Inquiry within a path of liberation
Debate over persons, causation and cognition belongs to practices aimed at understanding and ending suffering. Monastic analysis and commentary put inherited teachings under interpretation. Different Buddhist schools disagree over which explanatory commitments support this task, so “Buddhist philosophy” is an orientation rather than a single metaphysical answer.
Sources: 3; 4Shared questions
- How can insight into impermanence, dependent arising, and non-self end suffering?
Internal disagreements
- How persons and phenomena exist, what kinds of knowledge are reliable, and how liberating claims should be expressed.
Key texts
- Pāli Nikāyas — The discourses attributed to the Buddha were transmitted orally for centuries before being written down.
- Mūlamadhyamakakārikā — Nāgārjuna's verses on the middle way are the securely attributed core of a much larger disputed corpus.
- Abhidharmakośa — Vasubandhu's verses and his own commentary on them set out and then criticise the Abhidharma system.