Does Theravadin analysis distinguish between implicative and absolute negations? In Beacon of Certainty (tr. Pettit), Mipham Rinpoche addresses key questions about how to practice based on Madhyamaka philosophy. The first question has to do with distinguishing absolute negation from implicative negation.

An affirming negative (or “implicative negation”) “expresses the absence of one predicate while implying some other.” (Pettit 109)
In short, this is not a good way to conceive how appearances are empty of any true and inherent existence: because the implied object has to somehow stand apart and have some kind of inherent existence that is immune from further analysis.

A non-affirming negative (or “absolute negation”) “simply excludes something, without implying anything else.” (Pettit 109)
This is a much more fruitful stance because it does not hold some kind of appearance as standing separate from emptiness; and therefore it can serve as a conceptual segue to meditative experience of the coalescence of emptiness and appearance.


I think this distinction is a very powerful tool in overcoming the tendency to take appearances as concrete realities that somehow have emptiness within them; and to understand how appearance and emptiness coalesce. Is there a similar distinction within Theravadin buddhism? It seems like this would be a useful distinction when exploring the 3 Dharma seals, particularly that of not-self (sabbe dhammā anattā). But I've never encountered such an analysis when reading in the Pali Canon or Theravadin commentaries.
From a practicing (non-academic) Theravada perspective philosophical analysis/speculation of this form would be simply considered playing with vaci-sankhara (verbal formations). Realization of anattā for a Theravadin comes from meditative practice alone. No amount of fiddling around with words or expertise in the written Pali scriptures or associated philosophical intricacies brings one any closer to the goal. Any and all thoughts one has about anattā are merely formations based on craving (tanha) which must be let go before one can actually realize anattā. There is a feeling associated with every sense object that comes in contact with the senses. Based on this feeling one perceives the object as good, bad, or neither and then one's intellect explores this object as a source of happiness, unhappiness, or neither respectively. In this case one's mind comes into contact with an idea about anattā and it evokes some feeling. If this feeling is positive then one will be attracted to the idea (as a source of happiness) and will attempt to further justify this idea with the intellect. Similarly, if the idea evokes a negative feeling then the intellect will attempt to refute this idea as it perceived the idea as a source of unhappiness. The irony is that both of these explorations about anattā (really intellectual exploration about any subject) are psychologically based on self-view (sakkaya-ditti). The intellect is always biased by the fundamental perceptions one has about the object that are based on nothing more than feelings. In order to realize the truth about anything these thoughts (explorations of the intellect) must be abandoned.