Beyond All Reason An Argument for the Coherence of Nāgārjuna’s Philosophy and an Anti-Foundationalist Ethics

Abstract

This review provides an overview and critical analysis of Rafal K. Stepien’s book Buddhism Between Religion and Philosophy: Nāgārjuna and the Ethics of Emptiness. This review assesses Stepien’s contributions to the ongoing discourse about methods for decolonizing Buddhist philosophy and to the study of Nāgārjuna (c. 150-250 CE). It highlights the book’s two greatest strengths: first, its critique of the tendency of western philosophers and scholars of Buddhist philosophy to measure the merit of Buddhist thought against western notions of rationality and, second, in delivering a considered argument for the claim that the possibility of a robust Madhyamaka ethics does not stand in contradiction to Nāgārjuna’s anti-foundationalist philosophy but is actually in harmony with it. At the same time, this review questions whether Stepien fully executes the hermeneutical tasks he sets for himself, i.e., to interpret Nāgārjuna’s philosophy without imposing western presuppositions onto it.