Scholars of Buddhism and postmodern thought tend to emphasize two workings of emptiness or nothingness: the working of affirmation and presence and the working of negation, difference and deferral. Within postmodern theology these two positions can be seen in Mark C. Taylor's work with nothing as "difference" and Thomas J. J. Altizer's work with emptiness as "total presence." Within Buddhist studies these two workings of emptiness can be seen in opposed understandings of Nagarjuna's equation of co-dependent arising and sunyata or emptiness (one negative and one positive).
However, both areas of study seem to contain hints of a third working of emptiness that is either (a) not yet fully developed by scholars or (b) read in a way that is a variation of one of the first two workings of emptiness. On the Buddhist side, some scholars read the sunyata (emptiness) of the Tathagatagarbha literature as distinctly different from interpretations of sunyata as co-dependent arising. On the postmodern side, a third working of emptiness may be contained in the work of Gilles Deleuze.
The position of the dissertation is that there are three workings of emptiness or nothingness in Buddhism and postmodern thought capable of "grounding" thinking and behaviour. Further, this third working of emptiness is capable of supporting a philosophy and an ethic completely distinct from the first two. The first working of emptiness, as presence, is outlined in chapter two using Heidegger as an example. The second working of emptiness (or nothingness) as difference is outlined in chapter three using the postmodern theology of Mark C. Taylor as an example. The third working of emptiness, as subtraction and essence, is outlined in chapter four using Tathagatagarbha thought and the Buddhism of Dogen Kigen as examples. The last chapter builds on the work of emptiness as essence, and appropriates the work of Gilles Deleuze, in an attempt to construct a Buddhist "ethics of desire."
