The Concept of Emptiness and Accompanying Concepts in the Philosophical Analysis of Madhyamaka

Abstract

The article analyses the concept of emptiness (śūnyatā) of the Buddhist Mahāyāna school Madhyamaka. By way of introduction, some fundamental questions are asked regarding the possible meaning of that concept as well as the possible context within which that concept should be viewed. The article then moves on to the evaluation and reception of the theory of emptiness within some classical systems of Indian Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophy, which were all negative, identifying the concept of emptiness with the concept of non-existence (abhāva). As, historically, the Mahāyāna concept of emptiness appears for the first time in the so-called Prajñāpāramitāsūtras, part of the article is devoted to the analysis of this concept in those texts, which are traditionally considered the original inspiration of the Madhyamaka philosophy. In fact, the Madhyamaka philosophy represents precisely the systematic philosophical elaboration of those texts, primarily of the concept of emptiness as it appears there. The central part of the article comprises the analysis of this concept in the Madh­yamaka system, with a brief account on the general methodological and doctrinal framework within which Madhyamaka philosophical thinking operates. Then two key philosophical conceptions of Madhyamaka are presented and analysed, without which it is impossible to understand the concept of emptiness – the conception of two truths (satyadvaya) and the conception of “co-arising in dependence” (pratītyasamutpāda). In the context of these two conceptions, the concept of emptiness of Madhyamaka is finally situated in the horizon of a specific semantic and epistemological understanding of reality (experience) that is completely devoid of any ontological connotations.