Westerhoff

Position summary

Westerhoff is professor at the University of Oxford (Lady Margaret Hall) and one of the most prolific contemporary scholars of Madhyamaka. His interpretive approach is distinctive in combining rigorous analytic philosophy with serious engagement with traditional Indian and Tibetan commentarial sources. He reads Sanskrit and Tibetan and works directly with primary texts.

In westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009, Westerhoff presents Nāgārjuna’s philosophy as a unified systematic project centred on the denial of substance (svabhāva as substance-svabhāva). His central innovation is a threefold analysis of svabhāva — essence-svabhāva, substance-svabhāva, and absolute svabhāva — which he argues reduces to a twofold distinction: absolute svabhāva is essence-svabhāva applied universally (emptiness is the essential property of all objects). The resulting position is a general metaphysical anti-realism and anti-foundationalism, combined with epistemological contextualism and truth as warranted assertibility. He insists on the cognitive dimension of svabhāva: it is not merely a theoretical concept but a cognitive default requiring meditative practice to overcome.

In westerhoff-nihilist-interpretation-2016, he pushes this framework further, arguing that the nihilist interpretation of Madhyamaka is both textually and philosophically defensible — but only in a carefully qualified form. His “consistent nihilism” (eliminativism about the dependent + non-foundationalism) avoids the five forms of nihilism that Madhyamaka explicitly rejects. He proposes an “equilibrium principle” whereby the best interpretation of Madhyamaka is opponent-relative: against today’s naturalistic realism, the nihilist reading provides the sharpest edge.

In westerhoff-vigrahavyavartani-2010, Westerhoff produces a verse-by-verse translation and commentary on Nāgārjuna’s Vigrahavyāvartanī — the only one of Nāgārjuna’s works to survive with its autocommentary. The volume is continuous with the 2009 monograph in tone (constructive antirealist, not polemical-nihilist) and applies the svabhāva-as-substance framework systematically to a single primary text. Distinctive contributions: a sophisticated reading of the no-thesis verse (VV 29) as a rejection of two-flavor (realist + conventionalist) semantics rather than as a self-refuting assertion of asserting nothing whatsoever; treatment of the long epistemology section (vv. 30–51) as a positive anti-foundationalist alternative to Nyāya pramāṇa theory rather than mere dialectical refutation; defence of VV’s authenticity against Tola & Dragonetti 1998. Notes the structural parallel between the “Madhyamaka dilemma” (vv. 1–2) and contemporary debates about global relativism (Boghossian, Rorty), without equating Madhyamaka with relativism.

In westerhoff-golden-age-madhyamaka-2018 (Chapter 2 of The Golden Age of Indian Buddhist Philosophy, OUP), Westerhoff produces the historical-synthetic counterpart to the systematic 2009 monograph. Distinctive contributions: locates the Mahāyāna ↔ Madhyamaka link in the illusionism of the Prajñāpāramitā (possibly grounded in early Mahāyāna meditative practice, the Pratyutpanna-samādhi-sūtra) rather than in any specific doctrine; defends the coherence of traditional Nāgārjuna biography against modern naturalising “multiple Nāgārjunas” reductions, recommending bracketing of contemporary historiographical assumptions; advances the strong Walser-following thesis (citing walser-nagarjuna-2005 directly) that MMK’s Tripiṭaka-only citations are strategic (Mahāyāna-minority audience-design) rather than evidence MMK is non-Mahāyāna, naming Warder and Kalupahana on the standalone-MMK side and Ruegg/Lindtner/Bronkhorst as “remain unconvinced”; declares the Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika split a “doxographic fiction” with both terms as Tibetan retranslations and Avalokitavrata drawing no distinction between Buddhapālita and Bhāviveka; and warns explicitly against over-application of Tsongkhapa-style two-truths interpolation, citing Lopez 2006 for “a modern Tibetan criticism of this ‘interpolation procedure.‘”

In westerhoff-vaidalyaprakarana-2018 (Wisdom / AIBS, Treasury of the Buddhist Sciences), Westerhoff produces the first sustained English translation and analytic commentary on the Vaidalyaprakaraṇa (Crushing the Categories), Nāgārjuna’s chapter-length critique of the sixteen Naiyāyika categories. The volume is the natural companion to the 2010 Vigrahavyāvartanī commentary — same constructive antirealist tone, same anti-foundationalist reading of the pramāṇa critique, both dealing with non-MMK Yukti-corpus texts that lack commentarial tradition. Distinctive contributions: defends VP authenticity against Tola–Dragonetti and Pind; reads the text as constructive desubstantialisation rather than dialectical fireworks (the categories are retained in svabhāva-free form, not abolished tout court); rebuts the modern characterisation of the VP arguments as “sophistries” (Lindtner, Pind, Kajiyama) on principle-of-charity grounds; aligns with Tsong Khapa’s Ocean of Reasoning triad reading (MMK refutes the probandum, VP the probans, VV defends the conventional validity of refutation itself); and shows that the VP’s actual argumentative practice does not fit the later Tibetan Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika typology — independent confirmation of westerhoff-golden-age-madhyamaka-2018’s “doxographic fiction” verdict.

