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6/27/2025, 10:52:50 AM
>>24499556
>the fact that opposing theories and arguments can be Made already prove that Is not self-evident, so you can't rely on that
This is completely false; there is no argument in favor of anatta as absolute reality. Richard H. Robinson, in his article "Did Nagarjuna Really Refute All Philosophical Views?", clearly demonstrated the extent to which Nagarjuna was a sophist, using strawman arguments, and that he started from fallacious presuppositions that his opponents did not believe. For example, Nagarjuna denied the possibility of svabhava, i.e., unconditioned existence, but he assumed that all of this existence necessarily belongs to the conditioned phenomenal world.
Furthermore, based on the principle of double truth, there are two doctrines:
- there is no Self, neither conventional nor absolute: this is Tsongkhapa's doctrine (see Gorampa's critique on this subject), which is clearly absurd and not even taught by the Buddha. -there exists a Self from the conventional point of view, but not an absolute one:
This doctrine is also absurd because it assumes that something can be the illusion of a metaphysical impossibility, but this is not the case; no one says, "John seems to be the son of a barren woman." If the Self were truly a metaphysical impossibility, whose existence entailed insoluble contradictions, then there would not even be a Self. Since this doctrine violates all the principles of logic, it can only be irrational faith.
>the fact that opposing theories and arguments can be Made already prove that Is not self-evident, so you can't rely on that
This is completely false; there is no argument in favor of anatta as absolute reality. Richard H. Robinson, in his article "Did Nagarjuna Really Refute All Philosophical Views?", clearly demonstrated the extent to which Nagarjuna was a sophist, using strawman arguments, and that he started from fallacious presuppositions that his opponents did not believe. For example, Nagarjuna denied the possibility of svabhava, i.e., unconditioned existence, but he assumed that all of this existence necessarily belongs to the conditioned phenomenal world.
Furthermore, based on the principle of double truth, there are two doctrines:
- there is no Self, neither conventional nor absolute: this is Tsongkhapa's doctrine (see Gorampa's critique on this subject), which is clearly absurd and not even taught by the Buddha. -there exists a Self from the conventional point of view, but not an absolute one:
This doctrine is also absurd because it assumes that something can be the illusion of a metaphysical impossibility, but this is not the case; no one says, "John seems to be the son of a barren woman." If the Self were truly a metaphysical impossibility, whose existence entailed insoluble contradictions, then there would not even be a Self. Since this doctrine violates all the principles of logic, it can only be irrational faith.
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