BUDDHIST PHILOSOPHY

Buddhist philosophy refers to the philosophical investigations and systems of

inquiry that developed among various Buddhist schools in India following the death
of the Buddha and later spread throughout Asia. The Buddhist path combines both
philosophical reasoning and meditation. 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.