The Prāsaṅgika–Svātantrika distinction

This is a famous in-house debate among Buddhist philosophers who all accepted "emptiness" (śūnyatā)—the idea that nothing has a fixed, independent essence of its own; everything exists only in dependence on parts, causes, and concepts. They belonged to the Madhyamaka ("Middle Way") school, founded by the thinker Nāgārjuna around the 2nd century CE. They did not disagree about the conclusion. They disagreed about the correct method for arriving at it, and Tibetan scholars later named the two camps.

The Prāsaṅgika ("consequence") side, associated with Candrakīrti, said you should never put forward a positive argument of your own. Instead you only take your opponent's assumptions and show the absurd consequences they lead to, until the opponent's position collapses on its own terms. To assert any thesis yourself, they argued, would secretly smuggle in the very fixed essences you are trying to deny.

The Svātantrika ("independent") side, associated with Bhāviveka, said that was too thin. To genuinely convince someone, you must be willing to construct your own logically valid arguments—"independent inferences"—even while still concluding that nothing has intrinsic existence. The dispute may sound technical, but it touches a deep question every tradition faces: can you reason your way to a truth that says reasoning itself reaches no solid ground? In Tibet especially, where a teacher stood on this question became a marker of one's whole philosophical lineage.