Chapter 5　Self-application and immunity¶

Once the theorem is established, the first counterattack must turn on the theorem itself. You say that all assertions of a really existing ontological entity are self-contradictory. Where does your own sentence stand? The Vigrahavyāvartanī opens with this challenge from the opponent, and two thousand years later it is still the first counterquestion every reader thinks of. This chapter answers it directly. First it checks the scope of application, then states the level clauses, follows the full exchange in the Vigrahavyāvartanī, and finally makes precise the meaning of the two Chinese characters 無宗, "no thesis." Only if this chapter holds can the strong version avoid collapsing into itself. Here the four Chinese characters 空亦复空, "emptiness too is empty," receive an exact reading.

Checking the scope. For the opponent's charge to hold, T must fall within its own scope of application. T must itself be a D3-type proposition. Check this against the definitions in Chapter 1. A D3-type proposition asserts that there is at least one x such that E3(x) and D2(x). What does T assert? It says that all such assertions, together with the definitions and P, entail a contradiction. T posits no E3 item and grants nothing intrinsic nature. It operates at the meta level, warranting rejections at the object level. T is therefore outside D3's scope, and the charge misses. But the victory must not come too cheaply. If T were excluded only by an exemption carved out for it, the level clauses would amount to privilege. There is no exemption, however. The scope clause already excludes all E1 and E2 assertions. Long and short, this and that are outside it, as are assertions at the level of logic and conceptual grammar. T enters and leaves by the same door as they do. The principle is consistent. Only the combination of real existence and intrinsic nature is covered, never any statement that does not assert this combination.

The level clauses, formally stated. There are three. Clause (a), domain. T's quantifier ranges only over object-level D3-type propositions. The rejections it warrants, ⊣S1 through ⊣S4 and all others of the same form, likewise apply only at the object level. Clause (b), inventory of resources. T's own assertion uses only definitions, logic, and P as an analytic truth. Its validity needs no E3 item behind it, just as the validity of a logical truth needs no additional entity in the world to serve as its foundation. Clause (c), the exit for self-application. Emptiness and ultimate truth are not names of E3 items. If someone establishes emptiness as a really existent thing with intrinsic nature, saying that a thing called emptiness survives decomposition and analysis and is constituted without depending on other dharmas, that proposition is a standard D3 type. It falls within the scope and is rejected by the rule. "Emptiness too is empty" means exactly clause (c). The theorem rejects a reading that reifies its own name. It rejects reification, not the theorem. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā could hardly be clearer: "The Great Sage taught emptiness for the abandonment of all views. Those who hold that emptiness exists cannot be taught by the Buddhas." Qingmu's commentary uses medicine as its analogy: "It is like an illness that medicine can cure. If the medicine itself becomes the illness, it cannot be cured. Fire arising from fuel can be extinguished with water; if fire arises from water, what can extinguish it?"¹ Emptiness is medicine, not a new object of worship. Clause (c) is the instruction for taking this medicine. Nirvāṇa falls under the same rule, though it is outside the scope in a different way. If someone establishes nirvāṇa as a really existent thing with intrinsic nature, that proposition is a D3 type and is rejected by the rule; what is rejected is the reification, not nirvāṇa. But the theorem lies outside the scope because it is a rule at the meta level, while the baseline's nirvāṇa lies outside because it is an absence at the object level that was never set up as an item. The two kinds of "outside" must not be merged into one. Merge them, and nirvāṇa rises to the meta level and becomes the ultimate itself; the step that Essay 7 records in the tathāgatagarbha line is, formally, this promotion.

The bottom line states that the ultimate is expressed through language and that statements at the meta level are conventional discourse; “the ladder stands downstairs” is the English figure's metaphor for this point.

