ld be characterized.” What Nagarjuna was saying was that the relationship between past, present and future is contradictory. The relationship between my obtaining my driver’s license, me out driving on the road and my having a wreck is contradictory.Basically what Nagarjuna was saying was that the relationship between past, present and future all depend upon each other. Let’s look at it this way; the past depends on the present, the present depends on the past, the present depends on the future and the future depends on the past. In other words, my getting my driver’s license depends on my driving. My driving depends on my getting my driver’s license. My driving depends on my having a wreck and my wreck depends on my obtaining my driver’s license. One thing cannot happen without the other one occurring also. Kasulis then goes on to focus upon Nagarjuna’s critique of causality.Nagarjuna challenged causality by making evident that the relationship between cause and effect was not either absolute or unparadoxical. There are four replications to cause and effect. “Cause and effect is completely identical, cause and effect are not at all identical, cause and effect are both identical and not identical at the same time, and the last response is that cause and effect is neither identical nor not identical” (Kasulis). Let’s use the example of driving again to better illustrate this point or critique. The cause of my having a wreck could be because I was speeding. The effect of my speeding is having a wreck. Nagarjuna says that these responses lead to absurdity. Or in layman’s terms, they are absolutely ridiculous.Nagarjuna argues on point one that if the cause and effect are exactly the same “then nothing different was caused or brought into existence.” So if my having a wreck (effect) and the speeding (cause) are indeed exactly the same, then nothing ...
