Asian PhilosophyVol. 14, No. 1, March 2004, pp. 3–23

The Root Delusion Enshrined inCommon Sense and LanguageDon S. Levi

This paper is a critique of certain arguments given by the Milindapanha and JayGarfield for the conventional nature of reality or existence. These arguments are ofinterest in their own right. They also are significant if they are presumed to attack anobstacle we all face in achieving non-attachment, namely, our belief in the inherent orsubstantial existence of ourselves and the familiar objects of our world. The argumentsturn on a distinction between these objects, and some other way of conceiving of them,in terms of which their conventional existence becomes apparent. After the distinctionand the arguments that depend on it are shown to be problematic, the paper concludeswith some reflections on the doctrine of skillful means and its applicability to Buddhistphilosophical argument.

Jay Garfield is an articulate spokesman for how many think of Buddhism, namely,as teaching that we suffer from a ‘root delusion’ about what we ‘perceive’ or‘conceive’. As Garfield (1995) puts it in his thoughtful and invaluable commentaryon Nagarjuna’s Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (Muladhyamakakarika):

It cannot be overemphasized that as far as Nagarjuna – or any Mahayana Buddhistphilosopher, for that matter – is concerned, the view that the things we perceive andof which we conceive, to the extent that they exist at all, do so inherently originatesas an innate misapprehension and is not the product of sophisticated philosophicaltheory. That is, we naively and pretheoretically take things to be substantial. This, asNagarjuna will argue, and as the Buddha himself argued, is the root delusion that liesat the basis of all human suffering. (p. 58)

Garfield does not understand Nagarjuna to be directing his arguments at approachesto the religious life that are misguided because of their reliance on certain philosoph-ical theories; he is not talking about how, for example, some Buddhist Abhidarmiststheorize that change is to be accounted for by the inherent nature (svabhava) of theatoms out of which matter or experience is constituted.1 Rather, he is making a claimabout our (everyday and non-philosophical) conception of the objects of perception

Don S. Levi is a Professor at the Department of Philosophy, University of Oregon.Correspondence to: Don S. Levi, Department of Philosophy University of Oregon, Eugene, OR 97403–1295,USA; Email: dslevi@oregon.uoregon.edu.

ISSN 0955-2367 print/ISSN 1469-2961 online/04/010003-21 2004 Taylor & Francis LtdDOI: 10.1080/0955236042000190455

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(and conception): we suppose that these objects exist and that they do so inherently.And he is maintaining that it is a misapprehension, and that it ‘lies at the basis ofall human suffering’.

Although Garfield concedes, in the footnote we have been quoting, that theintellectual rejection of a certain metaphysics is not sufficient for liberation orenlightenment, nevertheless, he believes that the bondage from which we are beingfreed is metaphysical in nature.

But it is important to see that an intellectual rejection of that sophisticated essentialistmetaphysics would not, from the standpoint of Buddhism, suffice for liberation fromsuffering. For the innate misapprehension – the root delusion enshrined in commonsense and in much of our language – would remain. (p. 88)

Garfield is saying that even if, as philosophers, we reject this ‘essentialist metaphys-ics’, according to which the people and things have substantial or inherent existence,we still have to do something to neutralize its presence in our everyday ornon-philosophical discourse. So, what can be discovered by intellectual or philo-sophical analysis is important when it comes to identifying what is being rejected;however, to really reject it requires doing something to overcome the influence of thefolk ontology embedded in common sense and language.

Even though Garfield is critical of this folk ontology, he is not proposing that wecorrect what we say in our everyday world. Like others in the Buddhist tradition, hethinks that he can avoid the need for such a revisionary approach by invoking thedistinction between ultimate (paramartha) and conventional (samvrtti) truth.2 How-ever, unlike some others he does not want to suggest that there is anything otherthan conventional truth, such as the truth of a reality that exists before it is carvedup by concepts or language. According to Garfield, that things lack inherentexistence does not imply that they do not exist: everyday discourse has all the ‘truth’we need in order for that discourse to work for us. However, the ultimate ‘truth’ thateverything is conventional and nothing has inherent existence is something we needto know in order to achieve non-attachment. Indeed, Garfield thinks that liberationfrom bondage to attachment is the internalization of the idea that things lackinherent existence.3

Does the argument for there being a root delusion presuppose the critique of folkontology or is it independent of it? This is the question that we need to confrontwhen trying to make sense of how Garfield explains and argues for his interpretationof the Madhyamika critique of Abhidharma. On the one hand, Garfield seems to beinviting us to reflect on certain familiar facts or insights in order to see that we havea folk ontology and that it is delusory. On the other hand, these facts or insights,when understood in terms of what we would say or think when we actually confrontor express them, do not argue for the existence of anything like a root delusion,which suggests that we are supposed to understand them differently, namely, asbased on the rejection of our common sense conception of everyday things.

In what follows I am critical of Garfield’s argument insofar as it appeals to variousfamiliar facts, on the grounds that it depends on a key ambiguity. I am well awarethat my critique will seem to beg the question of whether the claim that there is an

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ambiguity presupposes the very ontology which the truth that there is a rootdelusion is supposed to be calling into question. Consequently, I am also going tobe critical of any suggestion that there is an alternative to folk ontology (and, byimplication, that there is any such thing as a folk ontology).

What is It That Does not Exist Inherently?

A key Garfield argument for why things do not have inherent existence seems to turnon an ambiguity in his reference to what it is that lacks that existence. The argumentembodies an insight, but the implication he derives from it depends on theambiguity.

He tells us that ‘when a Madhyamika philosopher (like Nagarjuna) says of a tablethat it is empty (of inherent existence)’ (Garfield, 1995, p. 89), he means that thetable does not exist ‘simply per se, independent of any conditions or relations orother phenomena’ (Garfield, 2002, p. 50). This reference to conditions or relationsseems to be a reminder of how the table is unlikely to survive, for example, anearthquake, explosion, fire, or other extreme danger.

However, there is an ambiguity in his thinking that has to do with the referenceof the pronoun ‘it’ when he says, ‘it is empty of inherent existence’. Of course, a tablecannot survive under any conditions, such as an explosion or hurricane, but it is notclear what that could imply about the table’s existence (per se) before the explosion.Its continued existence may be threatened by a change of conditions; however, it ismisleading to put this point by saying that it does not exist independently ofconditions (relations or other phenomena). The ambiguity is in the suggestion thatthere is some other referent for the ‘it’, something other than the table that will notsurvive under certain conditions.

