All Thinkers

Nagarjuna

Nagarjuna (approximately 150-250 CE) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher, widely considered one of the most important and influential thinkers in the entire history of Asian philosophy. He was born in South India, probably in what is now Andhra Pradesh, and became a Buddhist monk and teacher. He is the founder of the Madhyamaka school of Buddhist philosophy, which became one of the dominant schools of Buddhist thought across India, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan, and Southeast Asia. Very little is known about his life as a historical person: later tradition attributed extraordinary feats and a legendary biography to him, making it difficult to separate fact from story. What we do have are his philosophical texts, above all the Mulamadhyamakakarika, the Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, a short but extraordinarily dense philosophical work in verse form that argues for one of the most radical positions in the history of philosophy: that nothing whatsoever has fixed, independent existence. He died sometime in the second or third century CE, but his ideas have continued to shape Buddhist philosophy and practice across Asia for nearly two thousand years.

Origin
India, South Asia
Lifespan
c. 150-250 CE
Era
Ancient
Subjects
Buddhist Philosophy Metaphysics Epistemology Indian Philosophy Madhyamaka
Skills
Metacognition Ethical Thinking Scientific Thinking Critical Thinking Systems Thinking
Why They Matter

Nagarjuna matters because he developed one of the most challenging and most influential philosophical ideas in human history: sunyata, usually translated as emptiness or voidness. This is not the emptiness of nothing mattering or nothing existing. It is the emptiness of fixed, independent, permanent existence. Nagarjuna argues that everything that exists, including people, objects, ideas, and even the concept of emptiness itself, exists only in relation to other things and through processes of change. Nothing has a fixed, permanent, independent self-nature. This sounds abstract, but it has profound practical implications: if there is no fixed self, then clinging to identity is a mistake that produces suffering. If all things arise through interdependence, then our actions always affect others and nothing can be fully understood in isolation. Nagarjuna is important for a global curriculum because he represents one of the most sophisticated philosophical traditions outside the Western canon, and because his ideas about identity, interdependence, and the nature of reality engage directly with questions that are alive in contemporary philosophy, science, and ethics.

Key Ideas
1
Sunyata: emptiness of fixed existence
Sunyata, usually translated as emptiness or voidness, is Nagarjuna's central concept. It does not mean that nothing exists or that nothing matters. It means that nothing exists with a fixed, independent, permanent nature of its own. A tree seems to be a solid, independent thing, but it exists only because of water, soil, sunlight, air, seeds, and the whole history of conditions that produced it. Remove any of these and the tree ceases to exist in its current form. The tree is empty of fixed, independent existence. This is true of everything, including people. We exist, but not as fixed, independent, permanent selves: we exist through and within a web of relationships, conditions, and processes.
2
Interdependence: things arise together
