ABSTRACT

This chapter puts Sellars’ notion of a “stereoscopic vision” of two images (the manifest image and the scientific image) into conversation with that of understanding how the two truths, the conventional and ultimate truth, are related in Buddhism—and in Madhyamaka in particular. In Tibet, Tsongkhapa formulated the essential unity of these two truths in his interpretation of Nāgārjuna’s Madhyamaka. While it is needless to mention that Sellars’ project is quite different from that of the Buddhists, reading Sellars’ vision of resolution in light of Buddhism sheds light on some of the Kantian presuppositions of Sellars’ project. Considering the two Buddhist truths in light of Sellars’ stereoscope also exposes the limits and potentials for Buddhism to contribute to a conversation around how the (manifest) human and scientific (images) can be understood to relate in the contemporary world.