Nihilism and Nāgārjuna

This was a tweet storm:

Jan Westerhoff makes an interesting point. Any assertion of nihilism is effectively a restatement of the liar's paradox: 

On the Nihilist Interpretation of Madhyamaka

Madhyamaka philosophy has been frequently characterized as nihilism, not just by its Buddhist and non-Buddhist opponents, but also by some contemporary Buddhologists. This characterization might well …

https://www.academia.edu/44962255/On_the_Nihilist_Interpretation_of_Madhyamaka

The statement "Nothing exists" is itself existent - if a statement can be said to exist, which is moot. Still, nihilism per se is incoherent. This also resembles a restatement of the Cogito argument of Descartes. 

Language games like "nothing exists" are not part of the paramārtha-satya "ultimate reality" because language itself is not. Language is samvṛti-satya. So are language games metaphysics? Are any metaphysics possible in language in this view? Not really. 

Westhoff uses this argument to defend Nāgārjuna: he cannot be a nihilist because nihilism is incoherent. Assuming all the while that Nāgārjuna *is coherent*. Is he, though? 

Westerhoff persistently uses the Kātyāyana Sūtra argument that "astitā and nāstitā don't apply to the loka" as though it is a form of metaphysics. But this is clearly wrong. 

In this context, loka means "the world of sensory experience". WRT sensory experience, *of course* existence and nonexistence don't apply. How could they? This isn't metaphysics, it's an assertion of the supremacy of epistemology over metaphysics. 

One cannot claim to know that for which there is no means of knowing. For example, the Theravāda 'bhavaṅga-citta' is defined as an unconscious mental state. There is no way to know that bhavaṅga-citta exists because it can never be experienced. Its existence is assumed ad hoc. 

OTOH, there *is* a state (an episteme) in which there is no sensory experience, no content. In Pāli we call it suññayāvihāra "dwelling in the absence [of sensory experience]." 

In this state, in Buddhists' terms, no dharmas arise or cease. The state obtains when all conditions for sensory experience are absent. It is thus a mental state without conditions (asaṃskṛta-dharma). 

Nāgārjuna fundamentally mistakes this episteme for a noumenon, an ultimate realty. And for this reason, *all* his ideas are incoherent because they are based on making an axiom from a misperception. 

From a contentless (experience-less) episteme, N reasons that reality is contentless: i.e. reality is characterised by the absence of sense experience. Absence (śūnyatā) is reality. It has no content but is not nothingness. 

It follows that sensory experience, all of it, is an illusion which disappears on "awakening". Which makes "awakening" the opposite of waking from deep sleep. 

Thus, for N, the world of objects, events, agents seems real but ultimately it is not real.

Note the subtle difference between saying "nothing exists" and "reality is empty of existence". 

TBF to N, we have to allow that his argument revolves around a particular, all or nothing, definition of "real". To be real is to be self-existent (svabhāva) and to have no other necessary condition. And this state is necessarily permanent. 

And of course, *nothing* that can be experienced can meet this criteria for existence or reality. Hence, *nothing is ultimately real*. Which is similar though not exactly equivalent to "nothing exists". 

The old Buddhist argument (the Kātyāyana argument) is that nothing in experience is permanent so metaphysical terms like existence/non-existence don't apply to experience. 

Prajñāpāramitā insists on this: if you have any mental activity whatever, that is *not* emptiness. So if you think "this is emptiness" it isn't. In emptiness there is no sensory or cognitive experience. 

N takes the absence of sense experience as reality. And in this reality, by definition, there are no objects, events, or agents. There is no space, time, movements. His metaphysics is a metaphysics of absence. 

Moreover, language is not part of ultimate reality. So arguing about the meaning of a proposition like "nothing exists" is pointless in N's view. An assertion in language says nothing about reality in any case (so Westerhoff's use of this trick is voided). 

To all intents and purposes, Nāgārajuna is a nihilist at heart. For every phenomenon presented as evidence of existence, he says it does not *really* exist. 

But N is a religieux, a theologian rather than a philosopher. He cannot abandon his soteriology - his hope of being saved from suffering. And in order to allow for saving, for karma, for awakening (to nothing), he bifurcates the world into conventional and ultimate. 

This allows N to act like a normal person when it comes to morality, for example. To say that morality is necessary. But it also allows him to say that in the final analysis there is no morality. 

And this schizoid view is, in fact, not new. We see the split in early Buddhism between the necessity of personal continuity in morality (you reap what you sow; actions have consequences) on the one hand, and anātman on the other (no self) on the other. 