Nagarjuna builds on the Buddhist teaching of dependent origination: everything arises in dependence on other things. Nothing comes into existence by itself or from nothing. A cause exists only in relation to its effects. An effect exists only in relation to its causes. A self exists only in relation to other selves and to the world it inhabits. This web of interdependence means that nothing can be fully understood in isolation. To understand anything, you must understand the conditions and relationships that give rise to it. This has practical implications: since we exist through interdependence, our actions always affect others, and the separation between self and other is never as clear as it seems.
3
The two truths: conventional and ultimate
Nagarjuna developed the doctrine of two truths to explain how his philosophy relates to ordinary experience. At the conventional level of truth, tables and people and trees exist and we can talk about them meaningfully. At the ultimate level of truth, these things are empty of fixed, independent existence and exist only through interdependent processes. Both levels of truth are genuine: Nagarjuna is not saying that the conventional world is an illusion to be dismissed. He is saying that understanding the ultimate nature of things, their emptiness, is compatible with engaging fully and practically with the conventional world. Wisdom means holding both levels of understanding at once.
Key Quotations
"Whatever is dependently arisen, that is explained to be emptiness. That, being a dependent designation, is itself the middle way."
— Mulamadhyamakakarika, Chapter 24
This is Nagarjuna's most important statement, bringing together his three central ideas in one sentence. Emptiness is not a separate realm: it is simply what dependent arising looks like when understood correctly. A thing that arises dependently, through conditions and relationships, is empty of fixed independent existence. This emptiness is not nihilism: it is the middle way between saying things exist permanently and saying they do not exist at all. Things exist, but not in the fixed, independent way we habitually assume.
"If emptiness is possible, then everything is possible. If emptiness is not possible, then nothing is possible."
— Mulamadhyamakakarika, Chapter 24
Nagarjuna is arguing that emptiness is what makes change, causation, and meaning possible, not what destroys them. If things had fixed, permanent natures, they could not change, could not be affected by causes, and could not grow, develop, or be transformed. It is precisely because things are empty of fixed nature that they can arise, change, and cease. Emptiness is the condition of possibility for everything we care about: learning, growth, relationship, and moral development. Far from being pessimistic, emptiness is what keeps the world open.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Metacognition When asking students to examine their sense of self
How to introduce
Ask: who are you? Write down five things that define you. Then ask: have any of these things changed over the past five years? Could they change in the future? Are any of them permanent? After discussion, introduce Nagarjuna's idea: the self is not a fixed, permanent thing but a process, always changing, always shaped by relationships and conditions. Ask: does this feel threatening or liberating? What would it mean to hold your identity more lightly?
Systems Thinking When introducing interdependence and the web of connections
How to introduce
Ask: trace the origins of the food you ate today. Where did each ingredient come from? What people, what weather, what soil, what history made it possible? Introduce Nagarjuna's dependent origination: nothing arises by itself. Everything arises through a web of conditions. Ask: what does this tell us about how we should think about the things we take for granted? What does it imply about our responsibilities, since our existence depends on so many other things and people?
Further Reading

