Nagarjuna's Tetralemma
Catu?ko?i
Tetralemma
As regards any proposition p, there are four stances:
1. p [p]
2. ~p [Not p]
3. p & ~p [p and not p]
4. ~(p v ~p) [neither p nor not p]
Buddhists consider these four to be extremes and deny them all like so:
1. p Nyet!
2. ~p Nyet!
3. p & ~p Nyet!
4. ~(p v ~p) Nyet!
The Buddhist Denial = Nyet!
What's left after the fourfold denial is the middle path (madhyamaka). It feels apophatic in nature: We know what the madhyamaka is not, but we don't (seem to) know what it is.
It looks as though Nyet both is and isn't Logical Negation.
Please discuss...
Tetralemma
As regards any proposition p, there are four stances:
1. p [p]
2. ~p [Not p]
3. p & ~p [p and not p]
4. ~(p v ~p) [neither p nor not p]
Buddhists consider these four to be extremes and deny them all like so:
1. p Nyet!
2. ~p Nyet!
3. p & ~p Nyet!
4. ~(p v ~p) Nyet!
The Buddhist Denial = Nyet!
What's left after the fourfold denial is the middle path (madhyamaka). It feels apophatic in nature: We know what the madhyamaka is not, but we don't (seem to) know what it is.
It looks as though Nyet both is and isn't Logical Negation.
Please discuss...
Comments (74)
I think the OP suffers from lack of context. The 'meta-question' to ask is, why did N?g?rjuna deploy this method? The answer to that question revolves around the cultural context of N?g?rjuna's writings. He came along about half a millenium after the Buddha, after there had been considerable codification of the Buddha's teachings through the scholastic form known as 'abhidharma'. There had also been long debates with the Brahmin opponents of the Buddha, Vedanta and Sankya among others.
The madyhamika emerged as a dialectic in the true philosophical sense - a debate concerning first principles between two apparently conflicting perspectives. The protagonists were on the Buddhist side the abhidharmikas and on the other side, the Vedic schools such as Vedanta and Sankya (a dualist school which is often compared to Cartesian dualism).
Another point about N?g?rjuna is that his writing is exceedingly terse. The articles in the famous Madhyamikakarika which carried this logical reasoning are often translated into single sentences or other gnomic remarks. This has given rise to a plethora of interpretations and not a little confusion over the centuries. The article contains some explanation of that.
So that's some of the background required to really make sense of N?g?rjuna's logic. Reduced to symbolic form, it may not be especially meaningful, especially considering that N?g?rjuna's aim was first and foremost soteriological (i.e. concerned with attaining Nirvana).
I posted the thread in the logic category for a reason. My focus is on the logic of the tetralemma, to be precise how what I referred to as The Buddhist Denial (Nyet) is like and unlike the Logical Negation we're all familiar with.
When a Buddhist says "nyet" to a proposition p, s/he means not p, but then stops short of affirming ~p. This is a very subtle point, at least to me, and the OP was meant to highlight this unique feature of The Buddhist Denial (Nyet).
If I'm wrong, Buddhists would be, well, running around in circles with denial of one corner would result in taking you to the next corner (this is true for at least p and ~p within a logical negation framework) - it's kinda like a trap you see, for the mind. To escape, one must deny (Nyet) without affirming the negation of what one denies. For example, no (Nyet), god exists doesn't mean yea, god doesn't exist.
Something like that...
Still not as clear on the topic as I'd like to be.
Muchas gracias for providing some context for the OP.
The verse below is taken verbatim from one of the early Buddhist texts, and is often said to be the origin for N?g?rjuna's Madhyamika (MIddle-way) school. In it the Buddha declines to answer a direct question with either 'yes' or 'no'.
[quote=Ananda Sutta; https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn44/sn44.010.than.html]Then the wanderer Vacchagotta went to the Blessed One and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with him. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there he asked the Blessed One: "Now then, Venerable Gotama, is there a self?"
When this was said, the Blessed One was silent.
"Then is there no self?"
A second time, the Blessed One was silent.
Then Vacchagotta the wanderer got up from his seat and left.
