Chris Gudmunsen - Wittgenstein and Buddhism
Commonalities between Wittgenstein’s philosophy and Buddhism, especially Madhyamika:
- Language and Conceptual Entrapment
- Both see philosophical confusion as rooted in language use. Wittgenstein’s “bewitchment by language” echoes the Madhyamaka concern with prapañca (conceptual proliferation). Nāgārjuna shows how concepts like existence and non-existence lead to contradictions when reified; Wittgenstein similarly shows how philosophical problems dissolve when we examine how words actually function rather than seeking hidden essences.
- Critique of Private Objects
- Wittgenstein: Words like “pain” do not refer to private sensations but get their meaning from use in language-games.
- Mādhyamika: Dharmas are empty (śūnya)—they have no independent existence; they are not referents but conventional designations.
- Two Truths Doctrine
- Wittgenstein: Distinguishes between surface grammar and depth grammar; philosophy describes language use without constructing theories.
- Mādhyamika: Distinguishes between conventional truth (saṃvṛti-satya) and absolute truth (paramārtha-satya), both valid in their own contexts.
- Rejection of Essentialism
- Both reject the idea that universals or essences exist independently. Meaning arises from use, context, and human practices, not from correspondence to objects.
- The Self and Volition
- Both reject the self as a substantial entity. The word “I” does not refer to an object.
- Volition is not a private mental act but is embedded in actions and forms of life.
- Ethics and Religion
- Moral terms do not refer to objective qualities; they express forms of life, attitudes, or evaluations.
- Religious statements (e.g., “All dharmas are empty”) are not factual claims but expressions of a way of seeing the world.
Both offer a therapeutic-deconstructive philosophy (rather than theory-building) as a way to short-circuit discursive reason and encourage a return to ordinary life freed from the search for metaphysical foundations.