In westerhoff-candrakirti-2024, Westerhoff applies the 2009 framework to a specific text — Candrakīrti’s Madhyamakāvatāra — verse by verse. The volume is closer in tone to the 2009 monograph than to the 2016 nihilism article: it is a constructive antirealist reading rather than a polemical defence of nihilism. Distinctive contributions: a “fire screen” image of conventional truth as constructed-to-conceal (MA 6:028); a clear formulation of “semantic insulation” between the two truths (MA 6:031, citing Siderits); the warning that Madhyamaka does not posit “an ontologically free-standing rock-bottom layer of reality” behind appearances (MA 6:035); and a revival of Phya pa Chos kyi seng ge’s six twelfth-century questions (Introduction b) as a pre-Tsongkhapa enumeration of the criteria at stake in the Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika debate, convergent with Ruegg’s six and Dzongsar Khyentse’s six.

Hermeneutical approach

Westerhoff engages extensively with traditional commentaries (Candrakīrti’s Prasannapadā, Asańga’s Bodhisattvabhūmi, Vasubandhu’s Abhidharmakośa) and treats them as philosophically substantive, not merely historical documents. He also draws on Gendun Chöpel’s modern Tibetan critique of Geluk interpretive narrowness. At the same time, he freely deploys Western analytic categories (eliminativism, non-foundationalism, dependence-structures) as tools for reconstruction.

He operates within the hermeneutical framework (Two Truths, conventional/ultimate distinction) even when his conclusion (Madhyamaka as a form of nihilism) appears provocative. This is what distinguishes him from Burton and Williams, who apply Western philosophical categories without the traditional interpretive context.

Key claims

• Nāgārjuna’s philosophy is a unified systematic project, not a quarry of isolated arguments — all chapters converge on the denial of substance-svabhāva (from westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009)
• Three senses of svabhāva (essence, substance, absolute) reduce to two: absolute svabhāva = essence-svabhāva of all objects = emptiness (from westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009)
• Svabhāva has an irreducible cognitive dimension: it is a conceptual superimposition the mind automatically projects onto phenomena, requiring practice (not just argument) to remove (from westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009)
• Causation is conceptually constructed: within a presentist framework, one relatum must always be mentally supplied (from westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009)
• The “ineffable substance” view (Murti, Stcherbatsky, Dharmapāla) fails: positing objects “beyond conceptual frameworks” still assumes mind-independent entities (from westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009)
• The persistent charge of nihilism against Madhyamaka across two millennia points to real features of the system, not mere incomprehension (from westerhoff-nihilist-interpretation-2016)
• A consistent nihilism can be built from eliminativist + non-foundationalist premises, and it is compatible with Madhyamaka (from westerhoff-nihilist-interpretation-2016)
• The five forms of nihilism Madhyamaka rejects (extreme view, annihilationism, denial of efficacy, reified non-existence, moral nihilism) are distinct from this consistent nihilism (from westerhoff-nihilist-interpretation-2016)
• The right interpretation of Madhyamaka is opponent-relative (equilibrium principle) (from westerhoff-nihilist-interpretation-2016)

Further note from the wiki author’s personal notes (2025)

Westerhoff’s Introduction to westerhoff-madhyamaka-2009 (under “Methodological Considerations”) is the source of a passage that tenpa-personal-notes-2025 uses to ground the framework-necessity argument at the level of genre: Indian philosophical texts are versified memory-structures intended to be filled in by commentary and a teacher’s oral elaboration, not self-contained expositions in the Western sense. This grounds the framework requirement in the structure of the text itself, not merely in the doctrinal content. Westerhoff is therefore an unexpected ally on the framework-necessity claim even where his substantive conclusions (sophisticated nihilism) diverge from this wiki’s preferred reading.

Related scholars

• Agrees with Siderits on eliminativism/reductionism distinctions
• Directly responds to Burton and Williams — refutes their nihilism charges
• Draws on Candrakīrti’s Prasannapadā as primary textual evidence
• Cites Gendun Chöpel approvingly as precedent for widening the object of negation
• Engages with Asańga and Vasubandhu as Buddhist critics of Madhyamaka