japlady@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Rebecca Radnor) (05/05/91)
Question: What is reality (tattva, sunyata, bhutakoti, etc.) according to Mahayana Buddhists? The current trend in academia is to interpret mahayana philosophy, specifically the madhyamika school of nagarjuna, in terms of language. Briefly, language is viewed, according to this perspective, as an internally coherent system in that the meaning of any word or sentence is determined by the context of the particular "language" in which it operates. By "language" I mean a particular mode of discourse, e.g. Buddhist debates concerning the status of "self", in which cultural and other assumptions are implicitly operative. This implies that no word, sentence, theory, etc., refers to some non-linguistic aspect of "reality"; in fact, we can no longer speak of some objective realm since it fails to be a meaningful element in our world of discourse. Back to the issue at hand, many students of madhyamika thought claim that nagarjuna is addressing the issue of language and context, and that his doctrines of emptiness and dependent co-arising "refer" to the emptiness of the referential nature of the word and the interdependence of all words in a mode of discourse . Any type of 'reference talk' attributed to madhyamika philosophy (i.e.the claim that Naga implies some metaphysical absolute as maintained by some of his modern day Indian interpreters) is immediately labeled as linguistic naivete or metaphysical mumbo jumbo. Although I agree that it is incorrect to assume an absolute in madhyamika thought as do some neo-vedantins, I am also skeptical of the interpretation that implies that the basis of Nagarjuna's teachings revolves around the issue of context-specific language. His doctrines of emptiness and dependent co-arising emphasize a soteriological if not existential concern, with only secondary emphasis on language (or more accurately, all language analysis is intended for soteriological purposes, not to merely articulate a non-referential view of language.). If anybody here knows what the hell I'm talking about I'd love to discuss this topic. If of course you know what I'm talking about =:-) By the way this is again John Cha, and not Japlady, but of course you can reach me at this address.