M A R K S I D E R I T S

N A G A R J U N A AS A N T I - R E A L I S T *

Matilal's recent work, Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian Theories of Knowledge, is a welcome addition to the growing body of works which seek not merely to explicate the theories and arguments of classical Indian philosophers but also to continue the philosophical conversation by examining such work in the light of the theories and methods of the current philosophical community. Matilal's subject is, broadly, the Nyfiya defense of the school's realism about perception against its critics, chiefly the Buddhists and Mimfimsakas. I shall here take issue with Matilal on just one aspect of this broad debate -- the exchange between Nfigfirjuna and Nyfiya over the possibility of pram~.av~da. I shall argue that Matilal misinterprets Nfigfirjuna's position in this exchange, so that his Nyfiya-style response misses the point of the Madhyamaka criticism. This is important not just for exegetical reasons, but because we should want to continue the discussion begun by these philosophers some 1800 years ago.

Matilal gives an account of Nfigfirjuna's critique of epistemology in Chapter 2, and gives the Nyfiya response in Chapters 2 and 5. The fundamental difficulty with this discussion lies in the fact that Matilal classifies Nfigfirjuna as a sceptic. It is of course true that in VigrahavydvartaM Nfigfirjuna denies the possibility of giving a coherent account of the pramfinas or means of knowledge. But N~gfirjuna does not do this in order to show the possibility of universal doubt. Rather, his motivation is anti-realist: he seeks to show the impossibility of a theory of the pramfinas in order to close off one common route to metaphysical realism.

The doctrine of metaphysical realism has three key theses: (1) truth is correspondence between proposition and reality; (2) reality is mind- independent; (3) there is one true theory that correctly describes reality. The Naiyayikas clearly subscribe to metaphysical realism, but classical Sfimkhya and the Abhidharma schools of Buddhism also fit this description. What is distinctive about Ny~ya is the way in which

Journal of lndian Philosophy 16 (1988) 311--325. © 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers.

312 MARK SIDERITS

pramS., avhda is used as a foundation for the metaphysical realist's program. Matilal's book is a good illustration of this, for he discusses in great detail how the Naiy~yikas used their account of perception as a pram~n.a to support their realist views about the nature and struc- ture of the physical world. In M~lamadhyamakakArikd (where his opponent is typically an Abhidharmika) Nag~rjuna uses reductio arguments against various metaphysical theories to undermine the third thesis of metaphysical realism. But in the pramS, av~da section of Vigrahavydvartani, where his opponent is a Naiy~yika, he employs a different strategy. He seeks to show that justification is coherentist and not foundationalist in structure. He does this not to show that we can never have knowledge, but to demonstrate that the empirical world is thoroughly pervaded by prapanca or conceptual fabrication. If no theory of the pram~.nas can escape the faults of circularity or infinite regress, then any use of the accepted pram~nas to construct a meta- physical theory must involve assumptions about the nature of reality and the nature of cognition which can only be justified in a coherentist fashion. N~g~rjuna's aim here is to undermine theses (1) and (2) of metaphysical realism. If he is right about the nature and structure of pram~.nav~da, then the notion of truth as correspondence between cognition and state of affairs becomes problematic, and reality comes to be seen as suffused with elements of mental construction.

These points require further elaboration. I shall begin by discussing Matilal's Nyhya-based attempts at answering N~tg~trjuna's objections to pram~n, av~da. I shall seek to show that such attempts, based as they are on what I take to be a misinterpretation of N~gfirjuna's motivation, fail to vindicate the Ny~ya project. From this there should emerge a clearer indication of the consequences for metaphysical realism of N~gfirjuna's critique of pramfi0, av~da.

I have elsewhere discussed at some length Nfigfirjuna's arguments against a theory of pramS.as (Siderits, 1980). To briefly recapitulate, in Vigrahavydvartani 30--51, Nfigfirjuna considers various responses to the question of foundations: how do we know that the various purported means of knowledge are in fact pramfin, as? Four possible strategies suggest themselves: (1) a pramfi.na establishes itself; (2) one pramfina is established by another pram~na; (3) a pramfin, a is established by its prameya; (4) pramfi.na and prameya mutually

NAG.~,RJUNA AS ANTI-REALIST 313

establish one another. It is argued that (1) is question-begging, (2) involves an infinite regress, and (3) and (4) are viciously circular. Since (2) is the most intuitively appealing position for a realist, the chief concern of the Naiyfiyika is to stop the regress that the question of foundations seems to engender. Matilal gives extended treatments of two such strategies.

