/lit/ - Literature

>>16853280
I hate Ricky and Morty but this is a funny meme

>>16472607
>Emptiness is not nihili-

Nagarjuna's claim that emptiness does not entail nihilism, because emptiness means simply that entities lack independent existence, is untenable. Nagarjuna's superficially convincing argument completely fails to address the real criticism which his opponents are making of his philosophy. Nagarjuna does not in fact deny only that there are independently existing entities. Nagarjuna denies also that there are any entities which arise independently of conceptual construction. Nagarjuna's opponents do not think that the universal dependent origination of entities would result in nihilism. But they do consider that, if all entities were to have, as Nagarjuna contends, conceptually constructed existence, then nihilism would indeed be entailed.

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But it is not just that the notion that all entities are conceptual constructs precludes the possibility of a public world, and hence of compassionate activity. In addition, it would appear that Nagarjuna's opponents are right, after all, to accuse Nagarjuna of nihilism. For Nagarjuna is not merely saying- despite his apparent claims to the contrary- that entities are dependently originating, but further that all entities are entirely conceptually constructed. But if all entities are entirely conceptually constructed, then there can be nothing unconstructed out of which conceptually constructed entities can be constructed. And if there is nothing unconstructed out of which the conceptually constructed entities are constructed, then these conceptually constructed entities cannot exist. Conceptually constructed entity z might be constructed on the basis of y. Y might also be constructed on the basis of x. And so on. But at some point this regress must stop. Not everything can be a product of conceptual construction, because 'conceptual construction' requires a basis or material which is not itself conceptually constructed. To claim otherwise would be to advocate that the entire world is created ex nihilo!