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Brief notes on the tetralemma
by Paul Turner
January 2006
I think the tetralemma is best understood within the context
of the Buddhist doctrine of two truths. The two truths are
typically designated ‘conventional’ and ‘ultimate’.
Conventional truth applies to facts about the everyday reality
of things, people and events. It is designated conventional in
the sense of being the product of human interests and
dispositions and does not correspond to anything independently
or inherently true.
Ultimate truth is inexpressible in the sense that, in the
absence of convention, there is no candidate for
metaphysical-strength predication, including the ascription of
existence/non-existence itself. Significantly, both
conventional and ultimate truth has the same consequence –
nothing can be said to exist by virtue of its own essence.
The tetralemma is comprised of four propositional formulations
expressed positively or negatively.* Where x is any
proposition and –x is its negation, a positive tetralemma
takes the form of:
x
-x
Both x and -x
Neither x nor -x
I think the positive tetralemma is an expression of the
conventional validity of the two truths. The positive import
of the two truths is that whilst it is stated that nothing is
inherently real, i.e., nothing exists by virtue of its own
independent essence, the familiar everyday world is,
nonetheless, conventionally real and exists in a way which
does not contradict experience. With this acceptance of
conventional truth we are not left with an absurd conception
of reality in which nothing exists in any sense whatsoever.
Thus the contradictory standpoints of (naïve or philosophical)
reification and nihilism are repudiated in favour of a ‘middle
way’. The four formulations of propositions are traditionally
presented in an order in which each view presents a
progressively better expression of the middle way perspective
whilst each is valid with qualification. Constrained by usual
proofs, then, a positive tetralemma therefore permits and
commits one to state that, e.g.:
The self is real (conventionally true, i.e., it exists in a
dependent reality along with everything else we derive from
experience)
The self is not real (ultimately true, i.e., it has no
essence)
The self is both real and not real (conventionally real but
ultimately unreal)
The self is neither real nor not real (neither ultimately real
nor completely nonexistent)
*(I should note here that there is some dispute over whether
Siddhartha Gautama endorsed the use of the positive
tetralemma, but Nāgārjuna is less controversially interpreted
as doing so.)
A negative tetralemma takes the form of:
Not x
Not -x
Not (x and -x)
Not (neither x nor -x)
The negative tetralemma is the self destructing logic of the
ultimate truth (the emptiness of emptiness!) which denies the
validity of any philosophical assertion of any kind including
that of the attribution of existence and non-existence to
anything. The import of the negative tetralemma is that it
ultimately denies its own validity as well as that of the
doctrine of two truths which is itself designated a
conventional truth.
To put this in the context of the MOQ, conventional truth
applies to static reality and its difference from and
relationship to Dynamic Quality. As such, the positive
tetralemma would be used to express the reality of subjects,
objects, and so on and their strictly static existence whilst
acknowledging their lack of individual essence entailed by
their dependence on Dynamic Quality. Ultimate truth thus
applies to the pre-intellectual ‘perspective’ of Dynamic
Quality. The negative tetralemma would be used to prevent any
intellectual treatment of Dynamic Quality as a putative
metaphysical ‘entity’ of which properties and attributes may
be predicated.
An example of a positive tetralemma, in MOQ terms, is:
The self is real (i.e., it exists in static reality along with
everything else we derive from experience)
The self is not real (from a Dynamic perspective)
The self is both real and not real (it is real from a static
perspective but not from a Dynamic perspective)
The self is neither real nor not real (neither ultimately real
from a Dynamic perspective nor completely non-existent from a
static perspective)
The negative tetralemma is a hard-nosed formulation of the
inexpressibility of Dynamic Quality. An example would be its
treatment of the proposition that "Dynamic Quality exists in
time."
"Dynamic Quality exists in time" should not be asserted.
"Dynamic Quality does not exist in time" should not be
asserted.
"Dynamic Quality both does and does not exist in time" should
not be asserted
"Dynamic Quality neither does nor does not exist in time"
should not be asserted
The negative tetralemma is purely about what can't be said
about Dynamic Quality and, ultimately, nothing can be said.
But even one who is aware of that may make mistakes. I think
the fourth lemma is the most common mistake that even the most
dedicated mystic may make but is avoided by a thoroughgoing
application of the negative tetralemma. In this case the
fourth lemma implies the independent existence of time to
which Dynamic Quality can be propositionally related.
Imagine
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