One way in which Matilal seeks to stop the regress is brought out in his discussion (pp. 57--9) of the light example of Vigrahavydvartani v. 33. Matilal construes this as an analogical argument: just as light illuminates itself, so a pram~n.a may establish (i.e., verify) itself. I would interpret it rather differently. It is widely assumed among Indian philosophers that an entity cannot operate on itself. ~ If this principle holds, then it follows that a pramfina cannot establish itself. The claim that light illuminates itself is intended to serve as a counter-example to this principle. If Nfigfirjuna can show that this claim is false, then in the absence of any other alleged counter-example and in the presence of such positive evidence as the fact that a knife cannot cut itself, the principle will stand and we will be justified in rejecting the assertion that a pramfina establishes itself.

Matilal takes Nfigfirjuna to argue that an object may be said to be illuminated only if that object may also exist in the unilluminated state. Since light obviously does not exist where there is darkness, light does not meet this condition. Hence it does not make sense to say that light is illuminated. I agree that this is Nfigfirjuna's argument. But Matilal takes this to show that 'Light illuminates itself,' is a mere stylistic variant of 'There is light.' And this is merely another way of saying, 'There is illumination of objects,' since the occurrence of light and the illumination of objects are inseparable and thus may not be distinct events at all. But then if the opponent is taken as giving an analogical argument, his claim that a pramfina establishes itself is equivalent to the statement that a pram~na occurs, which in turn is equivalent to the statement that there is cognition of the object of knowledge. In this case the question, What establishes the pramfina? is misguided, for there is no distinct entity the pramfina; there is only the event, 'establishment of the object of cognition,' which may variously be referred to as the occurrence of a pramfina or as the cognition of a prameya.

314 M A R K S I D E R I T S

This is an interesting strategy, but I do not think it succeeds. Here we need to answer two questions: (1) is it true that the occurrence of light is nothing over and above the occurrence of illumination of objects? and (2) if this were true, would the analogy with pramfina go through? With respect to the first question, we can begin by pointing out that Nfigfirjuna, common sense, and Nyfiya are all quite leery of positing powers as distinct entities. The mutual-dependence arguments of MMK (e.g., MMK III) often turn on just this feature. And common sense would, I believe, be loath to admit the existence of light in the empty space between earth and sun. (This is just how the 'If a tree falls in the forest' chestnut gets generated.) But the underlying principle at work here is just parsimony: we need not posit a power as a separate entity in order to explain the occurrence of some phenomenon if the only evidence for its existence is just the phe- nomenon whose occurrence is to be explained. Thus light would be a superfluous posit if the only evidence for its existence were the illumination of objects. But there is independent evidence for the exis- tence of light (i.e., electro-magnetic radiation in the visible spectrum), for instance diffraction phenomena occurring with transparent media. Thus the occurrence of light and the illumination of objects are distinct events, and Nfigfirjuna's point -- that light does not illuminate itself -- holds for just the reason that he gives: light is not the sort of thing that can meaningfully be said to be illuminated.

This yields a useful way of testing Matilal's strategy for avoiding the regress. Is there independent evidence for the existence of the pramfi.na as distinct from cognition of the object? Certainly there is. Some cognitions are veridical, others non-veridical. Many non- veridical cognitions are phenomenologically indistinguishable from veridical cognitions; the difference is revealed only in subsequent behavior. If this difference is to be explained, then it can only be in terms of distinct causal routes leading to the two sorts of cognition. And a pramfina is just that sort of causal route that typically leads to veridical cognitions. Hence even if it were true that light is nothing over and above the illumination of objects, we would still have good reason to speak of the pramfina as distinct from their result, the cogni- tion of objects. Given this, moreover, Nfigarjuna's original question -- How are the pramfina established? -- is seen to be not only possible but pressing. This strategy will not stop the regress.

