Quaternary Discourse In Nagarjuna And Derrida

Quaternary Discourse in Nagarjuna and Derrida Chad Lavimoniere

It has been claimed that Buddhism is not a religion but a philosophy.1 This paper will not delve into the intricate and confusing realm of religious definition; indeed, for Buddhism, concrete definitions are not of much use, as shall be seen. Regardless of the label applied to it, Buddhism is a discourse, a rhetoric. I will explore affinities between the discourse called “Buddhism” and another discourse that bends the conventions of modern philosophical topoi, the discourse called “Derrida,”2 by following a quaternary organization of examples: emptiness; samsāra (and) the text; karmavipāka and writing; and death (and) writing, in hopes that, in the folds between the four quarters, an appreciation of the similarities between the two philosophies can be achieved.3 Ian Mabbett, an historian at Monash University specializing in the history of Buddhism, and Roger Jackson, a specialist in the religions of Southern Asia at Carlton College, have written briefly in connection with Buddhism and Deconstruction; both, however, have focused their efforts mainly on Buddhism and have paid little attention to Deconstruction. It is my intention here to give a fairer treatment and exploration of the Derridean discourse in comparing it to Buddhism.

Emptiness The Buddhist conception of “emptiness” is not a form of nihilism;4 rather, it is the assertion of the dependent nature of apparently independent elements of being (or, perhaps, Being5). In his article Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction, Ian Mabbett explains: “to be void 59

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[empty] is not to be either determinately existent or nonexistent, but to be, in a particular sense, relative”6; that is, emptiness in the Buddhist sense is a necessary non-origin and dependence, an emptiness of inherent and independent existence. In a way, this Buddhist concept of emptiness matches the family of terms in Derrida that includes différance, brisure, trace, and pharmakon7; for these terms reflect a sense of the non-origin and necessary interdependence of signifiers in Derrida’s thought. That is, just as all things are empty of inherent being and origination in Buddhist thought, all things are non-originary in Derrida’s. Or, as Mabbett states: “both [Buddhism and Deconstruction] celebrate emptiness.”8 Chief among the “deconstructionist Buddhist thinkers,”9 Nāgārjuna uses a tetralemmic10 logic to show the intrinsic emptiness of things. His tetralemma negates four possibilities for a subject S and a predicate P: that there can be S with P, that there can be S without P, that there can be S both with and without P, and that there can be S neither with nor without P.11 Let us quote an example of Nāgārjuna’s tetralemma given in Jackson’s article on the play of Deconstruction and Foundationalism in Buddhism, taken from the twenty-fifth chapter of the Madhyakakakārikā: If nirvāna is said to exist [if S with P], then it must be an entity subject to production and destruction, but this contradicts the definition of nirvāna as unconditioned. If it is said not to exist [if S without P], then its very possibility as a human attainment is being denied, and this is contrary to the “gospel” of Buddhism to the effect that enlightenment is possible. If it both exists and does not exist [if S both with and without P], then contradictory properties are being asserted of the same concept. If it neither exists nor does not exist [if S neither with nor without P], then no meaningful statement is being offered.12

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In this example, Jackson shows the crucial operation of Nāgārjuna’s emptiness: it is not the denial of S (in this case, nirvāna), but the denial of relationship SP—that is, Nāgārjuna’s emptiness is the emptiness of (absence of ) a logical relationship between subjects and predicates, or, as we might gloss from Saussure,13 between signified and signifier, insomuch as the signified is predicated by the signifier. Nirvāna cannot be taken as the subject of any predicate in any way that can be called unequivocally true; it cannot be signified exclusively. I will return to this later; in the meantime, it is sufficient to note that the Buddhist program of emptiness is an “ontological and epistemological deconstruction,”14 aimed at demonstrating that nothing can be inherently existent or original. In a similar way, the operation of a deconstructive praxis reveals the inconsistencies of “logocentric” statements. In the Circumfession, Derrida “discovers” what might be compared to the tetralemma: a four-fold thing he calls PaRDeS (an acronym, but also from the Hebrew pardes, “orchard”), the model of rabbinical interpretation.15 First, there is the Pshat, or the literal meaning, which we can compare to S with P; it is a statement of literal meaning, the traditional relationship signified is signifier, or: S with P. Next, there is the R’emez, the “crypt, allegory, secret, diverted word”;16 this we can, with some explanation, compare to S without P. For, just as the logical term S without P means that S is signed by something other than P, R’emez means that what is said is not the real meaning (is not S with P), but is a kind of negative definition, an intimation – but not a statement – of meaning: R’emez is the statement of what is not the predicate P of S; or: signified is not signifier. Next is Drash, more a “synthetic attribution than an analytic clarification of meaning,”17 which is similar to S both with and without P; it is the bringing together of different meanings, the depiction of harmony between apparent opposites; it is S both with and without P, or: signified is and is not signifier. Finally, there is Soud, the “profound, cabbalistic”18 meaning, which correlates to S neither with nor without P, for Soud is the intimation of a secret and seemingly impossible meaning, or 61

