How To Do Things With Natures: Rehabilitating Svabhāva for Mādhyamikas

A standard account of Indian Buddhism holds that Nāgārjuna, the founder of the Madhyamaka or “Middler” philosophical tradition, extended the Buddha’s critique of an enduring Self (ātman) to include any kind of intrinsic nature (svabhāva) whatsoever. While it has long been recognized that important Mādhyamikas such as Candrakīrti do on occasion use the term svabhāva with a positive valance, the general consensus has been that such usage is reserved for exceptional circumstances, as when, for example, one wishes to speak of the ultimate nature of things—that is, paradoxically, their ultimate naturelessness (niḥsvabhāvatā). Any suggestion that svabhāva might play a positive role at the more ordinary level of conventional truth or reality is usually brushed off as deeply misguided. After all, Nāgārjuna demonstrated the impossibility of intrinsic natures, and Mādhyamikas agree that grasping to such unreal natures, of which the Self is just the most salient example, is the indisputable root of all suffering. Yet, when Madhyamaka meets the Buddhist epistemological tradition, we find svabhāva playing a critical role. Not only does all inferential reasoning rely on natures, but as it turns out that all perception does so as well. Releasing ourselves from the grasp of intrinsic natures therefore is not so simple as just understanding that they are not ultimately real. Such natures powerfully present themselves to us despite our assessment of their lack of final reality. This paper draws on the writings of Śāntarakṣita and Kamalaśīla, Mādhyamikas working within the Buddhist epistemological tradition, to suggest how svabhāva might be rehabilitated within Madhyamaka thought. In doing so, it provides suggestions for how Madhyamaka can be reconciled with a robust commitment to the possibility of standards of conventional truth while still maintaining its nonfoundationalist and antirealist dimensions. The key is to gain a better understanding of what svabhāva might be at the conventional, or, perhaps better, transactional level.