Then, not long after Vacchagotta the wanderer had left, Ven. Ananda said to the Blessed One, "Why, lord, did the Blessed One not answer when asked a question by Vacchagotta the wanderer?"
"Ananda, if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of eternalism [the view that there is an eternal, unchanging soul]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, that would be conforming with those brahmans & contemplatives who are exponents of annihilationism [the view that death is the annihilation of consciousness]. If I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is a self — were to answer that there is a self, would that be in keeping with the arising of knowledge that all phenomena are not-self?"
"No, lord."
"And if I — being asked by Vacchagotta the wanderer if there is no self — were to answer that there is no self, the bewildered Vacchagotta would become even more bewildered: 'Does the self I used to have now not exist?'"[/quote]
It should be noted, 'the wanderer Vachagotta' is the figure who often poses philosophical questions of which this is one instance. See also this index of questions which likewise are met with the customary 'noble silence'.
1. p No! Ergo ~p
2. ~p No! Ergo p
As you can see, with 1 and 2 we're running in circles between p and ~p.
3. p & ~p No! Ergo p v ~p
4. ~(p v ~p) No! Ergo p v ~p
Here the situation is different, both 3 and 4, negated, lead to p v ~p (the law of the excluded middle).
As is obvious, 1, 2 and 3, 4, together is basically the law of the excluded middle (LEM). What is the importance of LEM to Buddhism? Note here that Nagarjuna's tetralemma is being interpreted in terms of Western logic (especially the classical notion of logical negation).
---
The Tetralemma with The Buddhist Denial (Nyet) [math]\neq[/math] Logical Negation
1. p Nyet!
2. ~p Nyet!
3. p & ~p Nyet!
4 ~(p v ~p) Nyet!
The 4 corners above exhaust all possible states related to a proposition p. Nyet p doesn't mean yea ~p, nor does nyet ~p mean yea p; the tertralemma also denies contradictions (3), nor does it endorse anything other than p or ~p (4). It appears I was wrong, the tetralemma is not the escape route, it is the trap. Checkmate! The Mind can't make a/any move, all routes are blocked (re Zen Koans, Mushin no shin, Mu).
Interesting stuff. Looking forward to seeing how this thread plays out. :smile:
The mind, it seems, has a death wish; it wants to play against itself and win & lose :chin: (re The Stone Paradox, Leibniz - minds are, get this, little gods). The mind wants to trap itself, but only so that it can transcend its own limitations or thereabouts. Feels a bit premature if you ask me - there are other more pressing issues according to many - but hey, why should we do things sequentially, in the proper order? We're not computers running algorithms, oui?
Questions regarding the now famous Noble Silence or the middle path.
1. The Buddha didn't know i.e. denying what are considered extremes is an admission of ignorance.
2. The Buddha knew i.e. the truth is actually somewhere in the middle, the madhyamaka is a statement of fact.
?
The Buddha’s knowledge surpasses logic. However, that doesn’t invalidate logic.
:ok: I'll get back to you later.
[quote=William Cowper]God moves in a mysterious way.[/quote]
The Buddha, the legend goes, is fully aware of the temporal triad (past, present, future); I guess this is the Buddhist version of omniscience. Normal folk have access to the past (memory) and present (direct experience) and think/reason/plan within these boundaries. The Buddha, on the other hand, is in a sense a seer and [s]reasons/plans[/s] acts with the future (indefinite) in mind too. He would then appear to surpass logic for his actions would make no sense to us normal folk.
You're on target, as usual, but the logical features of the tetralemma may be the key to nirvana; as it is, it's the basis of the madhyamaka (the middle path).
There seems to be a link between Nagarjuna's tetralemma and Zen koans which appear to be (rather poor) attempts of Japanese monks, untrained in formal logic, at inventing paradoxes. Nevertheless, Zen koans, despite their dubious quality, do produce the intended effect - pressing the power button of our minds and shutting it down, causing a system crash, emptying the mind it's called I believe.
