Madhyamikasto demonstrate the,incoherence of ultimately real entities dharmas or things with intrinsic natureentering into causal relations.

whether there is an argument against one account of how ultimate causation (causation among ultimate reals) might work - The account I have in mind is one that understands causation along Humean lines (i.e. causation involves constant conjunction without necessary connection.) and that understands dharmas in a urely tro e-theoretic way. The a!sence of a "adhyamaka argument would !e sur rising given that this is an account e# licitly defended !y certain non-"adhyamaka $uddhists. %Humean& causal relation' This osition is roughly that causation is !est understood as a conventionally real relation among things that are em ty of intrinsic nature and thus are interde endent( the relation is conventionally real in that it consists in e# lanatorily useful regularities( it is not however ultimately real since there are no such things as causal owers connecting cause and effect. )ince the $uddha taught that things originate in de endence on causes and conditions* "a+dhyamikas take these arguments to hel show that a $uddhist should not hold there are things with intrinsic natures. "y concern is whether these arguments succeed in that aim. ,ccording to what I !elieve is the !est formulation of the dharma theory (the version cham ioned !y -rntikas and )autrntikas)* a dharma turns out to !e the momentary occurrence of a tro e. The line of reasoning that leads to this outcome has two key arts' an argument to the effect that realism a!out truth re.uires that the entities that enter into truth-makers have intrinsic natures( and an argument for mereological reductionism* the view that anything either artite or analy/a!le is a conce tual construction and so not ultimately real. In 0andrak1+rtis defense of 2a+ga+rjunas claim that a svabhva cannot !e adventitious (accidental* not inherent but added extrinsically) (""3 45.6c). He comments that in the world adventitious ro erties* such as the heat of water* or the red color of .uart/ containing hematite* are not considered svabhva. ,nd these e#am les are contrasted with the heat of fire and the red color of the ru!y( heat* he later says* is something fire has at all three times or always. This is not* however* just what is meant !y svabhva as a technical ,!hidharma term. There its rinci al use is in the roject of constructing a ta#onomy of those entities involved in the

$uddhas reduction of the erson to its constituent sycho hysical elements. 7ach of these ultimate reals is said to have !oth a s ecific characteristic (svalakaa) and general characteristics (smnyalakaas). $ut each e#istent !elongs to a s ecific kind* and its s ecific characteristic is what determines its mem!ershi in that kind. This is said to !e the entitys svabhva. 8or then it can !e argued that since there are no e#trinsic ro erties unless there are intrinsic ro erties* a realist account of truth-conditions re.uires that there !e things with intrinsic ro erties. The claim that e#trinsic ro erties de end in general on intrinsic ro erties is intuitively a ealing' 9ill cannot have the ro erty of !eing taller than 9ack unless 9ill has some determinate height of her own. )u ose* then* that we understand a svabhva to !e an intrinsic nature. $ut it is still not clear why they (,!hidharmikas) would hold that only dharmas have svabhva. :arts-;holes' ,ccording to <asu!andhu* a conse.uence of this argument is that something !elonging to kind 3 is ultimately real if and only if the conce t K continues to a ly !oth after se aration and after analysis. The after se aration clause tells us why the chariot is not ultimately real' when the suita!ly assem!led arts are se arated* the word chariot no longer a lies. $ut im ortant work is done !y the after analysis clause. - Then what remains after se aration of ortions of a sam le of water will always count as an instance of water. $ut now consider the final remaining ortion* a water atom. It allows of the following analysis' at any one time the occurrence of a wetness tro e* a roundness tro e* a colorlessness tro e* a tastelessness tro e* etc.* in the same s atial region. )ince none of these things may ro erly !e called water* it follows that our water atom is likewise not ultimately real. To this it will !e o!jected that the analysis has left out the water atom itself as the su!stance in which those different .uality- articulars inhere. The res onse is that there is no such thing as the su!stance* only the co-occurring tro es. The result of all this is that the ultimate ontology contains just one category* that of tro e. )u!stances as ordinarily conceived are !undles of !undles of tro es. ;hat we take to !e a water atom is at any one time a !undle of cooccurring tro es such as wetness* colorlessness and the like. $ut these are all momentary. ;hat we take to !e a ersisting water atom is actually a series of !undles* each such !undle !eing caused to occur !y its immediate redecessor !undle in the a!sence of countervailing conditions (such as high