Anātman and dependent arising say there can be no real personal continuity, even for a moment. But this destroys karma and morality and makes awakening impossible. 

This split between morality and metaphysics is apparent 2000 years later in all modern Buddhist doctrine that I've come across. But stark in Nāgārjuna.

The poor bugger tied himself in knots and then wrote a poem about it. 

• • •

Analysing The Rhetoric of Stop the Steal.

I want to take a minute to reflect on the rhetoric that Trump is using right now. To just take it at face value and explore what he is saying. So, let's start by stating a few facts that ought to be relatively uncontroversial. 

No one disputes that Donald J Trump was the President of the United State of America in 2020. He was in charge. Few would dispute, I think, that Trump was an authoritarian President with trenchant views about China, immigrants, and the media. He never shrank from conflict with China or the media and he managed to build 500 miles of his "beautiful wall".  He is a man of firm opinions who speaks his mind. 

Moreover it was clear that—love him or hate him—the Republican Party backed him to the hilt, down to the point of throwing the first impeachment trial and voting unanimously to acquit him of a crime he was very obviously guilty of. Trump had the full support of the Senate and strong support from Representatives. 

In addition Trump had stalwart support from his Vice President the surviving members of his cabinet especially from the Attorney General Bill Barr and the Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. These three in particular appeared to be utterly committed to Trump and Trumpism and willing to do whatever they could to assist him.

If Trump was weak anywhere, perhaps it was his West Wing. Mulvaney in particular made the huge gaff of admitting to criminal behaviour and shrugging it off. He was moved sideways into a negligible role that he only just resigned from. But the replacement was loyal to a fault. 

Now as President, Trump controls (one way or another) the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ, and the military. Not only this but he has appointed three supreme court judges and hundreds of other federal court judges. POTUS is generally reckoned the most powerful person on the planet and as POTUS Trump kept a tight grip on that power and made sure everyone knew it. 

Moreover in terms of his person characteristics Trump boasted of being an extraordinary businessman, a deal maker, a very rich man, a man of considerable intellect, perhaps even a genius. 

My point is to stipulate all this uncontroversial stuff, even his boasting. And then ask, so how did he allow the election to be stolen? 

To be clear the election was stolen, according to him, in broad daylight. Indeed, he began to say that the election would be stolen from him some weeks before it happened. He says he knew it was going to happen. So it not only happened in broad daylight, out in the open, but it happened despite Donald Trump—the most powerful man in the world—with all the levers of power in his hands, with genius level intellect knowing about it weeks in advance. 

Of course, if what Trump says is true, then this is the most egregious attack on American democracy since the formation of the Republic. An election was not only stolen but the extent of the conspiracy must extend to virtually every agency, elected official, and civil servant in the USA. Everyone from the seemingly loyal Vice President and the supportive Senate who ratified the election, to the Attorney General who denies widespread voter fraud, to the Supreme Court, and something like 60 state and federal judges who threw our lawsuits. It must include the highest levels of the NSA, CIA, FBI and other federal law enforcement agencies; the entire Democratic Party apparatus and election officials and volunteers across multiple states. The conspiracy must include thousands of Journalists across the spectrum of mainstream media with the exception of hyper-partisan right-wing outlets. Thousands upon thousands of people were involved in this conspiracy that seems to have involved more or less everyone outside of the Trump family. 

In other words, the illusion of being in control that Trump liked to project must not have been true. In fact, far from being in control, Trump was everyone's patsy. He was taken in by everyone. He is the last to know. The party has been moved and no one told him the new address. This is not a winner. This is a loser. 

Trump, according to his own account, saw it coming weeks in advance, but he failed to prevent it. Trump presided over, as commander in chief, the worst failure of the institutions and offices of the Republic in history. If what he says is true then the USA is now has, at best, the illusion of democracy. And on his watch, while he was wide awake, watching it happen. 

Now Trump, like all office holders before him took an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the US. His own narrative shows that he has utterly failed to fulfil that oath. Indeed he has presided over and failed to prevent the end of the republic and the take over of the US by what he calls far-left or hard-left radicals. He was president when this happened. This was his sacred responsibility to prevent! 

If I was a follower of Trump, I would be looking at this record of failure and thinking, "We need a new leader because this one failed when he had everything on his side." 

If Trump is telling the truth then he is the biggest loser in history. If he is lying he lost the election and got caught in a lie and wouldn't stop lying. That's less of a loser, but still a loser. Trump's story about being the victim here does not fit with his image as a strong man capable of leading the country. One cannot both be a constant victim complaining about unfair treatment and a strong and capable leader. You can be a victim who needs help or you can be leader who takes charge. You cannot really be both.