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Several recent writers have claimed that some of Naagaarjuna's ideas are in agreement with those of the later Wittgenstein and that Naagaarjuna can be seen as taking up a Wittgensteinian position against his opponents. I believe that such views are mistaken and that it is, if anything, the Tractarian nature of his philosophy which explains "Naagaarjuna's paradox," namely, the fact that his effort to destroy all views had the opposite result of creating scholasticisms both ancient and modern which obscure the religious truth which was his principal concern.

　　 Before considering some recent works in detail, it is perhaps worth remarking that their thesis of affinity is counterintuitive on the face of it. First, because it would be truly surprising, in view of the cultural and historical conditioning of thought, that two thinkers so widely separated in culture and time should turn out to have identical ideas. [1] Second, Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations, compressed though it is, [2] is in part a sustained attack on the idea of writing philosophy as brief dicta with minimal examples, which is exemplified in Naagaarjuna and in Wittgenstein's earlier Tractatus.

　　 Edward Conze has indeed protested against "Spurious Parallels to Buddhist Philosophy," [3] but one writer, Chris Gudmunsen, advises us to advance beyond this "orthodoxy," and he boldly argues that "only a Wittgensteinian interpretation will suffice for certain central Buddhist Concepts." [4] Buddhism, we are told, has "less to fear" from philosophy than Christianity has, since Buddhism has been "much more overtly philosophical," and the Maadhyamika school "has least of all to fear, since it represents philosophical Buddhism par excellence." [5] One can only wonder at such remarks when one recalls how critical Wittgenstein was of much of the philosophy that preceded him, including his own earlier work. From this point of view, one's initial hypothesis might be that the more a religion was indebted to a particular philosophy, the more it had to lose as previous philosophical concepts and methods were discarded. Catholicism's indebtedness to Thomistic philosophy has not made it markedly adaptable to shifting cultural emphases since the thirteenth century.

I
Frederick J. Streng thinks that "Naagaarjuna's use of words for articulating Ultimate Truth would find champions in contemporary philosophers of the language analysis school such as Ludwig Wittgenstein or P. F. Strawson." [6] According to Streng, Naagaarjuna and Wittgenstein agree in holding that

metaphysical propositions do not provide the knowledge that is claimed by systematic metaphysicians. Words and expression-patterns are simply practical tools of human life, which in themselves do not carry intrinsic meaning and do not necessarily have meaning by referring to something outside the language system.... The importance of this understanding of the nature of meaning is

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that it removes the necessity for finding a presupposed referent of a symbol or a "name,'' and it denies that a single ontological system based on the logical principle of the excluded middle is a necessary requirement for an integrated world view. [7]

But this is very nearly the opposite of what Wittgenstein says. When Wittgenstein tells us that "the term 'language-game' is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life," [8] he at once offers examples such as: giving orders, and obeying them; describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements; reporting an event; forming and testing a hypothesis; asking; praying; and many others. Now the whole point of this is that language is to be viewed in terms of what is "outside the language system," that is, our lives and activities. Since words can be viewed as tools, words that did not refer to something "outside the linguistic system" would be like tools which could neither be handled by anybody nor applied to any objects. Take a scientist's measurements of the sun, the prayers of Jesus, and the discourses of the Buddha about suffering and nirvaa.na: what sense do these activities have if they are not about something "outside the language system"?[9]

　　 What is a "presupposed referent"? Streng tells us in regard to the "'mythical' (i.e., sacramental, magical)" structure of religious apprehension and the "intuitive [i.e., mystical] structure of religious apprehension" that "each assumes that there is an objective referent for the concepts used to express Ultimate Truth." [10] Let us apply this remark to some religious language. A historian tells us that John Wesley aroused resentment among some of the colonists when he refused to give communion to a woman with whom he had an unfortunate love affair, and that later in London, while hearing Luther's Commentary on Romans being read, Wesley "felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine." [11] Now, are there any "objective referents" here? If the term means anything there must be several, some of which are: John Wesley, a woman, communion, sin, Christ, and a heart "strangely warmed." Indeed, the historian's language would be unintelligible were the reader not to understand what he was referring to in his description of Wesley's life. There is certainly nothing in Wittgenstein that would prohibit one from trying to discover what a given statement is referring to. Of course, it may be the case that some of Naagaarjuna's opponents thought that for a word to have any meaning then the thing it refers to must exist, but, as the ancients themselves pointed out, "rabbit horns and tortoise hairs... have names but do not have actuals." [12]