MADHYAMIKA

Madhyamika: translation

(Skt., the middle way) A school of Buddhist philosophy. The middle way 228 emphasizes the emptiness (shunyata) of things, and the way in which truth lies beyond all dichotomies and oppositions. But it also allows some value to relative or phenomenal knowledge of things. The middle way is in some respects similar to the Kantian conjunction of the unknowable nature of the noumenal and the possibility of a science of the phenomenal. The school was founded by Nagarjuna, and has a long philosophical development.