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Catuṣkoṭi

Catuṣkoṭi ( Sanskrit; Devanagari: चतुष्कोटि, ) is a logical argument(s) of a 'suite of four discrete functions' or 'an indivisible quaternity' that has multiple applications and has been important in the Dharmic traditions of Indian logic and the Buddhist logico-epistemological traditions, particularly those of the Madhyamaka school.

Robinson (1957: pp. 302–303) states ( negativism is employed in amplification of the Greek tradition of Philosophical skepticism):

A typical piece of Buddhist dialectical apparatus is the ...(catuskoti). It consists of four members in a relation of exclusive disjunction ("one of, but not more than one of, 'a,' 'b,' 'c,' 'd,' is true"). Buddhist dialecticians, from Gautama onward, have negated each of the alternatives, and thus have negated the entire proposition. As these alternatives were supposedly exhaustive, their exhaustive negation has been termed "pure negation" and has been taken as evidence for the claim that Madhyamika is negativism.

In particular, the catuṣkoṭi is a "four-cornered" system of argumentation that involves the systematic examination and rejection of each of the 4 possibilities of a proposition, P:

  1. P; that is, being.
  2. not P; that is, not being.
  3. P and not P; that is, being and not being.
  4. not (P or not P); that is, neither being nor not being.