🕳️Nagarjuna

150-250 · Indo-Tibetan Buddhism · Prominent

Nagarjuna was an Indian Buddhist who founded the Madhyamaka school, and his word for the way things are is emptiness, śūnyatā. It does not mean that nothing exists. It means nothing exists on its own or under its own power: everything that is there arises by depending on other things. He argued by taking each position apart from the inside, his own included, and called what is left the Middle Way.

Signature

The position Nagarjuna is most identified with in the Profiler:

Universals

strongly leans Nominalism

Paradox

Dialethic

Positions on the 3 axes the sources answer

The Divine

leans Indescribable (79 on a 0–100 scale from Describable to Indescribable)

Universals

strongly leans Nominalism (92 on a 0–100 scale from Realism to Nominalism)

Opposition

leans Concurrence (75 on a 0–100 scale from Sublation to Concurrence)

17 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Nagarjuna refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.

Foundational questions

Good and Evil

Karmic Balance
What is the fundamental nature of good and evil?

Perception

Non-Dual Awareness
What do we directly perceive?

Knowledge

Skepticism
What is the ultimate foundation of knowledge?

Ethics Basis

Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics?

Agency

Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom?

Language

Semantic Inflation / Différance
What is the fundamental nature of language?

Paradox

Dialethic
What is the status of paradox?

Death

Karmic Cycle
What happens at death?

Human Nature

No-Self
What is human nature?

Primary Bond

All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?

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