Grasping Snakes and Touching Elephants A Rejoinde

Authors: Giuseppe Ferraro

Publish Date: 2014/01/24

Volume: 42, Issue: 4, Pages: 451-462

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Abstract

Some time ago I advanced on the pages of this journal a critique of the interpretation given by Jay L Garfield and Mark Siderits hereafter GS of Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of the two truths Ferraro J Indian Philos 412195–219 20131 to my article the two authors responded with a ‘defense of the semantic interpretation’ of the Madhyamaka doctrine of emptiness GS J Indian Philos 416655–664 2013 Their reply however could not consider my personal understanding of Nāgārjuna’s notions of śūnyatā and dve satye My interpretation of these notions was in fact absent in the paper GS responded and was only related in a second paper of mine Ferraro J Indian Philos 415563–590 20132 still unpublished at the time of GS’s drafting of their ‘defense’ Therefore in the present rejoinder I found it appropriate rather than responding point by point to the passages of GS’s reply to advance a comparison between the semantic interpretation and my ‘realist antimetaphysical’ understanding of Nāgārjuna’s thought

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