N A G A R J U N A AS A N T I - R E A L I S T 315

Matilal's second, more elaborate attempt to stop the regress involves the denial of the KK thesis -- the thesis that in order to have knowledge one must know that one knows. In Chapter 5 he gives a careful explication of much of the Nyfiya literature on knowing that one knows, including the Naiyfiyikas' discussions of the various kinds of cognition that may be used to establish the knowledgehood of a given cognition. He shows that the consensus position is this: while one may, if the need arises, employ some such method to prove that a given cognition is a piece of knowledge, one may perfectly well fail to do so and yet still possess knowledge. Matilal also seems to agree with the Naiy~yikas on this point. And surely this is right -- if having knowledge is a matter of having a true belief with the right sort of causal ancestry, then one can have knowledge without knowing that one's belief has been produced by a reliable cause. Or, to put the matter somewhat differently, one can be justified in one's belief without being able to show justification.

What is surprising is that Matilal seems to think that denial of the KK thesis is an effective answer to Nfigfirjuna's infinite regress argument. Matilal must then assume that N~gfirjuna implicitly accepts the KK thesis. And he assumes this, I would suggest, because he takes Nfigfirjuna to be a sceptic. For if Nfigfirjuna's infinite regress argument is to establish that we never have knowledge, then the KK thesis would seem to be required. Take, for instance, that version of the regress argument which claims that in order to establish that some particular cognition j is a pramfina, one must employ some distinct cognition k, which is itself a pram~na. But in order to establish k's pramfinahood, one must employ some distinct cognition l, etc. A sceptical reading of this argument would go roughly as follows: to be justified in taking the experience of seeming to see water as veridical, one must know that the causal factors responsible for this experience are an instance of the pramfina perception (because one must know that one knows in order to know). But one can know that these causal factors are reliable only through the employment of some distinct cognition. And then, once again, one can know that that cognition is itself the product of reliable causal factors only through yet another cognition, etc. Since this justificatory regress can never be ended non- arbitrarily, it follows that one can never know that this is water before me.

316 MARK SIDERITS

Nfigfirjuna is not, however, a sceptic. Indeed Matilal expresses well Nfigfirjuna's attitude toward knowledge and pram~..avfida when he writes, 'The force of such arguments was to persuade us to recognize our philosophical activity, our pram~na doctrine, for what it is, a fabrication, a convenient myth-making or make-believe, the inherent value of which lies only in making day-to-day life work smoothly and rendering inter-subjective communication successful' (p. 67). To say this is not to say that we might be radically deceived in all our beliefs about the nature of the world, that we might be wrong in all we think we know. Nfigfirjuna would probably agree that we do have knowledge whenever the conditions articulated in the Nyfiya account of the pramfi0.as are met. (Candrakirti explicitly affirms this at Prasannapadfi p. 25.) His disagreement with Ny~ya is not over the possibility of knowledge, but over the uses to which a theory of knowledge may be put. He sees that if a pramfinavfida is to vindicate metaphysical realism, then justification must be foundationalist in structure. The point of the regress argument is just that justification is coherentist in structure.

How, after all, does Ny~ya arrive at its account of the pramfi0.as? I think the method they use is best thought of as one that seeks to achieve a kind of reflective equilibrium. We begin with a stock of basic beliefs that would share wide acceptance, and seek out the causal conditions that led us to have such beliefs. Having formulated a provisional account of the causal conditions for knowledge, we then look to see whether it accords with both our original stock of basic beliefs and with other beliefs we have about the world and about knowledge. If not, we make adjustments either in our account of the conditions for knowledge, or in our stock of intuitions, or both. This process continues until our account of the causal conditions for knowledge and our intuitions are in equilibrium, when no further adjustments need to be made. The resulting account of the causal conditions for knowledge is a theory of the pramfinas.

