Temple University Philosophy Colloquium Series presents a lecture by Dr. Ricki Bliss (Lehigh University) titled: Nāgārjuna, PSR AND MADHYAMAKA ANTI-RATIONALISM

The recent literature has witnessed a somewhat surprising development in the Western understanding of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka Buddhism: it has been argued that the full-blown PSR – the principle according to which everything has a reason for its existence – is at work in Nāgārjuna’s Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (MMK). This is surprising because the PSR is commonly taken to be the hallmark of rationalism, whereas Nāgārjuna is standardly understood to advance a radical kind of anti-rationalism.

To resist this conclusion – that the PSR is at work in the MMK – requires more than establishing that the principle is false, or that it is false for Nāgārjuna. One can endorse false principles; and one can endorse principles while failing to hold views that validate their truth. To resist this conclusion requires, instead, establishing that Nāgārjuna does not endorse the principle in the first place. In this talk, I develop a means by which one might reasonably resist the attribution to Nāgārjuna of a commitment to the PSR: a line of resistance that has the added benefit of not simply accommodating, but giving a philosophical foundation to, Nāgārjuna’s anti-rationalism.