heat). The su!stance we think of as water=the enduring !earer of such ro erties as wetness and colorlessness=is a conce tual construction. ;hat are ultimately real are just momentary tro es* such as the occurrence of wetness here and now. These are the dharmas. <ai!hasika eternalism and <asu!andhus :resentist >es onse It is in the conte#t of the de!ate !etween resentism and sarvstivda that the .uestion arises whether there are su!stances or only tro es. <asu!andhu nonetheless rejects sarvstivda. The o!vious difficulty lies in e# laining how a given dharma with a given intrinsic nature can have its efficacy at just one moment and not at all times. The <ai!hika may claim that what e# lains this is the fact that the ancillary conditions are only resent at one time. $ut this will not hel * since these are likewise said !y the sarvstivdin to e#ist in all three times* so yet more ancillary conditions will !e re.uired to e# lain why these should function as ancillary conditions at just that one moment. ,n infinite regress looms. <asu!andhus criticism of karitra ? similar to 2agarjunas in ""3 4.@-A. ;hat we find in !oth cases is a difficulty for any resentist who !elieves there can !e causal relations among ultimately real momentary entities with intrinsic natures. ,t the heart of the difficulty lies the fact that we take the causal relation to involve roduction* which we understand as a kind of necessary connection. If dharmas are what <asu!andhu says they are= momentarily occurrent tro es=then there cannot !e internal relations !etween any two dharmas. )o necessary connection will re.uire a third thing to serve as relational tie. $ut since cause recedes effect and !oth are momentary* such a tie could never succeed in fostering a connection !etween them. )o the ,+ !hidharmika resentist cannot claim that there are causal relations among dharmas when these are understood in the tro etheoretic fashion. It comes as no sur rise that 2a+ga+rjuna should give such an argument* since his task in ""3 is to show that the very idea that there are things with intrinsic nature is incoherent. $ut <asu!andhu is another matter. ;hy would he endorse such an argumentB ,s an ,+ !hidharmika he does* after all* !elieve that there are things with intrinsic nature* and that they enter into causal relations. The answer in a word is that he is a Humean a!out

causation. That is* he agrees that we ordinarily understand causation to involve necessary connection* !ut in this we are mistakenly su erim osing our own e# ectations onto what actually ha ens in situations of cause and effect. Cltimately* causation is just a matter of constant conjunction' it always ha ens that events of this ty e are succeeded !y events of that ty e. The .uestion I now want to raise is whether "a+dhyamikas like 2a+ga+rjuna have any arguments against this view. Dne often hears it said !y "a+dhyamikas that the em tiness of an entity=its !eing devoid of intrinsic nature= follows from its originating in de endence on other things. <asu!andu seems to hold that things with intrinsic nature can originate in de endence on earlier events= can !e caused=once we understand causation correctly. 0an "adhyamaka refute this ositionB Madhyamaka Arguments Against Causation at the Ultimate Level (8or something to have an intrinsic nature it must !e ossi!le for it to e#ist unaccom anied.) $ut this argument rests on the understanding of svabhva as intrinsic e#istence* and that is not what the term means in ,!hidharma. It means intrinsic nature. (BB). ;hat we must focus on is the .uestion of what e# lains the effects nature given its existence. This is recisely the .uestion that classical Indian theories of causation set out to answer within the framework of the distinction !etween satkryavda and asatkryavda. They e# lain the causal relation understood in terms of su!stance causation. )u!stance causation is* after all* the folk theory of causation. The causal relation that we are interested in is that of event causation* since the momentary occurrence of a dharma is an event* and these are the only ultimately real entities that could serve as relata of a causal relation. $ut the issue that divides ro onents of these two ty es of account of causation turns out to !e one that has a lication in the ,!hidharma conte#t as well. Dn another formulation of asatkryavda* the cause goes out of e#istence rior to the coming into e#istence of the effect. This is clearly the formulation of the view that is acce ta!le to ,!hidharma. Satkryavda is rejected !y all $uddhists* since it re.uires that there !e ermanent entities. -es ite these difficulties* satkryavda does have one distinct advantage over its rival* asatkryavda' it ur orts to e# lain why a given ty e of effect is roduced from a certain kind of cause. ;hat we want to know is not