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the allusion to a third category that is outside of those considered, i.e., signified is neither signifier nor not-signifier, or: S neither with nor without P. The four terms of Derrida’s PaRDeS correspond to the four terms of Nāgārjuna’s tetralemma, with only the slight difference that Derrida speaks of the PaRDeS as an example of non-logocentric interpretation, while Nāgārjuna’s tetralemma is more straightforwardly a praxis for teasing out the inconsistencies of logocentricity;19 however, I should note that for Derrida, too, the quaternary is a practice of illuminating logical inconsistencies. What is important to note in this regard is that for both Nāgārjuna and Derrida, this quaternary unfolding (what Derrida might call dédoublement) shows the emptiness (that is, inherent inconsistency) of conventional symbolic orders.

Samsara (and) the Text Samsāra is the continuous cycle of existence in Buddhism.20 It can only be escaped by disengaging from the apparent order of meaning and causality, shown to be faulty by the tetralemma of Nāgārjuna. That is, samsāra is a circle that only the deconstructing of logocentrism can break. And so the link to Derrida becomes apparent; samsāra is “a monster text ripe for deconstruction.”21 There follows here a comparison of the Buddhist idea of samsāra and Derrida’s idea of the text. The cycle of samsāra is carried out by the continual becoming and un-becoming of beings.22 There is no isolatable origin; all things depend, both in their becoming and un-becoming, on other things – they are empty of intrinsic or independent originality and existence. Samsāra, then, is rather like a network of interdependent and inter-referential items, held together by the relationships assumed between those items – Samsāra, as an item, is itself dependent on the beings within it. In Derrida’s idea of the text, signifiers “have a self-referential relationship among themselves – the meaning of each signifier is determined by its relationship with other signifiers.”23 In other words, 62

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Derrida’s concept of the text is that of a “system of relations,”24 rather like the Buddhist concept of samsāra with signifiers instead of beings. But Derrida’s text is also something that obscures. Let us quote the opening of “Plato’s Pharmacy”: A text is not a text unless it hides from the first comer, from the first glance, the law of its composition and the rules of its game. A text remains, moreover, forever imperceptible. Its law and its rules are not, however, harboured in the inaccessibility of a secret; it is simply that they can never be booked, in the present, into anything that could rigorously be called a perception.25 That is: the text hides something; it implies but does not immediately disclose. And so Derrida’s text is, in a way, a Gnostic text,26 a system of secret knowledge, but secret only in as much as the “laws of its composition and the rules of its game” cannot be perceived in the present, cannot be conceptualised as a presence. And so, for Derrida, deconstructively reading a text means to uncover the “silent complicity between the superstructural pressures of metaphysics and an ambiguous innocence about a detail at the level of base.”27 That is, reading is a process of presenting examples, small elements in texts that can tell the reader something unexpected – and not entirely intended – about a text, or about texts generally (e.g., the sponge in St. Augustine’s Confessions, the pharmakon in the Phaedrus, the supplément in Rousseau); examples that can illustrate part of the hidden truth of the text. This illumination is comparable to the enlightenment of nirvāna in Buddhism; for nirvāna is “to see the state of things as they are,”28 to break out of ignorance about samsāra and into knowledge of it, to know that all things are empty of intrinsic existence or originality – to see, in other words, the hidden truth of the text of samsāra.29 And so the Buddhist practitioner “reads” samsāra for examples, small objects within the weave of samsāra that, when properly considered, 63

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can illustrate part of its hidden truth. An example this practice is Nāgārjuna’s tetralemma, discussed above.