Imagine you're in a room and there are two people, x and y; you're conducting a murder investigation. You ask the witness, "did x do it?", she answers "no"; "did y do it then?", she replies "no". "Perhaps both did it then?" you query. She responds "no". "You mean neither of them did it?" you continue and she responds, again, with a "no". So, who is the murderer? All possibilities are exhausted, the mind has nothing to latch onto, its usual habit. Cessation of all thought! Analysis paralysis! You become a mind without a mind (mushin no shin); you're conscious but not really conscious (your thinking has come to a halt, but you're not dead). Your mind has simulated kicking the bucket (virtual death).
It seems important to say:
Apart from a fifth state: silence. Silence of the mouth and of the mind. To "exhaust all possible states related to a proposition p" this fifth state must be included.* And should be included as a fifth state in relation to p.
This is where you contact the soteriological essence, to my view.
The four Nyets are pointing in this direction. As I understand it.
Quoting Agent Smith
This, to my view, is an exaggeration - even a pitfall - of the "nirvanic" pursuit. After 20 years of obsessive to devout meditation, I don't put much stock in the Holy Grail of stillness.** The mind persists in its antics - but the mind's relation to itself shifts to reflect a (let's say) undertow of stillness.
Nigh impossible to set it out in - even poetic - language: in other words, secret and sacred. Demanding to be known, not rumored of.
*Mind-silence in relation to proposition p, but never a comprehensive mind-silence. That's a fairy tale, to my view. - Possibly the seclusion and detachment of the monasteries allow for it. That seems at least plausible.
** I toyed with a comprehensive mind-silence meditation for a couple of years. I noticed it gave me a headache. Mind-silence could be sustained for up to a minute. But the pain suggested this was not the right approach. Some kind of insalubrious suppression going on there.
Again, things may be different in the monastic milieu.
I merely presented an interpretation that makes the most sense to me. You should dig a little deeper into what you said, there's a lot to unearth there.
Eternally diggingdiggingdigging! (And diggin' the digging! Sublime depths dark enough to panic the kraken!)
If you have a more fleshed-out insight into the excavation at hand, I'll take it to heart. I'll take guidance where it arises: from the worms, the skies, the shit and the flowers - and even from an unidentified thoughtsmith.
Bon voyage!
"Have you stopped beating your wife yet? Answer either with Yes, or No!"
If someone said that to you, how would you reply (presuming that you're not married and never were)?
Complex questions are a different kettle of fish. They can't be answered without admitting/denying something along with admitting/denying something else. It does produce the same effect - thought block - but only to novices and those ignorant of this fallacy.
Danke for your input!
The whole tetralemma is set up by ignorance and insisting in the tetralemma just perpetuates the ignorance. There is no mysticism to it, and no middle way, it's just ignorance.
Part of the practice is understanding which question should be answered in which way, and why thusly.
Given that, for various good reasons, all knowledge is suspect, tackling ignorance in an appropriate way (systematic, rational, etc.) is our only option. Wouldn't you agree? Remember we're talking about people who didn't know even the science 5 year olds these days are familiar with. It's an amazing insight and Nagarjuana and Gautama deserve credit for their ingenuity if for nothing else. If you were to somehow transport these individuals to the present, I'm sure their IQs would make many of us look like drooling idiots.
I would beg to differ; why would you think the Buddha or his disciples after him were/are so narrow minded!
It has nothing to do with "narrow-mindedness", but with focus.
“Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress.”
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_86.html
— baker
I would beg to differ; why would you think the Buddha or his disciples after him were/are so narrow minded!
— Agent Smith
It has nothing to do with "narrow-mindedness", but with focus.
“Both formerly & now, it is only stress that I describe, and the cessation of stress.”
https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/SN/SN22_86.html[/quote]
Well, you would (hyper)focus if you were narrow-minded (missing the forest for the trees).
Anyway, I believe Nagarjuna's tetralemma is tailored towards dealing specifically with ignorance - especially since the unknown triggers our imagination which if not restrained can cause havoc and compound the confusion.
"Why not let's stop these people from fantasizing like no one's business!" thought the Buddha. The underlying premise appears to be ignorance is better than false knowledge.
I was told the middle path doesn't take sides. A cornerstone idea of Buddhism is that all propsitions are undecidable and hence epoché (suspension of judgment); there are some wrinkles that need our attention but that's a topic for another discussion.