My claim that there is an ambiguity is based on how I am thinking of the table,namely, as something that has a history: it was made, transported to the warehouseof a store, sold by a store to me, moved to its present site in the dining room of myhouse, repaired after it was damaged, and then put in a storage unit. As will bepointed out by many philosophers who, like Garfield, think of themselves asoperating from within the Buddhist tradition, that conception of the table is exactlywhat Buddhism is questioning. I am uneasy with the idea that it is a conception atall because that seems to concede that there is a distinction between the table andhow it is conceived, as though different conceptions of it are possible. However, Iwant to focus now on the ambiguity in Garfield’s argument.

The argument is based on a reminder of the variability of institutions andpractices, and, so, the argument need not be understood as presupposing a rejectionof our folk ontology.

The table’s existence as the object that it is – as a table – depends not on it, not onany purely nonrelational characteristics, but depends on us as well. That is, if ourculture had not evolved this manner of furniture, what appears to us to be anobviously unitary object might instead be correctly described as five objects: four quiteuseful sticks absurdly surmounted by a pointless slab of stick-wood waiting to becarved (1995, pp. 89–90; 2002, p. 25).

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That the existence of tables is a function of culture seems obvious. My new diningroom table would not have been made by a company in North Carolina or sold tome by a local store, nor would either the company or store have existed, if ourculture had not evolved certain practices involving tables, such as eating, writing anddisplaying (things).

However, it does not follow from the fact that a culture knows nothing of (thepractices involving) tables, that my dining room table is only conventionallyreferred to as a ‘table’. To see why it does not follow, consider how anarcheologist from another culture will talk about that table when he finds it inthe ruins of my house, namely, in terms not of what the object is but of whatit looks like or seems to be. Even if he talks the way Garfield suggests someonefrom another culture might talk, the archeologist will say, ‘It looks like fourquite useful sticks that seem to be absurdly topped by a slab of wood that seemto have no point in being there and which seems to await some carving’. It isa table, but the archeologist does not know that because of the differencesbetween his culture and ours.

What confuses matters is that when Garfield talks of what a Madhyamikaphilosopher means when he says that a table is empty, he does not make clearwhether he is talking about my dining room table or one that was unearthed in anarcheological dig and looks just like it. The conclusion about my dining room tablenot being a table does not follow because even though the two objects are hard todistinguish when placed side by side, the two objects are different: one is a table, theother is not, however much it may look like one to someone familiar with tables.They are different because of their histories, because of where and how they cameto be made, and what happened to them after they were made.4 Garfield wants usto conclude something about the object because of such factors as how it looks orthe parts it has at a given time, factors that can be identified without knowinganything about the culture of history of the object. This conclusion depends on a keyambiguity concerning what object he could be referring to if it is not to be conceivedof as the subject of that history.

Garfield thinks that the table exists conventionally, and so he might not want tooppose the idea of it as the subject of a history, provided that subject is notunderstood to have inherent or substantial existence. However, it is the idea of thetable as the subject of a certain history that seems to be the one enshrined incommon sense or much of our language, if any conception is, whereas the concep-tion of the table as having inherent existence is not so enshrined.

The argument given by Garfield that we have been discussing is supposed to showthat an object like a table does not exist as a table on its own. As we have seen, thatargument depends on a crucial ambiguity that comes to light when we remindourselves that a table has a history that explains, for example, why what is found inan archeological dig is a table rather than something else. However, to betterunderstand what Garfield is arguing we need to know what he is opposing, namely,that the table has inherent or substantial existence.

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The Argument Against a Core-bearer

What is it to have substantial or inherent existence? Garfield’s answer is that afamiliar object like a table is supposed by us to be or have a substance, anunchanging ‘core-bearer’ in which all of the table’s properties inhere. So, when wetalk about the table having properties, the table (or its substance) is reified as beingsomething that is distinct from those properties; and when we talk about a person’sfeelings, thoughts, intentions and actions, as well as anatomy, physiognomy, physi-ology, and the like, their subject, namely, the self or some other substance, is distinctfrom what it has or what is said about it. Consequently, when a person or the tablechanges, paradoxically, its reified subject or substance doesn’t change, becauseotherwise there would be no single subject of the changes.

Garfield (1995) makes clear in a footnote, where he insists that the point he ismaking about the lack of inherent existence applies not only to an ‘artifact’ but toanything else, that his arguments are for conventionalism and against the existenceof such a core-bearer.

The boundaries of the tree, both spatial and temporal (consider the juncture betweenroot and soil, or leaf and air; between live and dead wood; between seed, shoot andtree); its identity over time (each year it sheds its leaves and grows new ones; somelimbs break, new limbs grow); its existence as a unitary object, as opposed to acollection of cells; etc., are all conventional. Removing its properties leaves nocore-bearer behind. (p. 90)

This passage offers several arguments. Those having to do with counting the tree asa ‘unitary object’, we will discuss in the next section. The argument that there is no‘core-bearer’ will be the focus of the present section.

How could Garfield know that we believe in a (reified and unchanging) core-bear-ing substance, or that a belief in it is implicit in what we say or think when engagedin the variety of activities that make up our lives? If, as I have been insisting, wethink or talk of an everyday object such as a table as having a history, there does notseem to be any implication in that thinking or talking of the existence of acore-bearing substance, especially if that substance is supposed to be unchanging.

Moreover, although he is right to think of the conception of substance as the corebearer as mistaken, the reasons for its being mistaken also are reasons that seem toargue against conventionalism. That the substance, for example, of a table is distinctfrom its components depends on the unwarranted assumption that its componentscan be characterized independently of their being the table’s components. That theremust be a subject that is distinct from everything that is said of that subject dependson the unwarranted assumption that what it is or has can be identified indepen-dently of the subject.

This point may be illustrated by a critical examination of the monk Nagasena’sargument in the first chapter of the 1st century BC Pali classic, Milindapanha (1991),for the claim that the chariot the king used to travel to the hermitage whereNagasena is staying is empty of inherent existence (and, by a parity of reasoning, forthe claim that Nagasena himself also is empty of it). The argument takes the formof a rejection of various positions that might be taken concerning the identification

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of the chariot with its components. Of course, the chariot cannot be identified withany part of it, such as an axle, wheel, chassis or yoke. It also cannot be identified withall of the parts in combination (presumably, because the replacement of a part doesnot make it a different chariot). Nor is the chariot to be considered as somethingdistinct from these parts or various combinations of them. It follows, according tothe argument, that the word ‘chariot’ is a conventional designation, that ‘it is becauseit has all these parts that it comes under the term chariot’ (p. 4). That is to say, aconvention is adopted to refer to something that has all these parts as a unitaryobject because it suits our purposes to do so.

As Giles (1993) reminds us, this conventionalist position is to be contrasted witha reductionist one, according to which the chariot just is a particular assemblage ofits parts. According to the former, a particular assemblage of parts may, for the sakeof convenience, be referred to as a ‘chariot’, even though what we refer to that waydoes not ultimately or really exist (p. 187). Whereas, according to the latter, thechariot really does exist, albeit as the particular collection or assemblage that it is.