A corollary of clause (a): being outside the scope is not the same as being judged empty. T passes judgment only on D3-type propositions. If a term a never occupies the subject position of any D3-type proposition, T has no output for it: it neither judges that a has intrinsic nature nor judges that a is empty. "a is outside the scope" and "a is empty" are two different results. The latter is a verdict on an assertion of intrinsic nature; the former means that no verdict was ever handed down. An a that was never set up as an object, such as nibbāna without remainder in the baseline sense established in Chapter 2 of the Introduction to Volume 2, where the continuation of the aggregates simply does not resume, belongs to the former. Whoever reads "empty" off it has already supplied a D3-type proposition on its behalf, that is, has first set it up as an object; the boundary crossing in Chapter 25 recorded in Part II, Chapter 3 of the Madhyamaka essay in Volume 2 is, formally, this step. The corollary closes a gap in one direction, and the gap in the other direction must be closed at the same time: being outside the scope is not an exemption certificate that one can apply for. An a is outside the scope only because nobody asserts real existence with intrinsic nature on its behalf, and that condition cannot be met selectively. Anyone who wants to move their own supreme being outside the scope must likewise refrain from asserting E3 and D2 of it: not say that it really exists, not say that it is self-established, not give it any classifying predicate, and not assign it any office. Do all of that, and it is left, like the baseline's nirvāṇa, with nothing but a stopping point that issues no sentence. The second reading of the second door in Chapter 8 of this essay records exactly this posture, and the price is recorded there too: nothing remains in hand to refute, and equally nothing to believe in, to prove, or to seek. Fail to do all of that and still say that it exists, and the sentence is a D3 type that enters the scope by the rule; what the five routes of Chapter 8 handle is precisely a combination that wants to be both outside the scope and inside it. What nirvāṇa receives is not an exemption but an empty slot. Anyone can have the slot; the price is that nothing can be placed in it.

The full exchange in the Vigrahavyāvartanī. Here is the opponent's opening dilemma in full.² "If everything lacks a nature of its own, words are among everything. Words themselves then lack a nature of their own; how can they negate the nature of those things? If words have a nature of their own, your previously stated thesis is defeated." The first horn says that if your words too lack intrinsic nature, they have no power to negate. The second says that if your words have intrinsic nature, your universal proposition already has an exception. The two horns combine into one charge: refutation is either ineffective or self-destructive. Nāgārjuna replies in four steps, each corresponding to a tool this essay has already established.³ Answer 1, no thesis: "If I had a thesis, I would be at fault. Since I have no thesis, no such fault arises." Rejection is not assertion. Performing ⊣ does not by itself incur a ⊢ commitment with content. Even if ⊢¬A can be said under external negation, it only registers rejection and posits no E3 item. Chapter 3 has already marked this qualification. This is Lemma 1 appearing unchanged at the point of contest. The opponent's charge gains purchase only by reading negation as positing; negation does not itself posit. Answer 2, the conjured person: "As a conjured person acts against a conjured person, an illusory person against an illusory person, so too should rejection and what is rejected be understood." Language without intrinsic nature can still negate, just as an illusory person can block an illusory person. This exposes the hidden reef beneath the dilemma. Both horns share an undeclared premise, that only the really existent can function. That premise is itself within the theorem's field of application. Function has always proceeded without obstruction at E1 and E2. An army has no intrinsic nature and still wins battles. A national border has no intrinsic nature and still stops travellers. Chapter 2 established that using function to establish real existence is half of the opponent's own criterion. Making real existence a prerequisite of function, however, is the assertion rejected by this whole essay. The opponent's dilemma makes the defendant the judge. Answer 3, turning the blade back: "What is it that you reject? What you reject is empty. There is rejection while dharmas are empty; thus your contention fails." If the opponent insists that what lacks intrinsic nature cannot negate, the opponent's negation of my position likewise lacks intrinsic nature and likewise cannot negate. As soon as the opponent speaks, half the position collapses. Answer 4, the close: "Words have no nature of their own, nor does what is spoken of. Thus I am without fault and need give no superior reason." Language is dependently originated and empty, empty and effective. Declaring oneself without fault requires no higher entity as guarantor. Taken together, the four replies dissolve the opponent's dilemma under the level clauses. The first horn mistakes E3 support for a necessary condition of negating. The second mistakes a meta-level assertion for a member of the object level. The theorem is unaffected and gains another exhibit: even the fiercest charge of self-application uses the rejected presupposition that only the really existent can function.

