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Burton

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Position summary

Burton argues that Nāgārjuna’s philosophy of emptiness, read in its Abhidharma context, entails nihilism contrary to Nāgārjuna’s own intentions. A universal absence of svabhāva means all entities are entirely conceptually constructed (prajñaptimātra). Conceptual construction requires both an unconstructed material basis and an unconstructed constructing agent. Nāgārjuna denies any unconstructed existent, so on Burton’s reading nothing can exist, and Nāgārjuna becomes an unwitting nihilist. Burton rejects two rival readings: the sceptical one (in fact Nāgārjuna does claim knowledge) and the mystical one (Nāgārjuna’s knowledge is not trans-rational gnosis). He favours the view that Nāgārjuna intended an ontological critique of svabhāva, but he argues that the critique, taken to its logical conclusion, destroys the very entities it was meant to preserve.

Hermeneutical approach

Burton deliberately disengages from the later commentarial tradition. He reads Nāgārjuna as a second-century Indian Buddhist working in an Abhidharma context, and is “careful not to import what are actually later Mādhyamika concepts, terminology, and arguments, attributing them naively to Nāgārjuna.” He does cite Candrakīrti, Tsongkhapa, mKhas grub rje, Gorampa, and the Eighth Karmapa, but only as later interpreters whose readings may diverge from Nāgārjuna’s own positions. Throughout, he applies analytic philosophical categories (scepticism, nihilism, the given, solipsism) and assumes a trans-historical rationality. The book began as a doctoral thesis under Paul Williams at Bristol.

Key claims

On the two truths and non-conceptuality (Emptiness Appraised Ch 3)

Burton’s fullest engagement with the two-truths problem runs through what he calls reality₁ / reality₂. He confronts an apparent contradiction in Nāgārjuna. Reality is the absence of svabhāva, which is conceptual and expressible; yet reality is also niṣprapañca / nirvikalpa, non-conceptual and inexpressible. To resolve this he weighs two incompatible options:

  • Interpretation (1): equivocate on “reality”. Here reality₁ is the conceptualisable absence of svabhāva (Bhāvaviveka’s specifiable paryāya ultimate), while reality₂ is an unconceptualisable ultimate apprehended only by non-conceptual gnosis (Bhāvaviveka’s unspecifiable aparyāya ultimate). Burton names Jizang, the Tibetan yod min med min position, and, following Williams, Mipham as proponents. He rejects the reading on four counts: it is self-refuting (conceptualising the unconceptualisable); it turns the two truths into an unbridgeable chasm and so into relativism; it is Hegel’s “night in which all cows are black”, a contentless reality known by a knowledge that discriminates nothing (Dummett, Katz, Bagger); and it risks “despotism”, an unaccountable teacher.
  • Interpretation (2): there is no reality₂. The non-conceptuality language describes the character of the meditative experience of knowing the absence of svabhāva. It is “non-conceptual” in three benign senses: knowledge by acquaintance (the taimirika eye-disease analogy; dṛṣṭi → darśana), lack of explicit conceptualisation (Heidegger, the pianist), and focussed samādhi. This is his preferred reading, though he presses two charges against it as well: emptiness taken as a “mere absence” may collapse into the cessation, and his own Ch 4 nihilism would leave no entities to bear emptiness.

Two features of his treatment stand out. First, on the emptiness of emptiness he is not silent. At MA VI.186 (p. 68) he reads śūnyatāśūnyatā as denying that emptiness is a dngos po / bhāva (a mind-independent existent), which is the non-foundationalist gloss, even though his Ch 4 regress depends on a foundationalist demand. Second, his critique of interpretation (1) is a modern analytic attack on the apophatic / gnosis wing of the Mahāyāna framework (Gorampa and Mipham). It is distinct from the Abhidharma regress, and he mounts it while himself agreeing that no separate reality₂ Absolute exists.

  • Westerhoff — directly responds to Burton’s nihilism charge in On the Nihilist Interpretation of Madhyamaka
  • Walser — endorses Burton’s reading of MMK 24:18 (dependent origination ≡ prajñaptisat), but reframes the move as a strategic alliance with the Prajñaptivādins / Saṃmitīyas rather than a regress-generating category mistake. Walser’s institutional reading of the MMK (walser-nagarjuna-2005 Ch. 7 pp. 234–235) complicates the framework-removal-yields-nihilism diagnosis. If Walser is right, Burton has recovered something Nāgārjuna actually built, not committed a category mistake.
  • Paul Williams — Burton’s doctoral supervisor, shares the nihilism concern; Burton acknowledges substantial debt to Williams’ interpretation
  • Kalupahana — Burton explicitly rejects Kalupahana’s reading but both remove the Mahāyāna framework
  • Tsongkhapa — Burton acknowledges the dGe lugs pa “emptiness of emptiness” solution as “the most ingenious attempted solution” to the nihilism paradox
  • Gorampa — mentioned as holding the “trans-rational gnosis” interpretation; the target (with Mipham) of Burton’s Ch 3 critique of interpretation (1)
  • Mipham — named (via Williams) as a proponent of interpretation (1); Burton’s night-of-black-cows / relativism critique is aimed at Mipham’s gnosis-reading. The rebuttal turns on a distinction Burton misses: Mipham’s zung ‘jug ultimate is not Burton’s separate reality₂ (see Mipham and burton-emptiness-appraised-1999 note 9).
  • Bhāviveka — Burton frames reality₁/reality₂ on Bhāviveka’s specifiable/unspecifiable two-ultimates structure (paryāya / aparyāya-paramārtha)
  • Eighth Karmapa — mentioned as holding the nature of things to be “quite ‘other’ than the conceptualisable world”

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