From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Thu Mar 31 2005 - 20:46:00 BST
Scott,
I’ll try to cover some points from your previous post here before it gets
too old.
Ant McWatt had noted to Sam:
I thought it was Nagarjuna's idea of "contradictory identity" rather than
Scott's?
Scott Roberts replied March 24th 2005:
>It is Nishida's, further developed in Nishitani's "Religion and
>Nothingness"…
Ant McWatt replies:
In a section concerning the “Kyoto School” of philosophy, Professor David E.
Cooper (1995, p.384) notes that Nishida traces the “logic of contradictory
identity” back to Nagarjuna.
Scott Roberts further noted March 24th 2005:
>but in any case a very different interpretation of Nagarjuna
>than can be found in Northrop and Pirsig
Ant McWatt replies:
The only place that explicitly relates Nagarjuna and Pirsig is my PhD thesis
which (as mentioned previously) was checked through by Pirsig on a number of
occasions. He made a point in mid-2002 to confirm that there was indeed an
identity between his philosophy and Nagarjuna’s (regarding the static and
Dynamic) so I was wondering which “very different interpretation” from mine
that you are referring to. I point this out as I’ve certainly never read
one.
As regards my “interpretation”, I specifically refer you to Chapter 2,
Section 2.4. and David Burton's article ‘Is Madhyamaka Buddhism Really the
Middle Way?’ in "Contemporary Buddhism" (Vol.2, Issue 2, Autumn 2001)
regarding the issue of nihilism and the MOQ:
==========================================
As explained by the Buddhist philosopher, Walpola Rahula (1959, p.55), it’s
correct to think of physical objects and minds as being real in the
‘conventional’ sense (sammuti-sacca) especially as some order and sense of
the world is beyond one’s personal wishes and desires. Otherwise, as David
Burton (2001, p.181) postulates, the Madhyamaka-like claim of Pirsig’s could
lend itself to the charge of nihilism:
“An entirely fabricated world – with no basis at all which is real, i.e.
anything more than a conceptual construction – would seem to be hardly
distinguishable from a non-existent world.”
To qualify this, Burton does note that the Madhyamaka texts can be
understood as stating (specifically in Nagarjuna’s “Refutations of
Objections”) that it is objects of knowledge as they are perceived that lack
inherent existence; that Nagarjuna was simply taking into consideration the
(Kantian) epistemological limit that it’s impossible to apprehend objects
(of knowledge) as they exist independently from mind (i.e. outside of
perception).
“The Madhyamaka philosophy of emptiness treads the Middle Way between the
nihilistic claim that everything is totally a fabrication and the naďve
realists’ contention that one has access to the unfabricated world as it
actually is… things in themselves are known to us – they are present to us
when we apprehend them – but this knowledge is nevertheless always a
negotiation between the known entity and the knower.” (Burton, 2001, p.187)
===========================================
Scott Roberts stated March 24th 2005:
>It was common in Northrop's time for
>Western commentators to describe Nagarjuna as nihilistic. Since then,
>though, that has been largely rejected. See C. W. Huntington's introduction
>to "The Emptiness of Emptiness" for more on the various interpretations of
>Nagarjuna. Unfortunately, Pirsig is using Northrop's nihilistic
>interpretation.)
Ant McWatt comments:
D.T. Suzuki’s “An Introduction to Zen Buddhism” (which I quoted in my
previous post concerning this issue) was published in 1934 a few years
before Northrop published his first philosophy book. Moreover, we’re not
discussing what certain commentators in the 20th century thought of
Nagarjuna as regards nihilism but rather, whether or not the MOQ is
nihilist. The simple fact is that the MOQ is a development of Zen Buddhism
and both Northrop (in “The Meeting of East and West”) and Suzuki (in “An
Introduction to Zen Buddhism”) deny – at some length - that Zen Buddhism is
nihilist. If you can’t address the particular arguments given by these
philosophers in these texts then I think we have come as far as we can with
this particular debate.
Scott Roberts stated March 24th 2005:
>What you say here amounts to "Now that we know that everything is really
>empty (nihilism) we shall return to the world with this knowledge."
>Nishitani's turn is quite different. It amounts to saying: the next step is
>to learn that what we learned in the first turn is itself empty. With the
>second turn we no longer see the self and world as either substantial, nor
>as empty, but as existing by not existing, as a non-substantial substance.
>Again, not a whisper of this in Pirsig.
Ant McWatt comments:
Nishitani’s or Huntington's work is helpful if it clarifies the issues
surrounding nihilism, the self and reality though - from the evidence of
your recent posts - they are possibly taking an intellectual step too far.
Scott Roberts stated March 24th 2005:
>As Nagarjuna says: "The emptiness of the conquerors was taught in order to
>do away with all philosophical views. Therefore it is said that whoever
>makes a philosophical view out of "emptiness" is indeed lost."
Ant McWatt asks:
Where does Nagarjuna say this? Without context such a quote isn’t
particularly helpful especially without knowing what type of “conqueror”
that he’s referring to.
Scott Roberts stated March 24th 2005:
>There is not a whisper, in Northrop or in Pirsig, of the notion that
>Nirvana
>is Samsara.
Ant McWatt comments:
For you to prove this assertion (at least regarding Pirsig) you would have
to indicate that the MOQ is not based on Zen Buddhism (which, of course,
follows the Mahayanistic middle way) or show that Mahayana Buddhism (which,
of course, is derived from Nagarjuna’s work) is nihilist. Both projects, in
my mind, would be non-starters.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
“Before one enters the gateless gate, the Dynamic is the only ‘ultimate
reality.’ But after one passes through the gateless gate and looks back he
sees there never was any gate. Now he sees that the static patterns he was
trying to discard are real enough and has no problem accepting them.”
(Pirsig to McWatt, February 18th 2005)
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