Abstract

This chapter focuses on the cosmology within Nāgārjuna’s thought, the foundational philosopher in the Mādhyamaka Buddhist tradition. Nāgārjuna weaves a carefully reasoned path—the ‘Middle Way’—between substantialism and nominalism. Yet his emphasis on Śūnyatā is widely misinterpreted in the West as leading to nihilism when read with little consideration of its twin element, Pratı̄tyasamutpāda. I argue that these two concepts, when unified, can overcome the trappings of both nihilism and of nominalist existence that seem to hold such a fixation in the metaphysical assumptions of many theories of IR. In particular, I show how this dialectic of Emptiness and Interdependent Co-arising provides a unique philosophical expression of the unity of all things within a cosmology of deep relationalism without the need of ontotheology. This alternate foundation offers a far more complex understanding of relations and intersubjectivity and thus provides a reorientation for a genuine cosmopolitan politics.