Dependence and emptiness › Why two truths do not require two worlds

In 24.8-10, Nāgārjuna distinguishes worldly conventional truth from ultimate truth. He insists that the ultimate cannot be taught without relying on convention, and that understanding the ultimate matters for attaining nirvana. Language and ordinary distinctions consequently have a role within the teaching itself. They are not disposable errors that a serious philosopher must refuse to use.

One useful way to understand this distinction is to ask two questions about the same cup. Can it hold water, and is it the cup we placed on the table? Those are conventional questions. Does the cup possess an independent nature that explains its existence apart from the conditions through which we identify and use it? That is the kind of question raised by the analysis of intrinsic nature. The example concerns different demands made on an explanation, rather than a visible cup alongside an invisible ultimate cup.

The same point applies to philosophical teaching. If words had to name independently existing essences before they could communicate anything, an argument against such essences would appear self-defeating. But that requirement is precisely what the argument questions. We can use a distinction to explain a dependence without treating the distinction itself as an independent object.

This is an interpretation of how the two-truths passage answers the problem, not a claim that Nāgārjuna supplies a complete theory of ordinary language. His concise verses leave substantial work for the reader. At a minimum, 24.10 prevents us from making the ultimate a standpoint from which convention has no explanatory or practical use.