227
behaviors which seem devoid of law in this sense are

regarded as either personal events or happenstance.
• Predication. Predication may be particular or
general, possible or necessary, categorical or
conditional, inclusion or exclusion of one
phenomenon or abstract appearance in some
abstraction. This may mentally occur with or without
words. In any case, predication is a tentative act, a
proposition, subject to checks and balances suggested
by inductive and deductive logic. It has no dogmatic
finality, but is controlled with reference to experience
and reason.
• Causation. This refers to certain regularities of
relation between two or more phenomena or
abstractions, say ‘A’ and ‘B’. The most typical is
constant conjunction between A and B, but the term
is also applicable to negative cases (not-A and not-B,
A and not-B, not-A and B). There are also many
degrees of causation, according to the number of
factors involved. Causation is thus a statistical
concept, intended to record and communicate certain
observations. It is one of a larger constellation of
causal concepts, including volition and influence, as
well as spontaneity or chance.
• Self, soul. The Subject of consciousness and Agent
of will, presumed to inhabit humans (and other
entities, like higher animals or God). That this special
core substance (spirit) is presumed (induced rather
than deduced) does not necessarily mean that it is
invented. To induce it we refer to phenomena
experienced, conceptual considerations and possibly
direct personal intuitions of self. Although no single
item is definite proof of soul, a large number of

indices may suggest its existence.
Buddhist Illogic 229
Works by Avi Sion

Avi Sion is the author of several works on logic and
philosophy: Future Logic (1990); Judaic Logic (1995);
Buddhist Illogic (2002) ; Phenomenology (2003); The
Logic of Causation (1999, 2003, 2010); Volition and
Allied Causal Concepts (2004); Ruminations (2005);
Meditations (2006); Logical and Spiritual Reflections
(2008-9); A Fortiori Logic (2013). These works can be
freely studied at: www.TheLogician.net.
ISBN 978-1495928628

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BUDDHIST ILLOGIC

Avi Sion, Ph. D.

PROTECTED BY INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT CONVENTIONS.

CreateSpace Edition, 2014.

First published 2002.

Library Cataloguing Information:

The 2nd Century CE Indian philosopher Nagarjuna

His writings include a series of arguments purporting to

The present essay demonstrates the many sophistries

Although a critique of the Madhyamika philosophical

This essay is a critical review of some of the main

The title Empty Logic was not intended pejoratively by

Cheng, mentioning his occasional references these treatises;

interrelations. Cheng’s book includes an interesting

My naming the present essay Buddhist Illogic should not

it, cheerfully proclaims itself free of or beyond logic, or

other writer’s attempted philosophical interpretation,

Western philosophical and scientific thought is based on

The tetralemma5 is a derivative of the laws of thought,

(=B)”, “non-A and non-A (=non-B)”, “A and non-A

the death of Logic; for without the laws of thought, how

subconsciously refer to this ‘trilemma’, thinking

Nagarjuna’s position exploits this confusion in

intend that as a generality applicable to all values of B

distinctions of conceptualization and the judgments of

2. Neither real nor unreal.

But Nagarjuna also conceives ultimate reality

such, without initial judgment as to their reality or

specific event (namely, inconsistency between certain

None of these insights allows the conclusion that

tentatively weighed in the overall context of available

colors in the distance and think ‘here comes a girl

conception. The conceptual ‘impurities’ in

exists. It does not nullify anything in the world” (my

accepted by a later school of Mahayana philosophy, the

similar statements may be found in the Pali Canon, i.e. in

obstacle to achieving it, just a subtle form of samsara

includes both a higher species and a lower one; and the

3. Nagarjuna’s use of dilemma.

As we shall presently see, Nagarjuna often frames his

If X, then Y – and if not X, then Y

where “X” and “not X” refers to some propositions under

The reasoning process involved is thus the following: the

and can be validated in the same way14.

or absurd”) – which is the same as saying that we reach

4. The subject-predicate relation.

Nagarjuna’s assault on reason includes an attempted

the predicate, they would be one and it would

principle be applied. This would lead to infinite

antecedent concept (“different”) and the consequent

– but this copula was never intended to mean total

concrete or an abstract ultimately known through

objects intended by the terms have to be known (or

predicates are numerous because they are not tautologies

these issues, but it is certainly more thought-out and

knowledge: you have to know that there is a convention

communicate nothing outside itself. If the language is

5. Percepts and concepts.

According to pre-Mahayana Buddhist (and other Indian)

intelligibility of dharmas, using the following main