The best starting point is Jay Garfield's translation of The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way (1995, Oxford University Press), which provides Nagarjuna's root text alongside a clear philosophical commentary. For a short overview: the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a freely available article on Nagarjuna. For a broader introduction to Buddhist philosophy: Mark Siderits's Buddhism as Philosophy (2007, Hackett) is the most accessible scholarly introduction.

Key Ideas
1
The emptiness of the self
One of the most important applications of sunyata is to the self. Nagarjuna argues that there is no fixed, permanent, independent self. What we call the self is a process, a constantly changing collection of physical and mental events, rather than a fixed thing. This does not mean that you do not exist or that your experiences do not matter. It means that the self you cling to, the identity you protect, the ego you defend, is not a fixed object but a fluid process. Recognising this can loosen the grip of self-centred clinging and open up a more flexible and compassionate engagement with others and with life.
2
The middle way between extremes
Nagarjuna's school is called Madhyamaka, which means the Middle Way, and this refers to his practice of finding a middle path between philosophical extremes. He argues against eternalism, the view that things have permanent, unchanging existence, and against nihilism, the view that nothing exists or that nothing matters. He also argues against the view that things are completely the same across time and the view that they are completely different. The middle way is not a compromise between these extremes but a more careful analysis that shows why both extremes are wrong. This method of finding the middle path between false alternatives is one of Nagarjuna's most powerful philosophical tools.
3
Language and the limits of concepts
Nagarjuna was deeply aware of the limitations of language and conceptual thought. He argued that our concepts and language tend to reify things: to turn processes and relationships into fixed objects. When we use a noun, like self or tree or cause, we create the impression of a fixed thing where there is actually only a process or a relationship. His philosophical method involves using careful analysis to expose this reification and to show that our concepts always fall short of capturing the full reality of interdependent, constantly changing existence. This does not mean that language and concepts are useless: it means we should hold them lightly, as tools rather than as pictures of ultimate reality.
Key Quotations
"The teaching of the Buddha is based on two truths: conventional truth and ultimate truth. Those who do not understand the distinction between these two truths do not understand the deep reality in the teaching of the Buddha."
— Mulamadhyamakakarika, Chapter 24
Nagarjuna is insisting that his philosophy does not dismiss ordinary experience. The two truths are both real: at the conventional level, we correctly say that tables exist, that people have names, that causes produce effects. At the ultimate level, we understand that these things exist through interdependence and are empty of fixed independent nature. Both levels of understanding are necessary. Focusing only on the ultimate truth, becoming so absorbed in the analysis of emptiness that you ignore conventional reality, is a philosophical and practical mistake.
"There is no difference at all between nirvana and samsara. There is no difference at all between samsara and nirvana."
— Mulamadhyamakakarika, Chapter 25
This is one of Nagarjuna's most provocative statements. Samsara is the ordinary world of suffering and change; nirvana is the Buddhist goal of liberation from suffering. Nagarjuna seems to be saying that there is no difference between them. What he means is that liberation is not found by escaping to a different place or a different kind of existence: it is found by seeing this very world, this very experience, correctly. Suffering arises from seeing things as having fixed, independent existence and clinging to that false picture. Liberation is seeing the same world as it actually is: interdependent, empty, and therefore open.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Critical Thinking When examining how concepts and categories can mislead us
How to introduce
Introduce Nagarjuna's insight about how language reifies processes into things. Ask: what is a wave? It seems like a thing, but it is actually a process: a pattern of movement through water. There is no wave that is separate from the water and the movement. Ask: can you think of other examples where we use nouns for things that are actually processes? Self? Team? Nation? Economy? What happens when we mistake a process for a fixed thing? Connect to the Research Skills topic on how framing shapes understanding.
Ethical Thinking When exploring the philosophical foundations of compassion
How to introduce
Introduce Nagarjuna's argument that if the boundary between self and other is not fixed, then the suffering of others is not as separate from my own as I might assume. Ask: does this argument for compassion feel convincing to you? Is it more or less convincing than arguments for compassion based on duty or on the golden rule? Can you think of examples where genuinely recognising your interdependence with others changed how you felt about their situation?
Scientific Thinking When discussing the nature of scientific knowledge and its limits
How to introduce
Connect Nagarjuna's two truths to the practice of science. Science works at the conventional level: it produces extremely useful and reliable descriptions of how things work. But every scientific theory is a simplification, a model of a reality that is always more complex and interconnected than the model captures. Ask: does Nagarjuna's insight that concepts always simplify reality threaten scientific knowledge, or simply put it in its proper place? How does this connect to the philosophy of science in the Scientific Thinking topic?
Further Reading

Jay Garfield's Empty Words

Buddhist Philosophy and Cross-Cultural Interpretation (2002, Oxford University Press) engages with Nagarjuna's arguments from the perspective of analytic philosophy and is accessible to non-specialists. Thich Nhat Hanh's The Heart of Understanding (1988, Parallax) offers a more accessible and practice-oriented introduction to Nagarjuna's ideas through the Heart Sutra.

For comparison with Western philosophy

Thomas McEvilley's The Shape of Ancient Thought (2002, Allworth Press) explores the parallel development of Indian and Greek philosophy.

