Nāgārjuna’s Concept of Emptiness in Comparison with Schopenhauer and Aristotle
Abstract
One of the most difficult and controversial concepts in Buddhism is the concept of emptiness or śūnyatā. It often attracts the attention of Western thinkers, who expend much effort either to embrace or reject it. Hence, this concept had led to many contradictory interpretations and endless discussions. Emptiness, or śūnyatā, has been so often misunderstood, not only in the West, but also in India itself, even during Nāgārjuna’s own time. Out of this bed of conflicting interpretations lies the motivation for this article to assist in the understanding of the concept of śūnyatā. I will focus on the concept as taught by the Indian monk Nāgārjuna of the Mādhyamika school. In pursuing this approach, I will show a corresponding interpretation of another Mādhyamika monk, Śāntideva, and will reveal parallels to the 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. In order to demonstrate an opposing theory, I will contrast Nāgārjuna’s concept to the theory of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Consent to Publish and Transfer of Copyright
By publishing in Prajñā Vihāra, the author agrees to transfer and assign to Assumption University of Thailand as the Publisher of the Journal, the copyright to the Article in any form, including any and all rights, interests and claims related to it.
The author does retain the following rights:
- The right to make further copies of the published article for their use in classroom teaching.
- The right to reuse all or part of the published article in a compilation of his or her own works or in textbooks of which they are the author or coauthor.
- The right to make copies of the published article for internal distribution within their academic institution.
- All proprietary rights other than copyright, such as patent rights.
- The Article is his or her original work, and has not been published previously and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.
- It does not contain any matter that is obscene, libelous, or contrary to law.
- They have obtained the necessary license or written authority and paid any and all related fees for the use and reproduction of text, tables, illustrations and other copyrighted work from the owners of the intellectual property rights, and can furnish the Publisher copies of the license/written authority and proof of payment of related fees upon the signing of this Agreement.
- They have the consent of the Co-Authors of the article upon the signing of this Agreement.
- In the event that they intend to republish, reprint or translate all or part of the Article in other publications, they will secure the prior written permission from the journal Editor.
Prajñā Vihāra adopts the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND) license