Nagarjuna stands as a pivotal figure in the development of Buddhist philosophy, with his thought fundamentally centered on the concept of sunyata, or emptiness. Rather than advocating nihilism, Nagarjuna articulated sunyata as the absence of inherent existence in all phenomena. This insight is rooted in the principle of dependent origination, which holds that all things arise in dependence upon causes and conditions, and thus, lack any intrinsic, independent nature. Through this lens, emptiness becomes not a denial of existence, but an affirmation of the interconnected, contingent nature of reality.

A hallmark of Nagarjuna’s philosophical method lies in his systematic deconstruction of essentialist views. In his seminal work, the Mulamadhyamakakarika, he employs rigorous logical analysis to reveal the contradictions that emerge when phenomena are assumed to possess inherent existence. By demonstrating that all concepts and categories are empty of intrinsic nature, he exposes the ultimate truth of emptiness, which serves to liberate one from attachment to fixed identities and dogmatic positions.

Nagarjuna’s teachings also introduce the framework of two truths: conventional and ultimate. While conventional truth recognizes the pragmatic functioning of phenomena in everyday experience, ultimate truth points to their emptiness of inherent nature. This dual perspective allows for a balanced understanding that avoids the extremes of eternalism, which posits true existence, and nihilism, which denies all existence. The Middle Way, as articulated by Nagarjuna, thus becomes a path that navigates between these extremes, grounded in the realization of emptiness.

Crucially, Nagarjuna extends the logic of emptiness to all Buddhist concepts, including sunyata itself, thereby preventing it from becoming a reified philosophical position. In doing so, he establishes emptiness as the hermeneutical key for interpreting Buddhist doctrine and understanding the nature of reality. His dialectical approach, characterized by methods such as the tetralemma and reductio ad absurdum, underscores the radical scope of his insight: that liberation arises not from clinging to any fixed view, but from a direct apprehension of the emptiness and interdependence of all things.