Classical Indian Philosophy: A History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. Volume 5. By Peter Adamson and Jonardon Ganeri. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Pp. xxiv + 397. Hardcover $32.95, ISBN 978-0-19-885176-9.
摘要
"I cannot recommend this book highly enough!" Is this statement true or have I succeeded in lavishing enough praise on this book by writing this statement, making this statement in fact false? This is one way in which Adamson and Ganeri explain the view of the Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna that everything is empty. (However, humble as they are, they use the movies of Buster Keaton instead of their own book as an example.) Nāgārjuna has to defend himself against the objection that if everything is "empty" then this surely also applies to his own view. He famously argues that he does not have a thesis and provides the "silence" analogy, which I want to illustrate using my own example: if there is too much off-topic chatter in class and I want students to be quiet and pay attention I could shout "silence!" in order to create silence but of course my act of shouting itself is the opposite of silence. Nevertheless, it can bring about silence and Nāgārjuna claims that his view that everything is empty could be an instrument to make "Brahmanical (and other) dogmatists" aware of this.
