Buddhist Philosophy
BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY. When Buddhism first became known in the West, many historians of philosophy were reluctant to call it "philosophy." Philosophy in the strict sense was viewed as a legacy of the Greeks, who learned to cultivate a critical and theoretical attitude that was free from the limitations of tradition, mythology, and dogma. By the end of the twentieth century, this restrictive approach has begun to change. We now know much more about the critical precision of Buddhist philosophy, and Western philosophers are more favorably inclined toward the practical concerns that inspired Greek philosophy. As theoretical as Greek speculation may have been, it was never far from the practical challenge of living a good or happy life. The same is true of Buddhist philosophy. Even the most rarefied and theoretical analysis is related to a process of moral discipline and liberation from suffering.
In India the word most often translated as "philosophy" is darśana, whose root meaning is simply "to see." As a metaphor, darśana is close to the Greek word theoria, which is the source of our word theoretical and also means "to see." Darśana can be used to name a system or school of Indian philosophy, as in the title of Mādhava's famous Sarva-darśanasamuccaya (Compendium of all systems), or it can be used to name philosophy itself.
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