Karmavipaka and Writing In Buddhism, karma is volitional action, and not – as is commonly thought – the result of that action, which is rightly called karmavipāka.30 Karmavipāka is the mark left in samsāra by karma. It is, then, in a sense, a kind of writing, a “trace which survives the [karma]’s present.”31 But karmavipāka is more than a mark subsequent to karma, just as writing is more than a hypomnesis32 subsequent to speech for Derrida; since “each action is pregnant with its consequences,”33 karmavipāka is already present in karma – that is, consequence is already present in action. There is, then, an arche-karmavipāka present in karma, just as there is arche-writing present in speech;34 moreover, as the archewriting of speech is writing in a sense divorced from physical writing, writing in the sense of “the possibility of sustained, repeatable representation,”35 such that speech is possible, we can consider that the arche-karmavipāka of karma is a karmavipāka divorced from the usual sense of the physical effect of karma and, rather than following it, is a facilitating factor prior to karma. In other words, consequence (karmavipāka) is not only already present in action (karma): it is a facilitating factor that is prior to action. I should pause to note briefly that this line of reasoning functions parallel to Nāgārjuna’s tetralemma—inasmuch as we have just shown that the effect comes before the cause and have “emptied” causality of its intrinsic existence. However, it seems more important in relating Buddhism and Derrida to note that the relationship between karmavipāka and karma that has been provisionally stated here is the same as that between writing and speech as offered by Derrida: writing is not only present in speech (and, for that matter, conventional writing), but it is a facilitating factor prior to it.36 As a final consideration on the affinity between karmavipāka and writing, I should point out that writing is, for Derrida, a praxis, a 64

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practice, an action; it is thus by definition a karma, an action, just as much as physical writing is a karmavipāka, the result of an action. More importantly, writing in the general sense is the only means by which we can perceive any action, as it is the possibility of meaningful iteration of signs via differentiation.

Death (and) Writing And yet it is this iteration of signs that signs death, an idea to which we will return shortly. For the moment, let us quote from Rahula on the Buddhist definition of death: We have seen earlier that a being is nothing but a combination of physical and mental forces or energies. What we call death is the total non-functioning of the physical body. Do all these forces and energies stop altogether with the non-functioning of the body? Buddhism says “No.” Will, volition, desire, thirst to exist, to continue, to become more and more, is a tremendous force that moves whole lives, whole existences, that even moves the whole world. This is the greatest force, the greatest energy in the world. According to Buddhism, this force does not stop with the nonfunctioning of the body, which is death; but it continues manifesting itself in another form, producing re-existence which is called rebirth.37 A being, then, is in a way a mini-samsāra, a collection of aggregates that is dependent in its existence on the coming into being and going out of being of individual elements within it; it is dependent on, we can say, the karma and the karmavipāka of its individual elements. And so we can say that a being’s death is equally dependent on its karma and karmavipāka. Already, this would suggest the connection between writing and death that Derrida discusses; karmavipāka, the organizing structure and effect of action, is, in a sense, responsible for death, inasmuch as death is necessarily an action, a karma. Moreover, the death of a being is the end of the interplay between 65

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its physical constituents and represents the dispersal of its mental constituents; it is a death, that is, “that only an immortal can die,”38 i.e., that can only be experienced and survived by the “will, volition, desire” etc., the karmic elements that could be called immortal in a constantly repeating samsāric world, inasmuch as they are the facilitators of that constant repetition and do not die. For Derrida, death is (a part of ) writing. That is, “representation,” which is the legacy of arche-writing, the ability to repeat signs meaningfully, “is death.”39 And so the relation between writing and death for Derrida is quite like that between karmavipāka and death in Buddhism.40 We should also note that Derrida, in his reading of the Phaedrus, spends a considerable amount of time discussing the fact that the Egyptian god Theuth, giver of the pharmakon that is writing, is also the god of death.41 For example, he says: In all the cycles of Egyptian mythology, Thoth [i.e., Theuth] presides over the organization of death. The master of writing, numbers, and calculation does not merely write down the weight of dead souls; he first counts out the days of life, enumerates history…. He behaves like a chief of funeral protocol, charged in particular with the dressing of the dead.42 And so in this way Derrida again connects writing to death, for Theuth, who is the sign of writing, is also the sign of death. Moreover, he is the performative sign of death: he behaves in a certain regard towards death, even as he enumerates – tells, writes – history. And so we can say that Theuth, mascot of writing/death, is also the representation (death)43 of a certain karma. Death, like writing, is performed, is acted; more importantly, in the person of Theuth, they are acted simultaneously. Aside from the consideration that this symbolic multi-tasking fits nicely into Derrida’s conception of the false nature of direct and exclusive relationships between signifiers and signifieds, it suggests that, perhaps, writing and death are more than connected, but are symptoms of one and the same phenomenon for 66