This ethical or moral dimension to Buddhism is something which always seems to elude your attempts to reduce N?g?rjuna's writings to textbook logic. So, again, the reason that the Buddha declared certain questions 'undecideable' or 'out of bounds', is because they're essentially meaningless (something which frequently nags me about much of the activity on this forum.) That is why he compared speculation about them to trying to work out the nature of the poison on a poison arrow that is embedded in your flesh, rather than acting speedily to remove the arrow and treat the poison.
Very interesting points you raise here Wayfarer.
What does Nagarjuna's tetralemma have to do with ethics? Buddhist ethics, as far as I know, is a blend of Kantian (deontological) & Benthamian (utilitarian) ethics (a white lie is ok but it still is a lie).
Ignorance, in my humble opinion, plays a big role in Buddhism - according to some sources Pyrrrho the skeptic basically copy-pasted Nagarjuna's tetralemma onto skepticism.
Which you nevertheless manage not to see, somehow.
//sorry, might have been a bit harsh. But really.....//
Well, how are they - Nagarjuna's tetralemma & ethics - connected?
As I tried to explain, the Buddha's refusal to countenance certain kinds of questions, is because they're meaningless in terms of the practicalities of Buddhist discipline. They lead to empty speculation, also known as prapanca, 'conceptual proliferation'.
The other point to understand about N?g?rjuna is that he came along half a millenium after the Buddha. During that time Indian culture was at its peak with great debates between the different schools, various Brahmanic (Hindu) schools, but also Buddhist scholasticism which had grown up around the original Buddhist teaching. So that is what N?g?rjuna is critiquing in his verses - he's responding to various philosophical proposals about the true nature of reality, and so on. So his work is highly recondite - very cryptic, extremely terse, and difficult to interpret, even for scholars. It's also radical, seeking to cut through all of the disputes and conflicting doctrines that have developed both within and around the Buddhism of the day.
There's a lot of historical context to philosophies, and Buddhism is no exception, without which it would be nigh impossible to get a handle on 'em. I'm, unfortunately, not well-informed on history and it shows I suppose.
Anyway, I regret to inform you that it isn't clear, still, as to how Nagarjuna's tetralemma is related to ethics. What was, for example, the response from Hindu Brahmins to the tetralemma? From the little that I know, according to some sources, Buddhists lost the debate against the Hindus, thus explaining the decline of Buddhism in India.
In the 'axial age' philosophies, generally, ethics are not really separable from epistemology.
Quoting Agent Smith
The Mughal invasion of India was a much greater factor. They slaughtered Buddhist monks, who put up no resistance, in their tens of thousands.
[quote=Ms. Marple]Most interesting.[/quote]
Benefit of the doubt! That's all I can think of.
Merci beaucoup!
Not a denial of all propositions, however. The Buddhist Denial as given above asserts the following proposition:
(~1 & ~2 & ~3 & ~4) & ~(~1 & ~2 & ~3 & ~4)
(plus as many logically equivalent nestings of those you choose to make).
It's the statement 'Nyet!' at the end that causes the problem.
The way to deny all propositions is to withhold assent and dissent and to maintain silence or to make a remark or gesture that is wholly unrelated to propositions. If this is done with an inscrutable expression then the effect will be more impressive.
The Buddhist denial is negation + something else i.e. it rejects a claim but doesn't flip the sign of the claim, quite unlike Greek & much of Western thought. Quite a nifty move I'd say. As for silence,
[quote=Wittgenstein]Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent.[/quote]
The only thing I can say to that is that I have nothing to say to that.
Interestingly, there’s a Mah?y?na Buddhist sutra called the Vimalak?rti Nirde?a, a highly recondite text revolving around the enlightenment of a wealthy layman after whom the text is named who is a silk merchant, married, with children, but whose understanding of the subtleties of ??nyat? is so profound that even the Buddha’s closest disciples are afraid to engage him in debate.
In one episode, one of said disciples, Sariputra (the Buddhist disciple who is customarily regarded as the epitome of wisdom) responds to a question with silence. But in this case, Sariputra’s silence is criticised:
So it may be true ‘of that of which we cannot speak’, but where to draw the line is something that ought to be understood! (And who knew that silence could be so articulate? Simon and Garfunkel, perhaps.)
