According to Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophers, everything depends for its existence on something else. But what would a world devoid of fundamentalia look like? In this paper, I argue that the anti-foundationalist “neither-one-nor-many argument” of the Indian Mādhyamika Śrīgupta commits him to a position I call “metaphysical indefinitism.” I demonstrate how this view follows from Śrīgupta’s rejection of mereological simples and ontologically independent being, when understood in light of his account of conventional reality. Contra recent claims in the secondary literature, I clarify how the Madhyamaka metaphysical dependence structure is not a straightforward infinitism since it does not honor strict asymmetry or transitivity. Instead, its dependence relations are irreflexive and extendable, admitting of dependence chains of indefinite (though not actually infinite) length and dependence loops of non-zero length. Yet, the flexible ontology of Śrīgupta's Madhyamaka can accommodate a contextualist account of asymmetry and support a revisable theory of conventional truth, delivering significant payoffs for the view, including the capacity to accommodate developments in scientific explanation.

根据中观佛教哲学家的说法，一切事物的存在都取决于其他事物。但是，一个没有基本原理的世界会是什么样子呢？在这篇论文中，我认为印度中观派 Śrīgupta 的反基础主义“非一个或多个论点”使他陷入了我称之为“形而上学不确定论”的立场。我展示了这个观点是如何从 Śrīgupta 拒绝 mereological simples 和本体论独立存在中得出的，当根据他对传统现实的解释来理解时。与二级文献中最近的主张相反，我澄清了中观形而上学的依存结构如何不是一个简单的无限论，因为它不尊重严格的不对称性或传递性。相反，它的依赖关系是非自反和可扩展的，承认不确定（虽然实际上不是无限）长度的依赖链和非零长度的依赖循环。然而，Śrīgupta 的中观的灵活本体论可以容纳对不对称的情境主义解释，并支持传统真理的可修改理论，为该观点带来重大收益，包括适应科学解释发展的能力。