Published Paper Details:

This paper offers a comparative philosophical study of Nāgārjuna, the second-century Buddhist thinker and founder of the Mādhyamika school, and Jacques Derrida, the twentieth-century French philosopher who developed the method of deconstruction. Both philosophers interrogate the foundations of essentialist thinking: Nāgārjuna through his doctrine of Śūnyatā and Pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination), and Derrida through his critique of logocentrism and his concept of différance. By analysing their shared strategies of dismantling fixed categories, their rejection of intrinsic essences, and their insistence on the instability of meaning, the paper argues that Nāgārjuna and Derrida converge as non-essentialist thinkers, albeit working within different philosophical horizons. It also highlights their differences, particularly in the ethical and soteriological dimensions of Nāgārjuna’s thought vis-à-vis Derrida’s focus on textuality and undecidability. The comparative exploration shows the promise of cross-cultural philosophy in understanding deconstruction not merely as a Western phenomenon but as a global mode of thinking that destabilizes all claims to foundational certainty.