Key Ideas
1
Compassion as the practical expression of interdependence
Nagarjuna's philosophy has an ethical dimension that follows directly from his metaphysics. If there is no fixed, independent self, then the sharp boundary between self and other is always somewhat arbitrary. If all things arise through interdependence, then my wellbeing is genuinely connected to the wellbeing of others and to the health of the world I inhabit. These philosophical insights provide a foundation for compassion: not compassion as a feeling of pity for those different from yourself, but compassion as a recognition that the suffering of others is genuinely connected to your own situation and that their flourishing contributes to yours.
2
Emptiness is also empty
One of Nagarjuna's most striking moves is to argue that emptiness itself is empty. If emptiness were a fixed, independent ultimate truth, it would itself have a fixed, independent existence, which would contradict the very claim that nothing has fixed, independent existence. So emptiness cannot be a foundation or a ground: it is itself a concept that arises dependently, in relation to the conventional things it describes. This prevents Nagarjuna's philosophy from becoming a new form of absolutism, where emptiness replaces fixed existence as the ultimate truth. He insists that even his own philosophical position must be held lightly, as a tool for liberation rather than as a final description of reality.
3
Nagarjuna and contemporary philosophy and science
Nagarjuna's ideas have attracted significant interest from contemporary Western philosophers and scientists. His analysis of the self as a process rather than a fixed object resonates with neuroscientific accounts of consciousness as a dynamic process rather than a fixed entity. His insistence on interdependence resonates with ecological thinking and systems theory. His critique of the way language reifies processes into things anticipates insights in the philosophy of language and cognitive science. Contemporary philosophers including Jay Garfield and Graham Priest have argued that Nagarjuna's logic anticipates aspects of modern formal logic that Western philosophy only developed in the 20th century.
Key Quotations
"Those who see interdependence see suffering, its arising, its cessation, and the path."
— Mulamadhyamakakarika, Chapter 24
Nagarjuna is connecting his metaphysical analysis to the practical heart of Buddhist teaching: the understanding and cessation of suffering. Seeing interdependence clearly means understanding that suffering arises because we cling to things as if they had fixed, permanent existence. We cling to our self, to our relationships, to our circumstances, as if they were permanent, and we suffer when they change. Understanding interdependence shows both why we suffer and how suffering can cease: not by getting what we want, but by loosening the grip of clinging to fixed existence.
"I do not have a thesis. Therefore I am not someone who has a thesis to defend."
— Vigrahavyavartani (Dispelling Disputes)
This is Nagarjuna's most radical philosophical move. His opponents argued that his analysis of emptiness must itself be a thesis, a claim about reality that he is defending. Nagarjuna replies that emptiness is not a thesis about ultimate reality but a therapeutic tool: it is used to dissolve false views, not to replace them with another view. He does not claim that emptiness is the ultimate truth of reality in the way that fixed existence was supposed to be. His philosophy is more like a medicine than a map: it is used to cure a particular philosophical disease, the belief in fixed existence, and once the cure is complete, the medicine itself can be set aside.
Using This Thinker in the Classroom
Environmental Thinking When examining philosophical foundations for environmental ethics
How to introduce
Connect Nagarjuna's interdependence to ecological thinking. Ecologists describe ecosystems as webs of interdependence in which every element affects every other. Nagarjuna's philosophy says that this is not just a description of ecological systems but a description of the nature of existence itself. Ask: what ethical implications follow from taking interdependence seriously? If our existence depends on the existence of the natural world, in what sense are we separate from it? How does this compare to Maathai's and Ramose's ecological ethics?
Philosophy of Mind When examining the nature of consciousness and personal identity
How to introduce
Introduce the contemporary neuroscience parallel: neuroscientists increasingly describe the self not as a fixed entity but as a dynamic process, a story the brain tells about itself, that is constantly being constructed and revised. Ask: does this scientific account confirm or contradict Nagarjuna's philosophical account of the self as a process rather than a fixed thing? What does it mean if both a 2nd-century Indian philosopher and 21st-century neuroscience arrive at similar conclusions through completely different methods?
Common Misconceptions
Common misconception

Nagarjuna's emptiness means that nothing exists and nothing matters.

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What to teach instead

This is exactly the nihilism that Nagarjuna explicitly argues against. Emptiness does not mean non-existence: it means the absence of fixed, permanent, independent existence. Things exist, but they exist through interdependence and process rather than as fixed, isolated objects. Actions matter: Nagarjuna's ethics and his practical teaching on compassion depend on the fact that actions have consequences, that suffering is real, and that liberation is genuinely possible. Emptiness is what makes change, growth, and liberation possible, not what undermines them.

Common misconception

Nagarjuna's philosophy is only about religious practice and is not serious philosophy.

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What to teach instead

Nagarjuna's work is recognised by academic philosophers worldwide as one of the most rigorous and sophisticated philosophical projects in human history. His logical analysis of causation, identity, motion, and knowledge has been compared to the work of Wittgenstein and Hegel in Western philosophy. Contemporary analytic philosophers including Graham Priest and Jay Garfield have engaged seriously with his arguments as contributions to formal logic and philosophy of language. His work is studied in philosophy departments alongside Aristotle and Kant.