The argument for conventional existence does not depend on supposing that awheel or other part of the chariot has more than merely a conventional existence.The argument requires only that there be a basis for the claim that it is arbitrary totreat the chariot as what really exists, and that basis is provided by the idea that thechariot might just as well be conceived of as assemblages of parts related to oneanother by means of dependent origination. Of course, the wheel has parts, sopresumably the argument from the existence of parts to conventional designationalso applies to the wheel. If it did not have parts, then Garfield only needs to showthat there is some other way of conceiving it in order to support his claim that it,too, only has conventional existence.

Curiously, Nagasena introduces the idea of a convention in connection with hisname, whereas when they are discussing the king’s chariot, what is supposed to beconventional is not the name of the chariot (if it has one), but the common noun(‘chariot’). There is a social convention associated with a proper name, the conven-tion of parents giving a name to their baby (or of person changing the name givento her). Nothing like this name-giving practice is involved in connection withreferring to it as a baby, or for referring to the king’s mode of transport to thehermitage as a ‘chariot’ (or its parts as ‘axles’, ‘wheels’, etc.).

The real problem with Nagasena’s argument is that it neglects or ignores the factthat the king’s chariot should be thought of as the subject of a history. The argumentfor conventionalism is based, instead, on assemblage-of-parts conception: there aredifferent assemblies of parts at different moments; consequently, we are not reallydealing with one but many assemblages, and it is only a convention that we treatthem as assemblages of one and the same chariot. However, that there is analternative that the king fails to consider becomes apparent when we see what isrequired to think of it in terms of such assemblages.

To see what is, suppose that my chariot is being worked on by a mechanic. WhenI visit him and I cannot find it in his shop, I ask him where it is. He points tohis workspace where various chariot parts are arrayed. As he explains it, he has takenthe chariot apart in order to fix it properly. ‘Is everything there?’ I ask. ‘Almost

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everything’, and he explains that there are defective parts, which he has discarded,and that he is waiting for replacements. In this instance, the chariot is not thecollection of these parts, a point that also is conceded by King Milinda. However, hisreason for conceding it is that some pieces are missing and because no particularcollection would be any more the chariot than another collection with a few differentparts; whereas, the real reason why it is not that collection is because it is wrong toidentify the chariot as a assemblage of parts, when it really is the vehicle that has ahistory of being manufactured, raced, taken to the repair shop, where it has beenbroken down into these parts. The king, like Garfield, seems to want us to be ableto say what a chariot is without talking of what has that history, and so what hethinks about why the assembly of pieces is not the chariot is mistaken.

Even more problematic is the supposed contrast that is the real focus of thedialectic between Nagasena and the king, the contrast between the self and what theassemblage of what Garfield (1995) calls the ‘aggregates (which) are the basiccomponents into which the individual divides upon analysis. In standard Buddhistanalysis they include the physical body, sensations, perceptions, dispositions, andconsciousness or cognition’ (p. 245).5 That there are certain joyful or tragic ortraumatic events that I may say will always be a part of me is not in question. Whatdoes seem questionable is that my feelings about these events are a part of me, letalone that any feelings I happen to have at a certain point in my life are. However,the real problem with the assemblage conception of the self is with the idea that itis possible to identify a supposed element of that assemblage without referring to theperson whose unfolding history is the basis for its being the element that it is.

To see what I have in mind consider that I still feel anger when I talk about Joe,who betrayed me many years ago. That it is anger I feel has to do not (only) withwhat is happening in or to me when I talk about it, but with what he did to me andwith how I think about what he did. That it is genuine anger and not something Iam making a show of feeling (or not some other feeling) depends on how I behaveand what I say and think on this occasion and on many other occasions includingthose that have yet to transpire. That it is anger I feel can be determined only withreference to my beliefs, attitudes, experiences, and how they inform my reactionsand behavior, a determination that presupposes that I am the subject of a history,and not merely an assemblage of body, feelings, dispositions, cognitions andconsciousness.

Let me try to clarify my objection to the assemblage conception by contrasting itwith what Garfield has to say about it. He says, ‘this particular analysis (as consistingof components) has no particular significance. It reflects an essentially empiricaltheory about the best explanatory framework to use in comprehending humanbehavior and the most useful way for the Buddhist practitioner to his/her experience’(p. 245). That is to say, he is not denying that a person exists inherently orsubstantially only to assert that the person is a series of aggregates, related to oneanother by dependent origination, which does exist inherently. On the contrary, ‘theaggregates themselves are empty, and as much Buddhist psychology emphasizes, theytoo are the subject of further decomposition’ (p. 246).

My objection is that his argument for his version of conventionalism is based on

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what I think is a fallacy in supposing that a person can be conceived of, for purposesof establishing conventionality, as an aggregate. The fallacy in the assemblageconception of a person is that it relies on the unwarranted assumption that myemotions, feelings, thoughts, intentions, desires, and the like, can be identifieddefinitively by considering only what is happening at the particular time theassemblage is constituted.

So, the argument for conventional designation that is based on there being nocore-bearer fails. Although I have been discussing Nagasena’s version of theargument, I do not mean to suggest that there is anything wrong with whatNagasena did, provided he is understood to be employing skillful means (upaya).The king has an attachment to raising problems with the Dharma, which seems tobe interfering with his pursuit of the goals of the religious life, and Nagasena’sdialectic should be understood as trying to help the king overcome that attach-ment. We will return in the concluding section of this paper to the question ofwhether Garfield’s attack on the idea of a core-bearer can also be considered to beskillful means. For our present purposes, it is sufficient to conclude that thecore-bearing argument for conventionalism, when understood to address a generalaudience, is fallacious.

Although Garfield is right to reject the idea of a core-bearing unchanging subject,he also seems to be attacking the idea of a (unitary) subject of a life or history.Whereas it is not plausible to suppose that the former idea is enshrined in commonsense, it is plausible to suppose this of the latter. So, when he is addressing thequestion of how a subject (of a life or history) can continue to exist despite all thechanges it undergoes, he is presenting us with a false dilemma: either there is noindividual with a history, or that individual never changes in order to be the (singleand inherently existing) subject of all of her constantly changing life.

The dilemma is a false one because there is another alternative: the subject of ahistory is the person or thing that is born or made, grows up, decays and dies. Thatperson or thing changes, and may be so different at different points in her or its lifefor us to be justified in saying that she or it is no longer the ‘same’ person, or treeor table. All of that is compatible with its being her or its history, even if it is thehistory of someone who has undergone a genuine transformation. To say that she isthe subject of a life is different from saying that she is the reified subject orcore-bearer, and by referring to her as the subject of that history nothing is impliedabout the existence of some unchanging substance.

