Antisubstantialism in Nāgārjuna
Keywords:
antisubstantialism, metaphysics, svabhāva (own nature), śūnyatā (emptiness), upāya kauśalya (skill in means), language , realityAbstract
Perhaps the most profound and significant criticism of substantialist metaphysics in antiquity comes from Nāgārjuna. Even though understanding his argument requires to grasp to whom his critique is directed, it is still possible to show that Nāgārjuna's negative arguments go beyond the intellectual environment of classical India: they force us to revise the usual ways of thinking about the relationship between language and reality in a very different direction from substantialist metaphysics. Still, we can use language meaningfully as long as we understand it as an instrument to facilitate the experience of truth, never as a container for it.
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