 As we noted earlier the understanding of svabhāva in terms of substance (which is rejected by Nāgārjuna) conceives of it as an end-point in a series of dependence relations. Various kinds of dependence relations are discussed in the Madhyamaka literature; the most important ones for our purposes are mereological dependence (the dependence of a composite object on its parts), causal dependence (the dependence of an effect on its cause) and conceptual dependence (the dependence of an object on the conceptualizing mind). For the Madhyamaka these dependence relations are equivalent to the extent that none ever bottoms out. They do have different weight in their philosophical argumentation, however, since only establishing that conceptual dependence does not have a foundation is sufficient for establishing the absence of svabhāva in the comprehensive sense intended by the Madhyamaka philosophers. Even if there was no foundation for mereological dependence, i.e. even if there were no partless particles, or no foundation of causal dependence, i.e. no first cause there would still remain an important sense in which things exist substantially, namely independent of human cognition and conceptualization. Only if we can show that no objects exist independently with respect to conceptual dependence are we able to establish Nāgārjuna’s anti-foundationalism in the full sense.