Presumably, this resolution of the dilemma does not satisfy Garfield because heobjects to the ontology implicit in the answer. The existence of this ontology seemsto depend on there being a basis for a question about what makes the table or personwhat it is. Even this way of putting the problem is misleading. As we saw earlier,there is a significant ambiguity when it comes to asking how it could persist overtime. Are we referring to the table or person? If so, then it is not easy to understandhow a question can arise about whose life or history it is. A person may undergo verydramatic changes, but it is the person who may be said to be ‘different’ or ‘not thesame’ person, and so the question of who underwent the changes does not seem toarise. Of course, strange circumstances may call for unusual comments. But, if we

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begin by referring to a person (or thing), then the question of ontology does notseem to arise.

However, if we are referring to something into which we suppose the table orperson can be analyzed, then the ontological question does arise. How can sequencesof aggregates be counted as a single sequence? Is it really one, or are we just countingit as one, as Garfield supposes? These questions have a point because they treat asthe basic unit the aggregate or its components, and not the person and thing. If weignore the ambiguity of the reference to what is supposed to have an ontology, aperson or table, on the one hand, or something into which it is supposedlyanalyzable, on the other, then these questions might seem to also apply to what Ihave been referring to as the subject of a history. That there is anything questionableabout how we think or talk about our familiar everyday world seems to depend onthe presumption that there are other ways of conceiving of that world, and theexistence of these other ways, even though they, too, are conventional, makes clearthat our conception only has a conventional basis. In the next sections we are goingto be critical of several supposed alternate ways of conceiving of the world.

Boundaries and Identity Over Time

We turn to Garfield’s arguments that are based on the conventional nature of thedetermination of the spatial and temporal boundaries between what is and what isnot the object, and of the identity of the object over time. Rather than presupposethe rejection of the common sense conception of an object, these arguments seemdesigned to undermine that conception.

Garfield thinks that there is something arbitrary when it comes to the spatial andtemporal boundaries of a tree, including, the ‘juncture between root and soil, or leafand air; between live and dead wood; between seed, shoot and tree’. No doubt thedetermination of when one begins and the other ends can be arbitrary. Exactly when,for example, does a shoot become a tree? The answer seems to be that if we need todetermine it, then the determination has to be made by something like a conventionrather than by a real or definite dividing line.

However, it is not clear why the determination has to be made, without anexplanation of what, if anything, turns on making it. In certain circumstances, itseems a matter of indifference whether it is said to be a shoot or a tree, and the samepoint seems to apply to the line between root and soil, or live and dead wood. Mindyou, it does seem to matter, when the tree is conceived of as nothing more than theassemblage of its components at any given time. Then its very status as the objectit is would seem to depend on determining what is and what is not the tree.Otherwise, it is hard to see why there is any need to clearly delineate what is whatat the junctures to which Garfield refers. So, as an argument against the historicalconception of a tree, it seems to beg the question of whether a tree may be conceivedof as consisting of assemblages of components that are related to one another onlyby dependent orgination.

This point is more obvious when the boundary argument is applied to people. Arethe air particles we breathe, the microbes we inhale, or the pieces of food we ingest

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part of us or not? Of course, we can explain what happens when any of them entersour bodies; what we need to explain is what further question is being asked that mayshed light on the idea that there are boundaries or junctures as far as who we areis concerned. No doubt the question can be explained if we assume that we arenothing more than assemblages of various components, in which case we are askingwhat belongs and what does not belong to the assemblage. Otherwise, when it isexplained how the foreign substance entered our bodies and what happened to itafter it did so, we are saying all that needs to be said about the relation between usand that substance.

That there is a problem of identity over time also seems to be a function of takingthe assemblage view as a genuine alternative conception of the tree. The plant or treesheds leaves and grows new ones. That is to be expected if what we are talking aboutis something with a history. However, if the tree is defined as a collection of its parts(or whatever is true of it), then the addition or subtraction of elements of thatcollection does constitute a problem, and the obvious resolution of the probleminvolves the arbitrary application of a convention.

My objection to Garfield’s reliance on the apparent vagueness of certainboundaries is not intended as an objection to religious teachings that seem to cite thesame phenomena that he does. These teachings are designed to help us become morecompassionate by reminding us of our dependency on our surroundings and otherpeople for our very existence. As I understand them, these reminders of how vaguethe boundary is between ourselves and the world outside us are directed at Dharmaseekers who are already drawn to becoming less attached to self and more com-passionate. Otherwise they might not promote non-attachment and might evenmake us frustrated or angry. That is to say, we have to understand the reminders acertain way, something we may do because we are receptive to the Dharma, and notbecause there is a basis for that receptivity, namely, these reminders of the vaguenessof certain boundaries.

Other Alternate Conceptions

That Buddhism is calling into question the conception of a person or thing as havinga history is the rejoinder many of my readers will give to my critique of Garfield’sargument. As they see it, my critique is question begging because it relies on the veryconception that Garfield is calling into question. To the extent that the facts orinsights he is relying on his argument depend on that conception, then my critiqueis not question begging. Is there any alternative to that conception, especially whenso much of our thinking and talking seems to embody it? Garfield is not defending(on Nagarjuna’s behalf) any alternative to that conception, because his convention-alism or understanding of emptiness precludes his doing so. However, the very ideathat there is a conception presupposes that we can at least conceive of other possibleconceptions, and Garfield’s arguments do suggest that he thinks of other conceptionsas possibilities.

Earlier, in the passage where he talked about the arbitrariness of boundaries,Garfield contrasts the existence of a unitary object with its being merely a ‘collection

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of cells’. Other alternatives to the common sense conception of a table also are givenby him:

Or we would have no reason to indicate this particular temporary arrangement of thismatter as an object at all, as opposed to the brief intersection of the histories of sometrees. … The table, we might say, is a purely arbitrary slice of space–time chosen by usas the referent of a single name and not an entity, demanding, on its own, recognitionand a philosophical analysis to reveal its essence. (Garfield, 1995, pp. 89–90; 2002,p. 25)

Presumably, the determination of which molecule does or does not belong to thecollection that is the table is an arbitrary one. This observation seems to be like theother arguments for conventionalism which we have rejected earlier. However, it issufficiently and significantly different for it to be considered in this section. As wepointed out in the previous section, there does not seem to be anything arbitrary orconventional about the distinction between leaf and air or root and soil. However,there does seem to be something for a convention to apply to when considering, forexample, a collection of molecules (rather than a leaf that is treated as analyzableinto such a collection). Not only does the determination of which molecules do ordo not belong to the leaf collection seem arbitrary, but if we treat the collection asbeing identifiable on its own independently of its being the chemical analysis of thetable, then the very status of the table as an unitary object or as the object it is, seemsproblematic.

