McEvilley, Thomas, Early Greek philosophy and Madhyamika , Philosophy East and West, 31:2

(1981:Apr.) p.141

Thomas McEvilley Early Greek philosophy and Madhyamika

"The motives and methods of the Indian schools, and the theological and
mystical background of their thought, are so utterly different from those of the
Greeks that there is little profit in the comparison."' So says the author whose
recent history of Greek philosophy appears likely to become the standard one
in English. In this article I will attempt to show that in certain areas the
methods of the two traditions were identical, that the motives for applying
these methods were, at times anyway, extraordinarily similar, and that the
possibility that the two traditions were historically linked at important points
cannot be dismissed. Specifically, 1 will present parallels from the Greek
philosophical schools founded before Alexander the Great's expedition to
India, to the methods and motives of the Mildhyamika school, and will then
consider the possibilities of historical connections.

In referring to the methods of the Miidhyamika school I mean primarily the

reductio ad absurdum applied in the dichotomy and dilemma pattern, with
liberal use of regresses ad infinitum, and certain characteristic arguments
against motion, potentiality, and so on. 2 The question of motives is more
complex. Recent scholarship has presented two quite different views of the
Madhyamika motive, each of which seems to be accurate for some of the
M5dhyamika thinkers and not for others: the "absolutist" view which is
presented by Stcherbatsky, Suzuki, Conze, Murti, and Radhakrishnan, 3 and
which seems to show considerable influence from Vediintic monism; and the
"phenomenalist" (or "dynamicist") view espoused by Streng, Inada, and
others.' For the absolutist, the Miidhyamika double-truth consists in a rather
Parmenidean or Vedlintin distinction between conditioned and unconditioned
being; in this case the dialectic aims to destroy the belief in the reality of
conditioned being so that a mystical intuition of unconditioned being may
ensue; reality .is sought outside of phenomenal experience, through a negation
of that experience. For the dynamicist there is no need (or indeed justification)
for postulating a reality outside phenomenal experience; the double truth does
not distinguish between conditioned and unconditioned being, but between
conditioned being experienced "bare," or in itself, and conditioned being
experienced through a vikalpa, a "partial truth" which is "superimposed" "on
to the dynamic character of reality." 5

This dichotomy in modern interpretations seems to correspond to the

distinction between the Prasafigika Madhyamika as expressed by Buddha-
palita and Candrakirti and the Svatantrika Madhyamika of Bhavaviveka.'
Both these schools felt they were expressing IsIdgiirjuna's real meaning; which
of them was more correct in that belief is a question I will not address; both
will be treated here as legitimate forms of Madhyamika, and our comparison

Thomas McEvilley is Professor in the Institute for the Arts at Rice University.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: My thanks to both Edward Conn and Frederick Streng, who generously read
and helpfully commented on earlier versions of this article.
Philosophy East mid Wen 31. no. 2 (April, 1981). © by The University Press of Hawaii. All rights reserved.

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