Buddhist Logic - Early Buddhism and The Rise of Nagarjuna

Early Buddhism and The Rise of Nagarjuna

Early Buddhist philosophers and exegetes of one particular early school (as opposed to Mahayana), the Sarvastivadins, created a pluralist metaphysical and phenomenological system, in which all experiences of people, things and events can be broken down into smaller and smaller perceptual or perceptual-ontological units called dharmas. Other schools incorporated some parts of this theory and criticized others. The Sautrantikas, another early school, and the Theravadins, the only surviving early Buddhist school, criticized the realist standpoint of the Sarvastivadins.

The Mahayanist Nagarjuna, one of the most influential Buddhist thinkers, promoted classical Buddhist emphasis on phenomena and attacked Sarvastivada realism and Sautrantika nominalism in his magnum opus The Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way.

Robinson (1957: p. 293) makes an opinion that builds upon the foundation of Stcherbatsky (1927):

The Madhyamaka denies the validity of logic, i.e., of discursive conceptual thought, to establish ultimate truth. On the charge that in doing so he himself resorts to some logic, he replies that the logic of common life is sufficient for showing that all systems contradict one another and that our fundamental conceptions do not resist scrutiny.