Garfield confuses matters by suggesting that the table may be considered to be the‘brief intersection of the histories of some trees’. Implicit in this idea is that there issomething arbitrary in singling out the (brief?) intersection in this way (just as it isarbitrary to refer to the histories as being of trees). However, Garfield’s reference toan intersection of trees is misleading, if what he really means is that the table is madeof wood. He needs some way of referring to the table that makes treating it as aunitary object conventional, and by talking in terms of the intersections of trees hemakes it seem that the wood obtained from the harvesting of trees happened, at acertain point in time, to take this particular form. However, contrary to whatGarfield is suggesting, the table is the piece of furniture made of wood that wasproduced, sold, placed in the dining room, repaired, and stored.

A different problem arises with the argument that there is something arbitraryabout the singling out of a certain slice of space–time and designating it a table. Ofcourse, there is no common sense conception of space–time slices as having inherentor substantial existence, if only because we do not have any experience thinking ortalking about such slices. Moreover, if we are not to think of a slice as being parasiticon the everyday item that is being sliced in this way, then the question arises as tohow we are supposed to obtain the slice or how we are to think about it. That is tosay, there does not seem to be any way to understand how slices can be made thatdoes not presuppose the existence of the everyday objects, which the slices aresupposed to supplant. So, contrary to what Garfield is suggesting, the conception ofa slice of space–time (or of an assemblage of cells or matter) is not an alternativeconception of the everyday world and its contents, but an artifact of the analysis of

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the everyday world, a conception that we adopt in order to explain or otherwiseaccount for that familiar world.

The argument that interests me most seems very much like the argumentconsidered in the previous section. It is the argument that when the tree isconsidered as an assemblage of molecules or a collection of cells then what does ordoes not belong to that collection seems arbitrary. This argument is different fromthe boundary or identity arguments considered earlier because it depends, as doesthe chariot argument considered in the previous section, on the idea that the treemay be conceived of as a collection.

The problem with this argument is the same as the problem with the chariotargument. When it is conceived of as a collection of molecules or cells, the table isthought of as not having a history but existing as the collection it happens to be ata particular time. It is this way of conceiving of it that we found wanting inconnection with the argument about the chariot from the Milindapanha.

However, the molecule argument differs from the chariot argument because wecan refer to such an assemblage only by referring to the object whose moleculesconstitute the assemblage, whereas it is possible to refer to an assemblage of chariotparts without having to know what chariot, if any, the parts are parts of. We canexplain what is wrong with the chariot argument by pointing out that we do nottreat an assemblage of parts as a chariot; rather, the parts are what they are becausethey are parts of a chariot kit or of a disassembled chariot. This point cannot bemade about the assemblage of table molecules, if only because they are not the partsof a kit or of a disassemblage: we have no way of identifying them except as part ofthe physical or chemical analysis of the table. Far from helping Garfield, this pointonly serves to underscore the problems with his argument for conventionalism.

The Attack on Causal Power

In this section I want to discuss Garfield’s (1995) argument against the existence ofcauses or causal powers (p. 104), Garfield thinks that it is key part of the case for hisview that there is a root delusion embodied in common sense and much of ourlanguage. Instead of causes, what we are,

typically confronted with in nature is a vast network of interdependent and continuousprocesses, and carving out particular phenomena for explanation or use in explana-tions depends more on our explanatory interests and language than on joints naturepresents to us (p. 113)

Garfield is distinguishing between the joints that really are in the world and thedivisions introduced by the carving to argue that we call certain conditions ‘causes’because of our ‘explanatory interests and language’, and not because causes reallyexist.

There is something right in what Garfield is saying, but it hardly makes the pointthat he needs it to make. What is right is that the very use of ‘cause’ reflects certaininterests, such as in apportioning blame for the accident or disaster or preventingfuture occurrences of it. However, this does not imply that there is something

Asian Philosophy 15

arbitrary about singling out one condition from the many that are required for theeffect to be produced, and designating it as the cause. It does not imply it becausewhat is being singled out, for example, is who is liable for damages or what can bechanged to prevent future outbreaks, and it is not as though what is thereby selectedis chosen arbitrarily from other possible candidates for that role. No doubt ifconditions had been different, and, for example, the other car was traveling at adifferent rate of speed, then there would have been no collision when the first carran a red light, but whatever happened other than the running the red light, if it isnot relevant when it comes to assigning blame or responsibility, then it would nothave been considered the cause of the collision.

This point is hard to make in connection with the kind of causality that is ofinterest both to Indian and Aristotelian philosophers, the causality that accounts forthe persistence of something over time,6 that explains how something can beconsidered the subject of what we have been calling a ‘history’. Garfield (orNagarjuna) seems to be questioning whether there is some ‘material’ condition orsvabhava that remains unchanged throughout the changes something undergoes. Ifso, then he is right to do so. However, it does not seem to be something that wethink, let alone a root delusion or innate misapprehension, that there is such anunchanging stuff or that its existence is somehow enshrined in our language (and sothere is reason to wonder whether Nagarjuna agrees with Garfield on this point).

Garfield and some others in the Buddhist tradition seem to think that it is amatter of convention that a table, chariot, tree or person is treated as the subject ofall the changes it undergoes, and they understand the concept of dependentorigination (‘this, then that’) to be used in providing an alternative conception ofidentity. However, as we have seen, this understanding presupposes that the conven-tion applies to aggregates or collections that can somehow be identified as they areat a given time and independently of who or what is the subject of the elements ofthe aggregates.

So, let us try to understand how the persistence of an individual is supposed tobe due to a real causal connection (as opposed to one of dependent origination).That there are causes or explanations for the changes that the subject undergoes isnot in question. What is in question is whether there is a cause for the persistenceof the subject over time, and it is not clear what the effect is supposed to be, whenit is not understood as a change.

Causal questions do arise in connection with the survival of a person thing, andwe may be able to explain, for example, why someone did not die from traumaticinjuries, or a table was not destroyed in an earthquake or vaporized in an intensefire. We also may be able to explain what controls certain developmental processes,such as the one that the embryo or adolescent or aging person undergoes. What weare supposed to be trying to explain is how there is persistence from minute tominute or day to day, and it is unclear how there is anything to explain when itcomes to that persistence.

My saying this is based on how I am thinking of what is persisting, namely, aperson, table, light switch or whatever else it happens to be. I say that it has this basisbecause Garfield and others must be thinking that the mere persistence of an object

16 Don S. Levi

from moment to moment or place to place is to be considered a ‘change’. Theywould be justified in thinking this way if the object is defined as an aggregate at acertain time and in a certain place, in which case the change may be considered tobe from element to element in the sequences of aggregates that are being consideredas a single individual. However, when we are talking, for example, about me or mytable, then what we are talking about is the kind of thing that, by contrast with aflashing light or a puff of smoke (or element in a sequence of aggregates), has morethan a momentary existence.

