The Radical Emptiness of Empty Terms: Saving the Buddhists from the Nyāya

Chapter
Part of the Sophia Studies in Cross-cultural Philosophy of Traditions and Cultures book series (SCPT, volume 13)

Abstract

This paper describes a certain interpretation of the Buddhists’ view of empty terms argued for by J.L. Shaw in his paper “Empty Terms: the Nyāya and the Buddhists”, and then defends a view of empty terms that in some ways bears a striking resemblance to what Shaw wants to say. The main aim in this paper to show how some of the intuitions that might have led to their view (if Shaw is right) can be given a sympathetic explanation in terms of some recent ideas in philosophical logic. At the end of the paper I suggest that, even if my account fails as an interpretation of the Buddhists’ view, it fits well with a certain ideal of radical emptiness that may have formed part of the Buddhists’ world-view, and to that extent is a view that the Buddhists may have found congenial.

Keywords

Buddhist Empty terms Nyaya Radical emptiness Logic 
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Copyright information

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of PhilosophyUniversity of AucklandAucklandNew Zealand

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