So we are all clear, what the sutta says is:
nāhaṃ, bhikkhave, lokena vivadāmi, lokova mayā vivadati. Na, bhikkhave, dhammavādī kenaci lokasmiṃ vivadati. Yaṃ, bhikkhave, natthisammataṃ loke paṇḍitānaṃ, ahampi taṃ natthī’ti vadāmi. Yaṃ, bhikkhave, atthisammataṃ loke paṇḍitānaṃ, ahampi taṃ atthī’ti vadāmi. (SN iii.138)
"I do not dispute with the world (lokena), the world disputes with me. Bhikkhus, a Buddhist doesn’t dispute with anything/anyone in the world (lokasmiṃ). What the scholars (paṇḍita) agree is not in the world (loke), I also say that ‘it isn’t’ (taṃ natthi). What the scholars agree is in the world, I also say ‘it is’ (taṃ atthi).
The word loka is used in two difference senses in this sutta, as marked by the two different forms of the locative - lokasmiṃ is a Sanskritised form, and loke is the standard Pāli form. As per Jan Gonda’s long essay on the word in Sanskrit, loka is primarily “the visible world”, or in our terms “the perceptual world” (cf the Sabba Sutta SN 35:23). As Sue Hamilton has shown in Early Buddhism: A New Approach, at least in some contexts, Pāli suttas refer to one’s experience (dukkha), arising from the apparatus of experience (the khandhas) as being one’s world (loka).
The khandhas… "are the factors of human experience (or, better the experiencing factors) that one needs to understand in order to achieve the goal of the Buddhist teachings.” (Hamilton 2000, p. 29)
Bhikkhu Bodhi has come to a similar conclusion:
“The world with which the Buddha’s teaching is principally concerned is ‘the world of experience,’ and even the objective world is of interest only to the extent that it serves as that necessary external condition for experience.” (Bodhi 2000, The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: 394, n.182)
Loka is sometimes substituted for dukkha as the product of paṭiccasamupāda.
evametassa kevalassa dukkhakkhandhassa samudayo hoti
Such is the arising of this whole mass of dissatisfactionayaṃ kho bhikkhave lokassa samudayo
This, monks, is the arising of the world
And cf also
dukkhameva hi sambhoti, dukkhaṃ tiṭṭhati veti ca;
nāññatra dukkhā sambhoti, nāññaṃ dukkhā nirujjhatī ti (S i.136)Only disappointment is produced, disappointment persists, and ceases; Nothing other than disappointment is produced; nothing other than disappointment ceases.
And what is it that the scholars agree is in the world (loke) in SN 22.94? It is precisely the five khandhas. But what would it mean for the khandhas to be in the world (i.e. in experience)? The khandhas are the apparatus by which we have experiences, they are synonymous with the experiential world.
So SN 22.94 is not metaphysics, it is epistemology. It is often translated with a metaphysical spin, i.e. by translating taṃ atthi as “it exists” rather than “it is”. There is a big difference between saying “the khandhas exist in the world” and “the khandhas are in the world”. So we do have to keep in mind that it is precisely with respect to loka that the Kaccānagotta Sutta denies the applicability of existence (atthitā) and non-existence (n’atthitā) because they are two poles of a duality. Existence implies permanence (in this worldview) and ceasing (nirodha) tells us that permanence doesn’t apply. Similarly arising (samudāya) contradicts the idea of non-existence.
It is a vitally important distinction to make for practising Buddhists. We are not in search of some transcendental reality beyond experience; there is no absolute being (Brahman/ātman). The acme of Buddhism is the end of rebirth and therefore the extinction of dukkha (aka conditioned experience) (nibbāṇa), after which things are inexplicable (avyakata). This is why the suññatāvihāra later became such an important focus for some Buddhists, since in it all sense and cognitive experience ceases (nirodha).
There is plenty of metaphysical speculation in the Pāli suttas, but I don’t believe this to be an example. Rather it is part of a series of thematically linked suttas which discuss the world of experience and how to abandon it (SN 35:24).