That causes or causal powers do not really exist also seems plausible when we arenot thinking in terms of our familiar everyday objects, as seems evident when weconsider Garfield’s argument: ‘Dissecting light switches, wires, brains, and so forth,does not reveal any hidden light’ (p. 110). Garfield is referring here to the variety ofthings that exist at the time the light is turned on, and he is right to point out thatwe would not find the light by dissecting switches, wires, bulbs or even brains.7 Hedoes not explain what the point is in performing the dissections to reveal the light(thereby demonstrating the existence of causal power), when we knew before thedissections were performed that the light turns on when the switch is flicked

The reference to dissections makes sense if we are talking about how the lightswitch works. To explain it we need to talk about the working parts of the light –the on–off switch and how it permits or stops the flow of electricity; the filament oftungsten wire that is wrapped around a tight coil, the passage of electricity throughthe filament that heats the coil by making electrons jump to higher orbits, so thatwhen they fall back their extra energy is emitted as a ray of light; and so on. Garfieldis right in thinking that if we refer only to the filament, coil, wiring, switch,electricity or electrons and their jumping, and the energy released, we would notrefer to the light.

However, these references are introduced to explain the fact that the bulb lightgoes on when the switch is flicked, whereas Garfield seems to think that they provideus with an alternate and equally valid way to describe what happened. Garfield’smistake is that the terms in which an explanation for how the light works is givendo not constitute a replacement for the contents of the everyday world that is beingexplained.

How then does the question of causal power even arise for Garfield? The answerseems to require that we misdescribe what the flicking of the switch does. We maywant to say that it makes the light go on, but this seems to be another way of sayingthat it turns the light on. We do not want to say that it supplies the power for thelight, when it is the electricity that does that. However, it is not the electricity thatturns on the light, even though when the power to the house is turned off then theswitch will not turn on the light. So, it seems misconceived to confuse talk of turningon the light with the exercise of causal power.

However, if we understand Garfield to be basing his rejection of the existence ofcausal powers on the rejection of what I have been referring to as the common senseconception of the everyday world, then his attack on causal powers is easier tounderstand. A light switch, as a historical subject, has certain properties. We can docertain things with it, such as turning on a lamp. However, if we reject that

Asian Philosophy 17

conception of a switch or bulb, as Garfield seems to be encouraging us to do, thensome other conception is needed to make the point about causal powers. When wethink of the light going on as a stage in a series of aggregates of conditions, then thequestion of cause is a version of the change–persistence problem we considered inconnection with the history of a subject: if the light going is the next stage, and itis caused by the previous one, then what is there about that antecedent aggregate ofconditions that has the power to produce the next light, i.e., to produce light?8

Garfield is right if he is insisting that the answer is that it is mysterious how it couldhave that power, but this is because the conditions no longer are conceived of asbeing conditions that are part of the analysis of what happened in the everydayworld, but are treated as alternative conceptions of that world. If I am right, thenGarfield’s argument against causal powers assumes that the common sense concep-tion is mistaken, when what it is supposed to do is provide a reductio ad absurdumof that conception.

Contrary to what Garfield argues, incoherent consequences cannot be legitimatelyderived from a belief in the reality of causes, or, for that matter, other aspects of ourfamiliar everyday world, unless that belief is wrongly supposed to commit us to abelief in subjects of change that are themselves unchangeable. As we pointed outearlier, Garfield does suppose that we are committed to such a belief, and his basisfor doing so is that he supposes that we must believe it because there is no other wayto make sense of persistence over change of a single subject.

The Objects of Mindfulness

Does the experience of meditation not provide an alternative to the common sensehistorical conception of an object? Garfield does not make this suggestion because heinsists that the Buddhist thesis of emptiness applies to any attempt at referring toreality, even to emptiness itself. However, other Buddhologists, especially those, likeMurti (1955), Kasulis (1981), Loy (1985), and Huntington (1989), who think thatthere is a pre- or non-conceptualized reality, might be tempted by it. Moreover, itis a suggestion that often seems to be made by teachers of meditation: when we aremindful, for example, of a tree in all its existential particularity and we have nothoughts about what will become of it or what has been true of it, then the tree existssolely in the here-and-now. The tree of the common sense conception no longerexists.

I have no quarrel with this way of describing the experience, provided what is saidabout the objects of meditation is designed to help us to achieve non-attachment orcompassion for all living things. However, I do object to the idea that meditation issupposed to provide us with access to a different reality than is enshrined in ourcommon sense and much of our language.

How are the objects of meditation different from the objects of our supposedcommon sense conception? As a painting teacher reminds her students, a table looksdifferent in different light and from different perspectives. It hardly follows from herlesson, that the table itself changes as the light and perspective changes, because thetable is not to be confused with these different appearances of it. Just so, the fact that

18 Don S. Levi

the table may look different to a mindful observer in the different here-and-nows,does not provide us with an alternative world to our everyday one where the tableis to be found. This is because the meditative experiences are experiences of thetable, and not of something with a different ontological status (or of something thatmay be characterized as empty).

Kasulis (1981) seems to disagree when he marks a contrasts between the tree ‘asit is being experienced’ in the here-and-now and how our concepts or languagemight ‘filter’ that experience (p. 57). Another paper is needed to consider what‘language’ is supposed to be or how it could be a filter, according to Kasulis. WhatI want to discuss here is the apparent ambiguity in the references to the tree (or anyother object).

The ambiguity I have in mind arises because of Kasulis’ reliance on the conceptof ‘experience’. His reference to the ‘tree as it is being experienced’ seems to suggestthat it is the particular tree which is the referent of the ‘it’ and of which we are beingmindful. If he disagrees, that is because he does not think that it is the tree that isbeing experienced as it is. Rather, he is inviting us to distinguish between that tree,as the object with a certain botanical history, and as the object of our mindfulexperiences. What is it that is being experienced as it is? The only answer thatsuggests itself is that it is that particular tree. We may see it or otherwise experienceit by being mindful only of what it is when we are seeing or experiencing it in itsexistential particularity, but what we are seeing or experiencing is the tree.

Another alternative suggests itself if we refer to what is seen as a perception, andequate that perception with an experience. If we confine that experience to thehere-and-now, and somehow bracket everything previously experienced or antici-pated, then we may want to make a distinction between the tree and what is beingexperienced, which may be referred to as a ‘sense impression’ or ‘sensible quality’.This distinction leads, in turn, to a seeming alternative to the common senseconception of a tree, namely, as whatever it is that exists only as it is experienced.By itself, the experience of meditation does not reveal to us the existence of analternative world to that of everyday objects when they are the objects of meditation.Rather, it is the theory that perceptions are of sensible qualities, or that objects areconstituted as aggregates or collections of these qualities, that does so.