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Derrida –that they are not two. Like the figure of Theuth, which “is opposed to its other…as that which at once supplements and supplants it,”44 Derrida sees (descriptively, negatively, as a problematic symptom of Western Metaphysics) both writing and death as figures opposed (here, in the passive voice) to their others (speech and life, respectively), and as actions, karma, that must be performed in a way that supplements their “others” (that is, is not coterminous with them) and replaces them. Writing and death are the same, they are the action that supplements and supplants. And we see this relationship between writing, life, and death mirrored in Buddhist thought on life, death, and karma. Let us read the continuation of the quotation above from Rahula: Before we go on to life after death, let us consider what this life is, and how it continues now. What we call life…is the combination of…physical and mental energies. These are constantly changing; they do not remain the same for two consecutive moments. Every moment they are born and they die. 45 And now let us end this quotation and consider the following brief quote from Derrida: Traces thus produce the space of their inscription only by acceding to the period of their erasure. From the beginning, in the “present” of their first impression, they are constituted by the double force of repetition and erasure.46 In the quote from Rahula, we see that life is a constant changing, a vacillation from birth to death, from becoming to unbecoming. This becoming and unbecoming is karma, action, and is dependent upon karmavipāka, the effect of karma. In the quote from Derrida, we see that traces, which are in a sense another kind of writing,47 follow the same sort of existence that Rahula describes: they constantly become and unbecome. And so writing participates in a vacillation between life and death just as karma does. Derrida states later: “writing… 67

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is technē as the relation between life and death”;48 that is, writing is a craft, art, or practice that works as the relation between life and death, just as Theuth, the sign of writing, is a technician, a craftsman, an artisan, a practitioner at the ritual boundary between life and death. Writing is action across life and death, but not action that transcends it, as writing itself becomes and unbecomes, lives and dies. Writing is karma that brings about the samsāra of the text, constantly becoming and unbecoming, constantly dying. I have attempted to produce a consideration of the affinities between Buddhism and Derrida, following a quaternary unfolding, a PaRDeS, a tetralemmic argument: first, through an examination of emptiness in Buddhism—specifically in Nāgārjuna—and in Derrida, including a consideration of Nāgārjuna’s tetralemma and Derrida’s own PaRDeS; then, by a consideration of samsāra and the text, which work in analogous ways; then, by a consideration of the correspondence between writing and karmavipāka; and finally by considering the similarity in the concepts of death in Buddhism and Derrida. Our work here has been brief and, it must be admitted, multa prætereo, quia multim festino.49 Certainly, it should be remembered that Buddhism and Derrida’s ideas come from very different geopolitical and historical loci (there is a spatial-temporal différance between them), and so these similarities are just that: more properly points of similarity in distinct discourses than “proofs” of philosophical or ideological convergence, Derrida not having been conversant in Buddhism, and Nāgārjuna certainly not having been conversant in twentieth-century discourses like Deconstruction. Their shared use of quaternary discourse to oppose logocentric views of Being and action may ultimately suggest, then, as Mabbett notes, “the operation of common social or cultural forces in a way that transcends the differences between civilizations,”50 specifically as regards ontology and other systems of signification. In the end, then, this will have been “the crossing between…two phantoms of witnesses who will never come down to the same”:51 two examples of examples of 68

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four, used against the establishment of logocentric truths based on the apparent nature of Being.

