Nagarjuna
The master of Madhyamaka dialectic who used strict logic to dissolve every fixed position, including his own.
Core ideas
- All things are empty (śūnya) of independent, permanent essence
- Emptiness is not nihilism: things exist relationally
- Clinging to any view, even emptiness, is the error
Historical context
Wrote when Buddhism had become a scholastic empire; his tetralemma arguments were philosophy as scalpel, cutting conceptual grasping.
Key works
Mūlamadhyamakakārikā
Questions they speak to
Minds in conversation
- The BuddhaLumbini / Ganges valley
- ZhuangziState of Song, China
- DōgenKyoto → Song China → Eiheiji
Sources
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Nāgārjuna