just why this articular entity or event a eared at this moment. ;hat we ty ically want to know is how to roduce things of this sort in the future. In this search* knowledge of connections !etween natures seems to !e useful. , $uddhist asatkryavdin will hold that an ultimately real cause must recede effect and ceases to e#ist !efore the arising of the effect. In this case it is unclear why a cause having this nature should roduce just that kind of effect and not some other. This is the oint 2a+ga+rjuna makes re eatedly. ;hat we can now see is that for them ("adhyamikas) the relevant .uestion is what e# lains the dharmas intrinsic nature given its existence. $ut where dharmas are understood in ure tro e-theoretic fashion there can !e no such divergence' the e#istence of the dharma just is the occurrence of that ro erty- articular* so that the cause of the one is necessarily the cause of the other. ;ith an ontology of this sort it is not clear that there is room for e#trinsic natures. 2a+ga+rjuna says re eatedly that something with intrinsic nature would necessarily !e eternal and so could not artici ate in de endent origination. It is not clear just what arguments su ort this claim* however. The commentators e# lanation of the claim at 45.4?6 has recourse to the su!stance-attri!ute model of a dharma* which drives a wedge !etween dharmas e#istence and nature and thus makes room for the divergence needed in order to make a case for !orrowing. )uch an argument is* however* im otent against the understanding of dharmas as tro es. ,t ""3 4E.66 we get a somewhat different argument' a dharma with intrinsic nature could not undergo alteration* since it is necessarily sim le* and conse.uently could not undergo origination or cessation* which re resent kinds of alteration. $ut here as well the argument seems to de end on the su!stantialist understanding of dharmas. ,nd if we follow the criti.ue of the su!stance-attri!ute model that 2a+ga+rjuna gives in ""3 5* we will agree that in fact this way of talking makes no sense' with genuine sim les there can !e no such it that first ac.uires and then loses its intrinsic nature. The lesson might just !e that we are wrong to think of sim les as su!stances. )o it is once again unclear why a dharma with intrinsic nature could not artici ate in causal relations* why it could not !e de endently originated. This might !e ut in another way. Inter reted as an attack on the <ai!hikas sarvstivda account of a dharmas e#istence (having intrinsic nature at all three times* functioning at just one time) the "adhyamaka argument against alteration succeeds' since efficacy cannot !e momentary (it must have tem oral thickness)* it dro s out of the <ai!hika

analysis of a dharma* leaving just the intrinsic nature that the dharma has in all three times. <asu!andhu agrees* and likewise agrees that this constitutes a reductio on the <ai!hika account. The <ai!hika is there!y shown to !e committed to an unwanted eternalism a!out its ultimate reals. $ut on <asu!andhus resentist understanding of momentariness* there is ultimately no such thing as alteration. There thus !eing no alteration* a dharmas !eing caused to arise !earing its intrinsic nature cannot count as an alteration* so the argument against alteration has no urchase. 8or <asu!andhu the <ai!hikas mistake lies in their distinguishing !etween a dharmas intrinsic nature and its efficacy. Dnce we see its doing or functioning as nothing more than the occurrence of its intrinsic nature at a moment (an identification that -harmak1+rti will later make e# licit)* the argument that efficacy re.uires tem oral thickness will lose its ower to show that dharmas must !e eternal.. To say that y is roduced from x is ordinarily understood to mean that there is some sort of internal relation !etween the natures of x and y. This is what makes the argument against asatkryavda seem lausi!le' if cause and effect are utterly distinct then the nature of the cause cannot e# lain the nature of the effect. )ince cause and effect cannot ultimately !e simultaneous (""3 @.@a!)* it follows that the resentists ultimately real things cannot enter into relations of causation=understood as roduction. $ut if we understand causation differently* in a Humean fashion* the conclusion does not follow. If causation is no more than universal concomitance of event-ty es* then it should come as no sur rise that knowledge of ultimate causal relations does not confer understanding of why these s ecific regularities should hold. )iderits' ;e have not yet looked at all the "adhyamaka arguments against causal connections among things with intrinsic nature. :erha s some other argument rules out the ossi!ility of Humean causation among dharmas understood as momentary tro e occurrences. I am thus not certain that a successful "adhyamaka argument against the Humean o tion is to !e found in the "adhyamaka literature. 2ow I also !elieve there to !e no such thing as a "adhyamaka master argument* one that somehow roves that all things are necessarily em ty of intrinsic nature. ,nd erha s no "a+dhyamika author ever gave due consideration to the Humean view and formulated a reductio to refute it.