Now Nfig~rjuna would, I claim, hold that if such a procedure is carried out properly, then one would be justified in holding any belief that was induced through some causal route that was identified by the theory as a prams., a. Such beliefs would constitute knowledge. What Nfig~rjuna denies is that such beliefs in any way 'mirror' or 'cor-

N,~G,~RJUNA AS A N T I - R E A L I S T 317

respond to' a mind-independent existent. (See the commentary on VV 51.) Such beliefs may well deserve the title 'knowledge' -- if we have engaged in the process of reflective equilibrium with sufficient care, then such beliefs will no doubt meet the tests of worldly practice. But we cannot then claim that a belief induced by one of the causal routes we have identified as pram~nas corresponds to reality. This can be seen from the fact that, had we begun with a different stock of basic beliefs, or had we employed a different account of what counts as a cause of cognition, or had we assigned different weights to our criteria of theory acceptance (parsimony, elegance, etc.), the results of our inquiry might well have been quite different -- both in the account of the pramfu~.as arrived at and in the stock of beliefs deemed warranted by those pramS.as.

Now this may sound like a sceptical challenge, but it is not. It may sound as if the claim is that since we cannot know which of these schemes -- the one we have arrivedat, or one of the alternatives we might have arrived at under different assumptions -- is correct, we do not in fact possess knowledge about pram~.nas and prameyas. But this is no more an argument to the effect that we might be radically and systematically deceived, than is Putnam's 'brains in a vat' argument. The point is rather that since, on any of the multiplicity of possible schemes that might be arrived at through the process of reflective equilibrium, our beliefs would accord with our practice, it follows that the notion of the 'one right fit' between beliefs and world is empty. Realist and sceptic share the common assumption that there is one right fit. The sceptic merely denies what the realist affirms about the possibility of our attaining (and knowing that we have attained) the one right fit. The anti-realist exploits the apparent deadlock between realist and sceptic in order to undermine the shared assumption. If under the best possible epistemic circumstances (reflective equilib- rium) it still appears possible that we might be radically deceived, then we need to re-examine the notion of knowledge with which we began. And the problematic element in our account of knowledge does not lie in our account of justification -- even if we deny the KK thesis, it is still open to the sceptic to object that knowledge cannot be a matter of pure luck. The problem lies rather in our account of truth as cor- respondence between belief and world. If there are any number of

318 M A R K S I D E R I T S

distinct sets of beliefs each having equal epistemic warrant, then the notion of a right fit between beliefs and world must be idle and useless. We can have no conception whatever of what it would mean for a cognition to correspond to the nature of reality.

Put more formally, the argument is as follows:

1. We have cognitions. 2. Not all cognitions lead to successful practice. 3. We seek to improve our chances at successful practice. 4. Hence we seek reliable (success-inducing) causes of cognition --

those cognitions so caused we will believe, those not so caused we will not.

5. We can come to discriminate between reliable and unreliable causes of cognition only through the method of reflective equilib- rium (MRE).

6. MRE requires that we begin with (1) a finite (and relatively small) set of 'world intuitions' (e.g., that water quenches thirst); and (2) a set of beliefs about what counts as a cause of cognitions, prin- ciples of theory-acceptance, etc.

7. Suppose that, having arrived at reflective equilibrium and thus constructed an account of reliable causes of cognition, we use this account to acquire a set S of beliefs about the world. We will then be inclined to suppose that the members of S are (at least largely) true to the facts.

8. But we might have begun with different members for (1) and (2). 9. And such differences might have led to a different account of the

reliable causes of cognition, resulting in some alternative set S' of beliefs about the world (where S and S' are incompatible).

10. Because both S and S' were arrived at through MRE, each will equally well accord with our practice.

11. Hence there is no available method for deciding which of these two sets is more nearly true to the facts.

12. If there is no method for determining which of two incompatible sets of beliefs is more nearly true to the facts, then the notion that a belief is true to the facts is meaningless. Therefore while S may be epistemically warranted, it cannot be said to be true to the facts.

N,~G,~RJUNA AS A N T I - R E A L I S T 319

Two points are in order concerning this argument. The first is that the conclusion explicitly denies a thesis affirmed by both metaphysical realist and sceptic alike. This is the thesis that there is some set of beliefs that is true to the facts. The sceptic, of course, maintains that we can never know which beliefs belong to this set. But scepticism would lose all bite were it not to claim that there is some one way that the world is, and that we can imagine (though we cannot attain) possession of the set of beliefs that captures that one way. The present argument is that since we cannot imagine what it would be to possess the set of beliefs that is true to the facts, the notion that there is such a set is meaningless.

