Defending the Semantic Interpretation: A Reply to Ferraro

In a recent article in this journal, Giuseppe Ferraro mounted a sustained attack on the semantic interpretation of the Madhyamaka doctrine of emptiness, an interpretation that has been championed by the authors. The present paper is their reply to that attack.     

UNBUNDLING LEGAL SERVICES IN MEDIATION

The adversarial model for resolving family disputes is seriously flawed. The judicial system is inefficient and uneconomical. The vast majority of litigants cannot afford to have their cases handled by a lawyer, and, as a result, they end up representing themselves. However, divorcing spouses want and need legal services. They should not be forced to choose between full services and no services. As mediation moves toward acceptance as the preferred method for resolving family disputes, attorneys have an opportunity to offer a menu of legal services from which clients may order a la carte. This is the essence of unbundling. This article explores how unbundling enables mediation clients to obtain the legal services they request at an affordable cost and relieves consulting attorneys who perform discrete tasks of responsibility for the outcome of the case.     

Turning a Madhyamaka Trick: Reply to Huntington

Huntington (2007); argues that recent commentators (Robinson, 1957; Hayes, 1994; Tillemans, 1999; Garfield and Priest, 2002) err in attributing to Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti a commitment to rationality and to the use of argument, and that these commentators do violence to the Madhyamaka project by using rational reconstruction in their interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s and Candrakīrti’s texts. Huntington argues instead that mādhyamikas reject reasoning, distrust logic and do not offer arguments. He also argues that interpreters ought to recuse themselves from argument in order to be faithful to these texts. I demonstrate that he is wrong in all respects: Nāgārjuna and Candrakīrti deploy arguments, take themselves to do so, and even if they did not, we would be wise to do so in commenting on their texts.