The regress of means of knowledge. Another exchange in the Vigrahavyāvartanī answers from afar to Chapter 1. The opponent asks by what means of knowledge your refutation is established: "If means of knowledge establish dharmas, they in turn are established by means of knowledge. Tell us where the means of knowledge is that can establish these means of knowledge." If a means of knowledge requires another as guarantor, the regress is endless. If it establishes itself, that is privilege: "If a means of knowledge can establish itself without depending on its object, then it establishes itself without depending on another to establish it."⁴ This and Chapter 1's boundary clause for definitions are two sides of the same problem. A chain of definitions needs a stopping point, as does a chain of reasons. This essay gives the same answer to both. The chain stops at analytic truth and conceptual grammar. Analytic truth is not guaranteed as a stopping point by some higher means of knowledge, but by its negation's lack of content. Lacking content means having neither a situation in which it can hold nor a functioning role within a framework. Chapter 7 distinguishes the detailed levels. The section closing the opening in Chapter 4 has already supplied the argument. To demand that each link of justification have a self-established entity serving as a means of knowledge behind it smuggles the E3 schema into epistemology. Refuse the schema and the chain naturally closes. Scepticism gains nothing from this.

The exact meaning of no thesis. We can now make precise the two Chinese characters 無宗, "no thesis." Commitments occupy two levels. An object-level metaphysical thesis asserts that something really exists with intrinsic nature. Meta-level statements of conceptual grammar and logic comprise definitions, lemmas, and P. What Nāgārjuna's "no thesis" lacks is the former. Every entry in this essay's premise inventory will be typed in Chapter 9's audit table as definition, logic, or analytic truth. None is a thesis positing E3. The opponent has one last question. Is saying "no thesis" not itself a thesis? The answer is that this sentence reports on an inventory of commitments. Reporting that the inventory is empty does not add an item to it. Reifying the report as another thesis performs the same move as reifying emptiness as a thing. Clause (c) is already waiting. Modern interpretations offer points of comparison. Westerhoff's discussion of verse 29 likewise locates "no thesis" at the semantic level rather than treating it as rhetoric.⁵ The article by Tillemans and Lopez on how to speak of nonexistence without establishing a thesis takes the same path as a speech-act analysis of pure negation.⁶

What this chapter delivers. Three level clauses: domain, inventory of resources, and the exit for self-application. A corollary of clause (a): being outside the scope is not being judged empty, and being outside the scope is not an exemption that anyone can claim. The four answers of the Vigrahavyāvartanī and the record of the dilemma's dissolution, plus another exhibit: the charge of self-application itself presupposes that only the really existent can function. The twin relationship between the regress of means of knowledge and the boundary of definitions, with their common stopping point. A definition of no thesis by levels, for use in Chapter 9's audit table. The theorem has warded off the blow aimed at itself without borrowing anything. It still uses only Chapter 3's lemmas and Chapter 1's clauses. The next chapter examines its other half. It not only stands on its own but upholds everything.

A plain-language restatement follows, under the same rule as before: change only the language and add no content. Where the two diverge, the upper half governs.

Here comes the returning blow. You say that every statement claiming a solid ontological entity is self-contradictory. What about your own sentence? Is it one of those statements? At the opening of the Vigrahavyāvartanī, the opponent puts the question at its sharpest. If your words too are empty, they have no power and can negate nothing. If they are not empty, "everything is empty" already has an exception. Both ends are blocked.

First check its jurisdiction. Our proposition governs statements claiming that at least one thing in the world is solidly existent and constitutes itself. The proposition itself says nothing of the kind. It establishes not a single ontological entity. It only says that anyone who establishes such an entity utters a claim that entails a contradiction. It therefore does not appear on its own list. This is no special exception for itself. Tables, chairs, and electrons are not on the list; long and short, this and that are not on it; every statement that posits no ontological entity is outside it. Our sentence uses the same door as all of them.

