[DSRP Evidence](https://dsrpevidence.org/)

# Madhyamaka emptiness

Non-dual substrates · 

## Why it looked like it would break the theory

Madhyamaka philosophy argues that all phenomena are empty of intrinsic existence. If nothing possesses an independent essence, distinctions, systems, relationships, and perspectives might appear to dissolve, leaving no universal structural primitives.

## Why it failed

**The counterexample failed** because DSRP does not claim that its structures possess intrinsic or self-subsisting essence. It makes structural, not essentialist, claims. Indeed, DSRP predicts fundamental relationality: identity exists relative to other, part relative to whole, action relative to reaction, and point relative to view. Dependent origination therefore reinforces rather than contradicts the relational structure described by DSRP.

Settled by [R15](https://dsrpevidence.org/resolution/15). Not yet published.

[Read it](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/madhyamaka/)

[All cases](https://dsrpevidence.org/counterexamples)