Colloquium: Shamik Dasgupta (UC Berkeley)

TITLE: The Philosophy of Emptiness: Fine + Rorty = Nāgājuna

ABSTRACT:  Combining an idea from the realist metaphysics of Kit Fine with an idea from the pragmatism of Richard Rorty, I will develop a model which vindicates Nāgājuna’s Madhyamakan doctrine that reality is empty. I will then show that the model entails key tenets of mystical philosophy such as that the self is an illusion and that the ultimate nature of reality is ineffable.