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Endnotes cf., for example, Dorothy Figen, “Is Buddhism a Religion?” http://www. buddhistinformation.com/is_buddhism_a_religion1.htm)and Narada Thera’s “Buddhism in a Nutshell” http://www.buddhanet.net/nutshell03.htm. 2 The terms “Buddhism” and “Derrida” are of course not precise. Though their functionality as labels is limited, I use them here as a sort of shorthand to signify the discourses they evoke. 3 This paper, originally written in a seminar on Derrida, mirrors in many ways the idiosyncratic features of his discourse, with the intent that allowing Derrida’s discourse to govern the description of his ideas will give the reader a better insight into his philosophy than a strictly descriptive, logical overview. For such an overview, I recommend Geoffrey Bennington’s “Derridabase” in his collaborative work with Derrida, Jacques Derrida. An example of Derrideanism:, the paper follows Derrida’s tendency to use examples rather than logocentric arguments to illustrate a thesis. The reader should note, too, that the use of the first person plural functions rhetorically in Derrida’s writing to break down the dichotomy between author and reader. I borrow it here in hopes of giving the reader a sense of the commitment and work Derrida demands from a reader. A final caveat: the reader should note that to begin with an idea and return to it after a long discursion is another Derridean tactic, mirroring the deferral inherent in writing and the organization of linguistic signs. 4 cf. Ian W. Mabbett, “Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction,” Philosophy East and West 45 (1995): 211, note 39 on p. 223 of the same text, and Nathan Katz, “Prasañga and Deconstruction: Tibetan Hermeneutics and the yāna Controversy,” Philosophy East and West 34 (1984): 187 for more discussion of the charge of nihilism levelled against the Buddhist concept of emptiness. 5  Being, with a capital “B,” (G. Sein) is Heidegger’s term, as used in Sein und Zeit, for absolute Being itself, as distinguished from any individual beings. Heidegger claims in this seminal work that Being is directly intelligible; Derrida opposes Heidegger’s ontological project. My objective in calling on Heidegger here is simply to compare the usual conception of “apparently independent elements of being” that can be known directly – which Buddhism refutes – to Heidegger’s Being. (cf. Bass’ note on Heidegger’s terms on pg. xvii of his English translation of Writing and Difference.) 6 Mabbett, “Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction,” 211. My italics. 7 It is difficult (especially in the space of a footnote!) to explain these terms without the addition of several pages of commentary. To be brief: différance is a word Derrida coined (playing on the French for “difference,” différence, and the French for “to defer,” différer) which signifies both a spatial and a temporal difference between things; Derrida suggests that this différance characterizes the effect of writing on the communicator and the communicated (cf. Bass’ 1

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note on pg. xvi of Writing and Difference for more on différance). Brisure is the French term for “hinge,” but can also mean “joint, crack, fold, breach, fragment.” Derrida uses the term in Of Grammatology to denote the copulative nature of writing (cf. 65-73). “Trace,” says Derrida, “is the différance which opens appearance and signification” (Of Grammatology, 65. Emph. Orig.)— that is (to an over-generalization), the trace is the evidence of a difference in communication, which gives insight into apparent nature (we should recall Heidegger’s Sein) and signification, the semiotic/linguistic concept that signs and their signifieds have a direct relationship. Pharmakon is the Greek term for “drug,” and can mean “poison, cure, medicine, amulet,” and “antidote,” depending on its context. Derrida explores the concept of the pharmakon in great depth in “Plato’s Pharmacy.” Cf. also Spivak’s Translator’s Preface to Of Grammatology, p. lxxii. 8 Mabbett, “Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction,” 211. 9 Roger R. Jackson, “Matching Concepts: Deconstructive and Foundationalist Tendencies in Buddhist Thought,” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 57 (1989): 568. 10 Tetralemma comes from the Greek for “four premises.” 11 I am indebted to Mabbett, “Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction,” 213 for this elegantly simple explanation of the tetralemma. 12 Jackson, “Matching Concepts,” 573. 13 Derrida’s work on Saussure in Of Grammatology problematizes Saussure’s direct relationship of the signified and the signifier. For more on this see Bennington’s “Derridabase” in Jacques Derrida, 23-42. 14 Ibid., 574. 15 Jacques Derrida, “Circumfession,” in Jacques Derrida, tr. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 110. 16 Ibid. 17 Phillip Culbertson, “Pee(k)ing into Derrida’s Underpants: Circumcision, Textual Multiplexity, and the Cannibalistic Mother,” The Journal for the Society of Textual Reasoning 10 (2001) http://etext.virginia.edu/journals/tr/archive / volume10/peeking.html (Accessed 6 Dec. 2007). 18 Derrida, “Circumfession,” 110. 19 Logocentricity for Derrida is a term with a wide range of possible meanings; in this respect, it is itself an attack on logocentrism via the ambiguation of linguistic concurrence, as it is a signifier with a range of signifieds. As used here, it means more directly an adherence to hierarchical, Heideggerian conceptions of Being. 20 Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Press, 1974), 146. 21 Mabbett, “Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction,” 207. 22 That is, birth and death. 71