This brings me to my second point concerning this argument, which has to do with the verificationism found in (12). Verificationism has suffered from somewhat of a bad press in recent times. But this is, I think, due chiefly to the unduly restrictive form of verificationism employed by the logical positivists. A less restrictive form -- one that merely requires that there be some possible means of verification of a statement if that statement is to count as meaningful -- is quite sound. For it reflects the intuition that the meaning of a statement is its use -- the conditions under which the statement would be deemed assertible by the speakers of the language (See Dummett, 1978). Given this connection between meaning and use, it is plausible to suppose that if we are unable in principle to specify any situation that would count as verifying a statement, then that statement must be devoid of cognitive significance.

Nor is it implausible to attribute such a form of verificationism to Nfigfirjuna. For verificationist elements can already be detected in early Buddhism, namely in the Buddha's treatment of the 'indeter- minate questions'. There, not only are such questions as whether the world is eternal deemed pointless for the project of release from suffering. It is also pointed out that equally plausible inferences can be constructed for the claims that the world is eternal and that it is not, and neither claim is empirically verifiable. Thus such questions are not to be pursued because they are devoid of cognitive significance. We should not then be surprised to find Nfigfirjuna making implicit use of some form of verificationism.

What this argument shows is that if we follow the Nyfiya method of

320 MARK SIDERITS

discovering the pramfia3.as -- the method of epistemological reflective equilibrium -- then while employment of the thus discovered pramfinas will yield beliefs with epistemic warrant, beliefs that may properly be called knowledge, it would be illegitimate to conclude that such beliefs correspond to the nature of reality. For we are quite simply unable to give content to this notion of correspondence between cognition and facts. And this in turn means that while we may well have a use for the expression 'the way the world is', we are likewise unable to give content to the notion of the way that the world is independently of our cognitive activity. In short, if the Ny~ya method of establishing the pramfin.as is correct, then theses (1) and (2) of metaphysical realism are false.

There is another route to this conclusion as well, one which may better match the structure of Nfigfirjuna's argument. The infinite regress argument seems designed to force the pramfin, avfidin to concede that pramfina and prameya are mutually dependent -- that the pramfu~.as can be established only by making certain assumptions about the prameyas, and the prameyas can be established only by making certain assumptions about the pramfi0.as. We can see this feature at work in the method of reflective equilibrium: the basic stock of beliefs with which we begin represents a set of assumptions about the prameyas; and the views we hold concerning the criteria of theory acceptance and the manner in which cognitions are caused represent a set of assumptions about the pramfinas. Now there is one sense in which such mutual dependence is not a fault but a strength. Not only does this seem to be the best that we can do; having an account of the reliable causes of belief that is arrived at through the method of reflec- tive equilibrium actually seems to better our odds when it comes to attaining beliefs that make worldly practice go smoothly. But this feature of mutual dependence which is thus built into a theory of pramfi.nas shows that it is impossible to prise apart the contributions of 'world' and 'mind' to those beliefs that we know to be true. The content of our knowledge is in part determined by human needs, interests, and institutions. This is not, once again, to say that those beliefs we take to be knowledge are somehow distorted by these 'subjective' elements. Since it is in principle impossible to attain cognitions which are not so determined, we can have no notion of

NAGARJUNA AS ANTI-REALIST 321

what it would mean to have cognitions which were not 'distorted' in this way -- in which case the concept of distortion loses all purchase here.

The situation may be likened to what results once we accept Quine's point about the analytic-synthetic distinction. Since all observation is theory-laden, we must give up the notion that there might be sentences whose truth-value was determined solely by meaning, or sentences whose truth-value was determined solely by the facts. To say this is not to say that within a given language there can be no distinction whatever between meaning and fact. What this does show is that the notion of an ideal language -- a language whose semantic structure is isomorphous with the structure of reality -- is empty. And it shows this precisely because it shows that it is impossible to completely prise apart the respective contributions of semantic structure and of experience to our beliefs about the world.