1. Ignorance (Sariputra).
2. Ineffable (Siddhartha).
That explains the dismal performance of mysticism and others of its ilk in popularity ratings. Idiot/Sage, indistinguishable!
That's beside the point!
True, and I had drafted a reply along the lines of "Advice more often given than taken" but I thought it sounded more sour than the kindly @Agent Smith deserved, who I don't think was cudgelling on this occasion......
Wayfarer was being more playful than mean! That's what I think anyway.
Nagarjuna's tetralemma has to lead us to ethics (re Wayfarer's post). The question is how?
Ethics, is it an end unto itself or is it a means (buys you a ticket to jannat/nirvana/moksha/salvation)?
Yeah, I get that virtue is a reward in itself but all religions, without exception I'd say, peddle virtue as a means to paradise, attaining nirvana, achieving moksha and so on. On the flip side, the highest good, in these very same ideologies again, is to expect no reward for one's good thoughts/words/deeds. Gives me Taoism vibes.
Nah. That’s just what preachers do. Or have to do.
And...
Please explain.
The 'parable of the burning house' is about the fact that the father (Buddha) has to entice the children (sentient beings) from the burning house (regular existence, sickness, old age and death) by enticing them with gifts ('attaining Nirv??a'). But when they have escaped from the burning house, then they realise that they had been in terrible danger. So the reward is not dying in the burning house - which is not really a reward at all, except in comparison to the alternative.
So you mean to say that the Buddha "deceives" people into being ethical by dangling the false gift of nirvana before their eyes? Most interesting! Nevertheless, there is a reward, even if only an illusion of one and that brings us back to what I referred to in my posts - ethics as a means to...happiness.
Holy cunning! :lol: The truth then is not conducive to morality! Merci. Gennaion pseudos. At least the Buddha kept his lies to a minimum and and went the extra mile to make 'em believable. He cared, the bastard!
Told by whom??
Where on earth do you get these ideas about Buddhism????
What does Nagarjuna's tetralemma have to do with the Noble Eightfold Path?
Who says they are??
Can you support this claim with doctrinal evidence?
What you're saying is often claimed by various religious/spiritual people, as a display of one's grandeur and piousness, and as an implicit way to demand generosity and goodwill from others.
But I can't think of any actual doctrinal references that would actually support this notion of "expecting no reward for one's good thoughts/words/deeds."
This is Mahayana doctrine. Not all Buddhist schools teach such things.
:snicker:
Quoting baker
On point! Bravo!
Quoting baker
That's exactly what I wanna know! Buddhism, it seems, is more complex than I imagined it to be. It suffers from internal paradoxes which if people notice is going to kickstart a mass exodus out of Buddhism.
Quoting baker
I feel they should be.
:snicker:
1. Understand Nagarjuna's tetralemma.
The Buddhist [s]negation[/s] denial (vide Nyet in OP) is to reject a proposition p but avoids affirming the opposite proposition e.g. a Buddhist would say it isn't true that God exists but then would clarify that she doesn't mean God then doesn't exist. If then asked whether she thinks that both God exists and doesn't exist, she'd respond that that isn't what she meant either. Last but not the least, is she saying that neither God exists nor does not exist (categoery mistake feel)? No, she isn't.
The truth, if it could be called that, lies somewhere between p and ~p (the madhyamaka aka the middle path) for any proposition p.
It seems that Nagarjuna's tetralemma is designed to tackle undecidables
2. Find the connection between Nagarjuna's tetralemma and Buddhist ethics and practice (8-fold path).
It looks like we'd need to demonstrate that the undecidability of the reality of karma (ethical causation) is better than proving karma to be a fact, morally speaking.
Karma is one of the essential points of Buddhism while metaphysical questions are not
The choices are: Business deals OR Evil.
Or maybe propositions don't apply to life? This seems to remind me of Parmenides and the logically deductive One of the gods and the uncertainties of the many random appearances in the world of opinion of people. Any connection? :chin:
It is intriguing that two separate points of view are "handled effectively" in the exact same way ( :zip: ).
It's kinda like how both border disputes and religious disagreements are "solved" by war.