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Xiaoying Wang, “Derrida, Husserl, and the Structural Affinity between the ‘Text’ and the Market,” New Literary History 26 (no. 2, 1995): 261. 24 Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” in Writing and Difference, tr. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978), 227. 25 Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” in Dissemination, tr. Barbara Johnson (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1981), 63. 26 Edward W. Said, “The Problem of Textuality: Two Exemplary Positions,” Critical Inquiry 4 (no. 4, Summer 1978): 675: “to say that the text’s textual intention and integrity are invisible is to say that the text hides something, that the text implies, perhaps also states, embodies, represents, but does not immediately disclose something. At bottom, this is a gnostic [sic] doctrine of the text.” (his emphasis). 27 Ibid., 678-79. 28 Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, 40 n. 1. It is important to note that, despite popular misconceptions to the contrary, samsāra and nirvāna are not different things in Buddhism; samsāra is not equivalent to the world and nirvāna is not equivalent to heaven. Cf. also Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamakakārika XXV.19 in this regard. 29 cf. also Mabbett, “Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction,” 208: “Deconstruction, which employs a special type of contemplative thought—Denken, we might call it—gives us the eye of insight to see that this is what is happening. It is really like the Buddha eye, which sees all things, and the enlightenment it promises is really like bodhi.” 30 Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, 32. 31 Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” 224. 32 Hypomnesis comes from the Greek for “outside the memory.” In the Phaedrus, Plato distinguishes between “true memory” (mneme) and “false” memory (hypomnesis), the former being, for Plato, a form of access to the true forms (eidos); the latter being equivalent to implements of reminding, such as writing and sophistic mnemonic devices (Phaedrus 274e-275b). 33 Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, (San Francisco: Harper, 1993), 96. 34 Arche-writing refers to the organization and spacing of language (its differentiation) prior to speech and conventional writing. Cf. Of Grammatology 56, 61, 69, and the section from 44 quoted here in note 37. 35 Said, The Problem of Textuality,” 690. 36 cf. Of Grammatology, 44: “If ‘writing’ signifies inscription and especially the durable institution of a sign… writing in general covers the entire field of linguistic signs.” 37 Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, 32-33. 38 Derrida, “Circumfession,” 208. 39 Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” 227. 23

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The attentive reader may already have noticed that many sentences in this paper begin with “and.” This is not simply a neglect of stylistic advice to the contrary; it mirrors Derrida’s tendency to do so, which itself exemplifies the supplementary nature of writing as an addition to speech, esp. for Plato and Saussure. (For more on writing and supplement, cf. “Plato’s Pharmacy,” 73-74, 76, 83, and 93 and “Freud and the Scene of Writing” 206 ff.) 41 Derrida, “Plato’s Pharmacy,” 91. 42 Ibid., 92. 43 Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” 226: “Representation is death. Which may be immediately transformed into the following proposition: death is (only) representation.” For more on representation and death, cf. “Plato’s Pharmacy,” 90-94. 44 Ibid. 92-93. 45 Rahula, What the Buddha Taught, 33. My italics. 46 Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” 226. My italics. 47 cf. Harold G. Coward, “‘Speech versus Writing’ in Derrida and Bhartrhari,” Philosophy East and West 41 (no 2, April 1991): 146, and “Plato’s Pharmacy,” p. 149. 48 Derrida, “Freud and the Scene of Writing,” 228. 49 Lat. “I pass over many things, for I am in a great hurry.” Orig. from St. Augustine’s Confessions, IX, viii, 17. Qtd. In Derrida, “Circumfession,” 147. 50 Mabbett, “Nāgārjuna and Deconstruction,” 218-19. 51 Ibid., 315. 40

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