Nfigfirjuna's point is likewise not that there can be no distinction between knowledge and error within a given set of epistemic practices. Nor is it even that there can be no improvement in the epistemic practices accepted by a given community. His point is rather that even when the pram~navfidin's project has been carried out, the set of beliefs that are arrived at as a result of this program cannot be said to mirror the nature and structure of a mind-independent reality. For we cannot give content to this notion of ideal correspondence between cognition and world unless we can be said to know the nature of the relata -- cognition and world -- in isolation from each other. The fact that pramfina and prameya are mutually dependent in the manner described above, shows that we can have no such conceptions of cognition and world. Thus we can have no idea what it means to say that our beliefs mirror the world. To say of a set of beliefs that they correspond to reality is to pay them an empty compliment. We would do better to say that they help make things go smoothly for us -- that they cohere with other beliefs we hold, and with our needs, interests, and institutions. To say this is to say that such beliefs constitute knowledge.

Put more formally, the argument is as follows:

1. We have cognitions.

322 MARK SIDERITS

2. Not all cognitions lead to successful practice. 3. We seek to improve our chances at successful practice. 4. Hence we seek reliable (success-inducing) causes of cognition --

those cognitions so caused we will believe, those not so caused we will not.

5. We can come to discriminate between reliable and unreliable causes of cognition only through MRE.

6. MRE requires that we begin with (1) a finite (and relatively small) set of 'world intuitions' (e.g., that water quenches thirst); and (2) a set of beliefs about what counts as a cause of cognitions, prin- ciples of theory-acceptance, etc.

7. Suppose that, having arrived at reflective equilibrium and thus constructed an account of reliable causes of cognition, we use this account to acquire a set S of beliefs about the world. We will then be inclined to suppose that the members of S are (at least largely) true to the facts.

8. (1) represents a set of assumptions about the world. 9. (2) represents a set of assumptions about the nature of belief.

10. Each belief in S is epistemically supported by those sets (1') and (2') whose members consist of the members of (1) and (2) respectively that survive MRE.

11. It is in principle impossible to arrive at S without employing both (1') and (2').

12. The epistemic support that each member of S receives from (1') and (2') is coherentist in nature.

13. Because of the nature of coherentist support, it is in principle impossible to distinguish between the epistemic support a member of S receives from (1') and that which it receives from (2').

14. We can say of some epistemically warranted belief that it is true to the facts only if it is at least in principle possible to distinguish between the truth-making contribution given that belief by the world and the truth-making contribution (if any) given that belief by the nature of our cognitive apparatus. Therefore we cannot say of S that its members are (at least largely) true to the facts.

This argument also employs a verificationist principle, which occurs

NAG,~RJUNA AS A N T I - R E A L I S T 323

in premiss (14). To see how this premiss can be justified, consider an objection that the metaphysical realist might make: while we agree that justification is coherentist in structure, this fact does not by itself show that truth does not consist in correspondence to a mind-independent reality. For it is possible that truth 'outruns' justification. That is, while it may be in principle impossible to prise apart the respective con- tributions of world and the nature of cognition to the justification we have for believing some proposition p, it is still possible that what makes p true (supposing that it is true) is that p corresponds to the nature of reality.

The anti-realist response is to ask what it would mean to say that p is made true by the world. That is, under what possible circumstances would we be justified in asserting that p is made true by the world? We could be so justified only if we were able to assure ourselves that p belongs to S not by virtue of the nature of cognition but solely be virtue of the nature of the world. And by (13) we could never have such assurance. Thus while we might seem to have something quite definite in mind when we entertain the possibility that truth outruns justification, we are in fact unable to conceive of a situation that would verify the claim that p is made true by the world. Hence the claim is quite devoid of meaning.