However, the existence of this alternate world is problematic, depending as it doeson the questionable reduction, for example, of the seeing of a tree to a visualexperience. The former has the tree as its object – I cannot see a tree if there is notone there to be seen; whereas, the latter seems to have to do with the perceiver. I amnot objecting to saying that sometimes the seeing of something can be quite anexperience, but the seeing of it is one thing – how we react to seeing it another.When someone observes a tree mindfully we may describe her as experiencing thatparticular tree as it is; but it does not follow that the object of that experience issomehow reducible to the experiences of it, however they may be characterized.

So meditation does not provide us with a way of introducing a differentconception of an object than the one we have been supposing is the common senseconception of it. Garfield explicitly rejects the idea that there is such a thing aspre-conceptual reality. Rather, he subscribes (on behalf of Nagarjuna) to the thesis

Asian Philosophy 19

of the emptiness of emptiness, which means that he thinks that any attempt atreferring to reality, or suggesting that there is such a thing, is as misconceived as isthe view that our familiar everyday world has inherent existence. What I have beenarguing in this section is that there is no basis for thinking that the world ofmeditative experience is an alternative to the everyday world

Conclusion: Upaya or Philosophy

Since it is Garfield’s position that there is no such thing as inherent existence,perhaps there is no real difference between our positions. Like me, he has noproblem with what we actually say about the familiar objects or people in oureveryday world, and, like him, I reject the idea of a reified subject. I think that theonly reality we have is the reality of that world, and he does not think that there isany other reality, provided that we do not reify anything in this one.

However, there are significant differences between us. He thinks that if there is noreified subject, then the subject exists only conventionally, which makes sense onlyif there is something in terms of which a convention can be applied. This explainswhy it is so important for his argument that we can analyze the object or person whoundergoes change into a series of different aggregates. This series is what he thinksof as being conventionally referred to as a single subject of change. Earlier I arguedagainst that analysis, and by doing so I also argued against the false dichotomy ofconventional or inherent subject.

An obvious question to raise about my approach is whether there is not anontology implicit in the very idea of a historical subject. I have been talking aboutthe chariot or a person as having a history, but who or what is it that has thathistory?

This question is hard to understand. We have no trouble referring to that subjectwhen not philosophizing, as a person or chariot or any of a host of other things inour familiar world. Ontological problems may arise when we ask about the otheritems in that world. What about a melody or country or illness or memory? Whatkind of existence does each of these things have? That I refer to a person as a subjecthardly commits me to the taking of a position on how everything else that we talkor think about exists. In fact, without some understanding of what we are askingwhen we wonder about existence, it is hard to see why a position needs to be takenon kinds of existence or even whether there are such things.

This question of what an ontology is and why it is needed is the subject of anotherpaper. However, what is worth discussing in this one is the fact that Garfield thinksthat the conception of inherent existence, which is enshrined in common sense andmuch of our language, is the root of suffering and the rejection of that conceptionfrees us from the bondage of karmic attachments. The reason why this is significantis that Garfield is presuming that everyone confronts the same obstacle to liberationfrom bondage, namely, ‘the grasping of the aggregates as one’s self’ (p. 277). Itssignificance is that it seems to be at odds with a skillful means view of Buddhistteachings, as an expression of compassion for people struggling to free themselvesfrom bondage. A compassionate approach is designed to help people with different

20 Don S. Levi

problems and in different situations make progress on their path to enlightenment;whereas, Garfield’s approach seems to suggest that everyone must have the sameproblem.

Despite the fact that the Muladhyamakakarika is so scholastic in its reliance almostexclusively on philosophical argumentation, I suggest that Nagarjuna is employingskillful means in his teachings. The reliance on argumentation suggests that it waswritten for a scholastic audience of Abhidharmists, and, as such, it should beunderstood as therapy for certain philosophical assumptions and theories whichseems to have been responsible for that audience proposing that there be only oneform religious practice should take.9

Although Nagarjuna’s last lines are free of any scholasticism, and seem to be anendorsement of the upaya approach, Garfield (1995) reads them very differently.

I prostrate myself to the Gautama

Who through compassion

Taught the true doctrine,

Which leads to the relinquishing of all views. (p. 83)

The skillful means reading is that Nagarjuna is rejecting the idea that there is oneteaching that will be effective therapy for everyone. This rejection applies to whatNagarjuna himself is teaching, which may be a good corrective for certain Abhid-harma views, especially those which suggest that there is only one good teaching, butit should not be understood to be effective for everyone. That is to say, the truedoctrine is that there is no one teaching.

In his commentary on these verses, Garfield only considers two other readings.One, which he says is by far the most common, is that Nagarjuna is talking aboutrelinquishing only false views, and so, he does not intend that his own view berelinquished. The other, which is the reading he prefers, is that the emptiness ofemptiness entails that there is nothing to have a view about and consequently noview that can be taken. The true doctrine, which is Nagarjuna’s, does lead to therelinquishing of all views, but since that doctrine cannot be considered to be a view,Nagarjuna has nothing to relinquish.

What is significant about Garfield’s reading is how much it underscores hisdetermination to reject the upaya approach in favor of the idea that there is a trueDharma which addresses everyone regardless of the obstacles they confront in tryingto achieve non-attachment. Rather than have Nagarjuna conclude by saying that histeachings are only directed at a specific audience of Buddhists who, like him, havephilosophical concerns, Garfield arrives at just the opposite conclusion, namely, thatit is directed at everyone.

Is there a way of understanding inherent existence or attachment that supports theupaya approach? Despite my repeated references to it, I have said little or nothingabout what inherent existence or non-attachment is. I have said nothing becausewhat I think should be said depends on who is being addressed and what problemsthat person is confronting in overcoming her attachments. I am rejecting the ideathat we first have to see that things do not have inherent existence and then rely on

Asian Philosophy 21

that realization to achieve non-attachment. Rather, ‘inherent existence’ refers tohowever we are relating to an object when we are attached to it. Since the referenceto it is to be understood in the context of teaching that employs skillful means, thatreference is a reminder of how the attachment may take different forms withdifferent people.

This point can be illustrated by considering how Nagasena is employing skillfulmeans in his dialectic with the king. Consider, for example, how Nagasena respondswhen he is asked by the king to be told his name, namely, by saying that there is nopermanent individual that can be found that is designated by the name ‘Nagasena’.Rather than ask what a permanent individual is, and why the only alternative to aconventional designation is one that refers to such an individual, the king replies bytrying to derive certain absurd consequences from what Nagasena said, therebyappearing to concede that he understands what Nagasena is claiming. Nagasena usescross-examination to get the king to avoid these consequences by adopting theposition that there is no permanent chariot, and this leads Nagasena to point outthat the king should take the position that there is no permanent subject who hasthe name he does, regardless of the seemingly absurd consequences of doing so.