Then set three rules. First, this judging machine handles only object-level ontological claims. Second, it runs on definitions, logic, and the premise of conceptual grammar alone. No solid thing underpins it, just as a logical truth needs no plot of land rented in the world. Third, and most important, emptiness is not the name of a new thing. Anyone who treasures emptiness as something solid and says that there is a thing called emptiness, which cannot be smashed apart and relies on nothing else, immediately produces the kind of statement this machine handles. It is rejected by the rule. "Emptiness too is empty" means this third rule. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā says it: "The Great Sage taught emptiness for the abandonment of all views. Those who hold that emptiness exists cannot be taught by the Buddhas." The commentator's analogy is sharper still. Emptiness is medicine. If medicine itself becomes the illness, there is no cure. Water can put out fire, but if fire burns from the water, what will put it out? Nirvāṇa is the same, though it leaves by a different road. Treasure it as something solid and the sentence is rejected by the rule; what is rejected is the worship, not nirvāṇa. But keep the two kinds of "outside" apart. This machine is outside because it is a rule. Nirvāṇa is outside because it is a gap that was never set up as anything. Merge the two and nirvāṇa turns into the rule itself, into ultimate reality; that is how the step Essay 7 describes in tathāgatagarbha thought was taken.

The three rules carry a corollary. This machine judges only statements that set up an entity. If something has never been set up by anyone as an entity, the machine has no output for it: it does not say that the thing has an entity, and it does not say that the thing is empty. Never coming up for judgment and being judged empty are two different things. Nibbāna without remainder, as early Buddhism speaks of it, belongs to the first: a process simply stopped, and nobody ever said on its behalf that it was something solid and self-established. To read the word "empty" off it is to set it up as a thing first and then call it empty; the chapter in Volume 2 on the boundary crossing in Chapter 25 is about exactly this step. The point cannot be run backwards. Never coming up for judgment is not an inspection waiver to be picked up on request. To keep one's own god out of the machine's reach, one must likewise not say that it solidly exists, not say that it stands on its own, not give it a single adjective, and not assign it a single task. Do that, and it is left, like that nirvāṇa, with nothing but a stopping point that cannot be spoken; the second door of Chapter 8 describes this posture, and the price is written there: nothing left to refute, and so nothing left to believe in, to prove, or to seek. Fail to do that and still say that it exists, and the sentence goes back on the machine's list; the five routes of Chapter 8 deal with exactly this wanting to be both outside and inside. What nirvāṇa gets is not an exemption but an empty slot. Anyone can have the slot; the price is that nothing can be put in it.

Now follow the exchange in the Vigrahavyāvartanī. The opponent challenges from both ends; Nāgārjuna replies in four steps. First, I have no thesis, so I have no fault. Rejecting is not asserting the reverse. I push your claim back without adding a claim of my own. Blocking both ends presupposes that my rejection is yet another claim; what is refuted is something you yourself have posited. Second, an illusory person can block an illusory person. Words do not have to be solidly real themselves to do work. An army is no solidly real thing and still wins battles. A national border is no solidly real thing and still stops travellers. The hidden support for blocking both ends is the claim that only solidly real things can act. That is precisely the claim our whole essay refutes. Make the defendant the judge and of course the case cannot be won. Third, the counterquestion. By your account, your words refuting mine are empty too, so your refutation fails first. Fourth, the close. My words come together through conditions and are empty, yet they still work. Saying that I am without fault needs no higher entity brought in as guarantor.

One smaller exchange deserves a look on its own. The opponent asks what warrants your proof. Every warrant needs another behind it, endlessly. If a warrant guarantees itself, that is privilege. This is the same question as whether definitions in Chapter 1 must go on defining forever. The answer is the same too. The chain stops at conceptual grammar and definitions. Why can it stop there? Not because some greater warrant is hidden there, but because the opposite of conceptual grammar has no content, leaving nothing to choose. To insist on a self-established foundation behind every warrant smuggles the schema of solid existence into reasoning itself. Refuse that schema and the chain closes naturally, leaving scepticism no advantage to pick up.

Finally, make "I have no position" clear. Positions occupy two levels. Saying that there is some solidly real thing in the world is one. Definitions, logic, and conceptual grammar are another. Nāgārjuna has none at the first level, and neither does our premise inventory. Chapter 9 will display every entry. Someone objects that saying you have no position is itself a position. It is not. It is a declaration about an inventory: the inventory is empty. When the instructions say "This box contains no fragile items," that sentence is not itself a fragile item. If someone insists on enshrining it as one, the third rule awaits.

This chapter has warded off the returning blow without borrowing any outside resources. It has used the tools prepared in the earlier chapters. The next chapter examines the other half of its ability. This proposition not only holds in its own right but upholds the whole everyday world.

References¶