Here it is helpful to consider what we do have in mind when we entertain the possibility that truth outruns justification. We know, of course, of cases where we take ourselves to be justified in denying some proposition p that we subsequently discover to be true. We likewise know of cases where, while still accepting p, we now take ourselves to be better justified in accepting p than we formerly were. Both sorts of case may be accounted for in terms of the notion of improvements in our epistemic practices. And it is quite natural to say in either case that while p was true, we were not initially justified in accepting p (because of the epistemic practices we then employed). We must, though, resist the temptation to suppose that there might be true propositions which we would never be justified in accepting no matter what our epistemic practices. For when we seem to imagine this, we do so only by covertly smuggling in some cognizer (perhaps God) who is justified in accepting those propositions by virtue of that cognizer's epistemic practices. And once we bring this cognizer and

324 MARK SIDERITS

those epistemic practices out into the open, the problem of (13) reemerges: if the method of reflective equilibrium is the best epistemo- logical game in town, then what makes those propositions true is not their correspondence to the facts but their coherence with whatever count as the members of (1') and (2') for this cognizer. That is, we have not succeeded in imagining a situation in which truth outruns coherentist justification.

The argument is, then, that since on the Ny~ya account of epistem- ology pram~na and prameya are mutually dependent, the Naiyayikas must abandon either their theory of the pram~nas or else their meta- physical realism. And since N~g~rjuna would agree with Ny~ya that scepticism is untenable, while Nyaya pram~nav~da would strike N~g~rjuna as basically sound in its approach, it is metaphysical realism that should be abandoned.

For some time now, there have been two competing interpretations of the M~dhyamikas. First there is the crypto-Ved~.ntin interpretation, according to which N~g~rjuna and his followers maintain that the ultimate nature of reality is ineffable and apprehensible only through some sort of non-discursive mystical intuition. According to the second interpretation, the Madhyamika is to be taken at his word when he proclaims that emptiness is itself empty; his view is that the very notion of the ultimate nature of reality is a mere conceptual construc- tion arising out of conventional linguistic practice. Matilal clearly adheres to the first interpretation. The sceptic accepts the meta- physical realist's thesis that there is such a thing as the ultimate nature of reality; he merely despairs of the possibility that we can ever have knowledge (at least discursive knowledge) of it. I, on the other hand, obviously take the second interpretation to be correct. To say that all 'things' are empty is just to make the anti-realist point that we cannot give content to the metaphysical realist's notion of a mind-independent reality with a nature (whether expressible or inexpressible) that can be mirrored in cognition. Now textual evidence can be cited in support of either of these two interpretations. And it may well be that there is nothing in the Madhyamaka corpus that will by itself settle the issue. I suggest that in such cases we should look to other considerations in order to decide between competing interpretations -- e.g., to the principle of charity. I would also suggest that interpreting N~g~rjuna as

N A G . A R J U N A AS A N T I - R E A L I S T 325

an anti-realist allows us to attribute to him a more coherent and defensible position than results from viewing him as a sceptic and crypto-Vedfintin. This in turn makes it possible for us to continue the conversation between Mfidhyamika and Naiyfiyika in a way that is not open to us if we see their debate as just another instance of the realist- sceptic stalemate. And surely this too is a desideratum.

N O T E S

* In writing this paper I profited greatly from numerous discussions with Mark Timmons concerning anti-realism and the nature of justification.

See Vacaspati Mi~ra's Tattva Kaumadi on Sfi .mkhya Kfirikfi XVII; also gamkara's comment on Vedfinta Sfitra IIl.iii.54. The principle is also, according to Pitcher, at work in Wittgenstein's Tractatus; see George Pitcher, "lhe Philosophy of Wittgenstein, p. 147.

R E F E R E N C E S

Candrakirti. Prasannapad(~. Edited by Vaidya (1960). Dummett, Michael (1978). 'Truth'. In Truth and Other Enigmas. Cambridge: Harvard

University Press, pp. 1--24. Matilal, Bimal Krishna (1986). Perception: An Essay on Classical Indian "lheories of

Knowledge. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Nhgarjuna. Mt~lamadhyamakak6rikd. Edited by Vaidya (1960). Nagfirjuna. VigrahavydvartanL Edited by Vaidya (1960). Siderits, Mark (1980). 'The Madhyamaka Critique of Epistemology I.' Journal of

Indian Philosophy 8, pp. 307--335. Vaidya, P. L. (1960). Editor. Madhyamakaghstra of Ndgdrjuna (Mhlamadhyamaka-

karikas) with the Commentary: Prasannapadd by Candrakirti. Dharbanga: Mithila Institute.

Department of Philosophy Illinois State University, U.S.A.