However, what really is under attack by Nagasena is the king’s attachment todebating with teachers of the Dharma. That attachment is a reflection of the king’sinvestment in being someone who is not taken in by the religious life. That is to say,the permanent individual whose inherent existence Nagasena really is questioning isthe king who identifies himself with his attachments, who acts as though this identityis what will survive all the changes he will undergo. Nagasena’s succeeds in gettingthe king to take positions that, seemingly, have the very consequences whoseabsurdity had prompted the king to think that no one who had taken such positionscould be his match in debate. As a result, the king may come to realize that he is nobetter than those whom he thought he had vanquished in debate. If I am right, thenNagasena’s rhetoric embodies his compassion for the king because he is employingit to help the king to become a Dharma seeker rather than a debater about theDharma.

The same does not seem to be true of Garfield’s rhetoric. There is nothing tosuggest that he is thinking of the obstacles particular people have to overcome inorder to achieve non-attachment. On the contrary. He is suggesting that everyonehas the same obstacle, namely, the delusion enshrined in common sense and muchof language. Since he is assuming that everyone faces the same obstacle, his rhetoricshould not be treated as upaya.10

This paper is evidence that I also believe in the value of philosophical analysis asfar as Buddhism is concerned. Despite the fact that I am not presently a Dharmaseeker, I would not go so far as to say that, like King Milinda, and unlike Garfield,I am attached to philosophizing even to the extent of preferring to do it rather thanto engage in practices that may lead to non-attachment. However, I do believe thatphilosophy is of especial value in deflating its own pretensions to provide a basis forBuddhism, even if this belief does not reflect my own spiritual concerns. In thispaper I have been arguing that rather than do philosophy in order to help overcomethe folk metaphysics that interferes with our religious practice, we need to philoso-

22 Don S. Levi

phize in order to uncover the misconceptions in attempts like Garfield’s at showingthat there is such a deluded ontology.

Notes

[1] For a recent critical survey of the dialectic in Indian philosophy, from the materialistskeptics to the Advaitans, concerning the explanation of change in causal terms, see Ganguli(2002).

[2] Jayatilleke (1963) points out that in the Pali Buddhist writings, the two truth distinction wasdrawn between teachings with ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ meanings (pp. 361–336).

[3] Garfield (1995) says, ‘But in order to really modify our actions and dispositions to act, weneed wisdom – in this context an understanding of the real nature of things as empty. Thisview, Nagarjuna asserts, must be internalized through meditation, so that it becomes notmerely a philosophical theory that we can reason our way into, but the basic way in whichwe take up with the world’ (p. 340).

[4] In his commentary on Nagarjuna’s chapter, ‘Examination of the Four Noble Truths’,Garfield (1995) says that the table ‘cannot be distinguished in a principled way from itsantecedent and subsequent histories’ (p. 316). Although he does refer to its histories, hispoint is that the table is not what has the history; rather, the table just is the aggregate ofthe antecedent and subsequent histories, and that treating it as the history of a single thingis a matter of convention.

[5] Garfield goes on to insist, ‘this particular analysis (of the components) has no particularsignificance. It reflects an essentially empirical theory about the best explanatory frameworkto use in comprehending human behavior and the most useful way for the Buddhistpractitioner to his/her experience’ (p. 245). He is insistent upon this point because ‘theaggregates themselves are empty, and as much Buddhist psychology emphasizes, they tooare the subject of further decomposition’ (p. 246).

[6] Garfield cites as a ‘typical example’ of self-causation the ‘seed and sprout relation’ (p. 106).[7] Garfield speaks of (dissecting) brains in connection with the ‘dominant condition’, or

‘purpose or end for which an action is undertaken’ (p. 109). Presumably, the braindissection may reveal the agent’s purpose in turning on the light, but not the light itself.

[8] Hume thinks of causation as a relation of association between different impressions, whichsuggests that the problems he is raising are to be understood in terms of the unfamiliarworld of (momentary) sense impressions. Even if Garfield does not share Hume’s empiricistpsychology, his attack on causal powers also seems to require treating the causal relation asa relation between events that are not identifiable in our everyday terms.

[9] See Schroeder (2001) for a development of this position. Robinson (1972) and Wood(1994) attribute to Nagarjuna the nihilistic position that it is impossible to say anythingcoherent about the Dharma; Murti (1955) and others argue that Nagarjuna is only tryingto show the inadequacy of our concepts or language to describe things the way they reallyare. As we have seen, Garfield’s position is that Nagarjuna is a conventionalist who deniesthat even conventionalism or emptiness is conventionally true. Rather than concentrate onshowing that each of these positions is mistaken, Schroeder’s focus is on arguing thatNagarjuna is attacking the Abhidharma position for seemingly holding that there is onlyone valid form of religious practice, a position which Kasulis (1992) calls an ‘orthopraxis’.

[10] Garfield (1995) makes clear, even when he talks about how important certain practices areto the achievement of enlightenment, that he has in mind practices that will focus on theelimination of a root ontological delusion. ‘Only through extensive meditation on thenature of emptiness can these (karmic) habits be eliminated, and only through anunderstanding of the ultimate nature of things can the fruit of actions done throughabandonment … be attained’ (p. 237).

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References

Garfield, J. (1995). The fundamental wisdom of the Middle Way. Translation and commentary. NewYork, Oxford University Press.

Garfield, J. (2002). Empty words Buddhist philosophy and cross-cultural interpretation. New York,Oxford University Press.

Ganguli, S. (2002). A Critique of Causality. Kolkata, Sanskrit Book Depot.Giles, J. (1993). The no-self theory: Hume, Buddhism and personal identity. Philosophy East and

West, 43, pp. 175–200.Huntington, C.W. (1989). The Emptiness of Emptiness. Honolulu, The University of Hawaii Press.Jayatilleke, K.N. (1983). Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge. London, George Allen & Unwin.Kasulis, T. (1981). Zen action/Zen person. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.Kasulis, T. (1992). Philosophy as Metapraxis. In F. Reynolds & D. Tracy (Eds.), Discourse and

Practice. Albany, State University of New York Press.Loy, D. (1985). The paradox of causality in Madhyamika. International Philosophical Quarterly, 25,

pp. 63–72.Murti, T.R.V. (1955). The Central Philosophy of Buddhism. London, George Allen & Unwin.Robinson, R. (1972). Did Nagarjuna really refute all philosophical views? Philosophy East and West,

22, pp. 325–331.Schroeder, J. (2001). Skillful means: The heart of Buddhist compassion. Honolulu, University of

Hawaii Press.Wood, T.E. (1994). Nagarjunian disputations: A philosophical journey through an Indian looking

glass. Honolulu, University of Hawaii Press.