Explains and assesses Nagarjuna’s philosophy of emptiness (sunyata). Emptiness means that all entities are empty of, they lack, inherent existence. Entities have a merely conceptually constructed existence. The popular interpretation of Nagarjuna’s philosophy as a form of scepticism is examined and refuted. Burton explains, and points out the textual and philosophical weaknesses of, the influential interpretation that Nagarjuna advocates a trans-rational gnosis of an unconceptualisable reality, offering an alternative reading of the notion of non-conceptual experience in Nagarjuna’s philosophy. Though Nagarjuna advocates the Middle Way between nihilism and eternalism, his philosophy of emptiness nevertheless entails nihilism, as Nagarjunaas opponents contended. This is a careful and original contribution to the scholarship on Nagarjuna’s philosophy. Unlike many books about Nagarjuna, this is a philosophical appraisal, and not simply an explication, of Nagarjuna’s thought.