Common misconception

The idea that the self is not fixed means we have no responsibility for our actions.

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What to teach instead

Nagarjuna explicitly maintains conventional truth alongside ultimate truth. At the conventional level, where we live and act, persons exist, actions have consequences, and responsibility is real. The insight that there is no fixed, permanent self does not dissolve moral responsibility: it actually deepens it, by loosening the self-centred clinging that leads us to prioritise our own interests at the expense of others. Understanding interdependence, in Nagarjuna's framework, produces greater compassion and responsibility, not less.

Common misconception

Nagarjuna's ideas are unique to Buddhism and have no relevance outside that tradition.

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What to teach instead

While Nagarjuna developed his ideas within the Buddhist tradition, the questions he addresses are universal: what is the nature of the self? how do things exist? what is the relationship between language and reality? These questions are central to philosophy in every tradition. His ideas have been engaged seriously by Western philosophers, cognitive scientists, and ecologists. His analysis of interdependence resonates with systems thinking, ecological science, and relational philosophy developed in entirely different cultural contexts.

Intellectual Connections
In Dialogue With
Ibn Sina
Both Nagarjuna and Ibn Sina engage deeply with questions of existence, identity, and the self. Ibn Sina's flying man thought experiment argues that the self is something over and above the physical body. Nagarjuna would push further: even that self has no fixed, independent existence. Their approaches are very different but they are engaging with related questions about what kind of thing the self is and how we can know it.
In Dialogue With
Mogobe Ramose
Nagarjuna's interdependence and Ramose's ubuntu philosophy share a fundamental insight: identity and existence are always relational rather than fixed and independent. Ubuntu says a person is a person through other persons. Nagarjuna says a person exists only through the web of conditions and relationships that produce them. Both challenge the Western liberal picture of the isolated individual as the primary unit of existence and moral concern.
In Dialogue With
Socrates
Both Nagarjuna and Socrates used rigorous questioning to expose the limits of what people thought they knew. Socrates showed that people who claimed to know could not withstand careful questioning. Nagarjuna showed that philosophical positions that seemed solid dissolved under careful logical analysis. Both used their methods not to destroy knowledge but to clear away false certainty in order to make room for genuine understanding.
Complements
Wangari Maathai
Maathai's ecological vision of human beings as embedded in webs of natural interdependence is philosophically supported by Nagarjuna's analysis of dependent origination: nothing, including human beings, exists in isolation from the web of conditions that sustains them. Nagarjuna provides the philosophical foundation for what Maathai lives in practice: that human wellbeing and natural health are inseparable because they arise together through interdependence.
In Dialogue With
Kwame Gyekye
Gyekye's moderate communitarianism argues that individual identity is constituted through community relationships without being dissolved in them. Nagarjuna's analysis of the self as arising through interdependence resonates with this: the self is not a fixed independent thing, but it is not nothing either. Both thinkers find a middle path between extreme individualism and the complete dissolution of the individual.
Influenced
East and Southeast Asian Buddhist thought
Nagarjuna's influence on the history of Buddhist philosophy is comparable to Aristotle's influence on Western philosophy. His Madhyamaka school became one of the dominant schools of Buddhist philosophy in India, and his ideas were transmitted to and transformed the philosophical traditions of Tibet, China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. The Zen tradition, Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, and the Chinese Hua-yen school of the totality of interdependence are all substantially shaped by his thought.
Further Reading

For rigorous philosophical engagement

Graham Priest, Jay Garfield, and Koji Tanaka's Two Truths in Different Buddhist Traditions (2011) examines Nagarjuna's logic from a contemporary formal logic perspective. Candrakirti's Madhyamakavatara, available in translation, is the most important commentary on Nagarjuna in the Tibetan tradition.

For the contemporary relevance

Evan Thompson's Mind in Life (2007, Harvard University Press) draws on Nagarjuna in developing a philosophy of mind that bridges Buddhist philosophy and cognitive science.