Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the philosophical investigations and systems of rational inquiry that developed among various schools of Buddhism in ancient India following the parinirvāṇa of Gautama Buddha, as well as the further developments which followed the spread of Buddhism throughout Asia.
Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does not know whether the entity exists.
The problem of universals is an ancient question from metaphysics that has inspired a range of philosophical topics and disputes: "Should the properties an object has in common with other objects, such as color and shape, be considered to exist beyond those objects? And if a property exists separately from objects, what is the nature of that existence?"
Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a substance and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as a substratum or a thing-in-itself. Substances are particulars that are ontologically independent: they are able to exist all by themselves. Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to undergo changes. Changes involve something existing before, during and after the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties. Attributes or properties, on the other hand, are entities that can be exemplified by substances. Properties characterize their bearers; they express what their bearer is like.
Chandrakirti or "Chandra" was a Buddhist scholar of the Madhyamaka school who was based out of the monastery of Nalanda. He was a noted commentator on the works of Nagarjuna and those of his main disciple, Aryadeva. He wrote two influential works on Madhyamaka, the Prasannapadā and the Madhyamakāvatāra.
Hylomorphism is a philosophical doctrine developed by the Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle, which conceives every physical entity or being (ousia) as a compound of matter (potency) and immaterial form (act), with the generic form as immanently real within the individual. The word is a 19th-century term formed from the Greek words ὕλη and μορφή. Hylomorphic theories of physical entities have been undergoing a revival in contemporary philosophy.
Śūnyatā, translated most often as "emptiness", "vacuity", and sometimes "voidness", or "nothingness" is an Indian philosophical concept. In Buddhism, Jainism, Hinduism, and other Indian philosophical traditions, the concept has multiple meanings depending on its doctrinal context. It is either an ontological feature of reality, a meditative state, or a phenomenological analysis of experience.
The Middle Way as well as "teaching the Dharma by the middle" are common Buddhist terms used to refer to two major aspects of the Dharma, that is, the teaching of the Buddha. The first phrasing refers to a spiritual practice that steers clear of both extreme asceticism and sensual indulgence. This spiritual path is defined as the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to awakening. The second formulation refers to how the Buddha's Dharma (Teaching) approaches ontological issues of existence and personal identity by avoiding eternalism and annihilationism.
Mādhyamaka, otherwise known as Śūnyavāda and Niḥsvabhāvavāda, refers to a tradition of Buddhist philosophy and practice founded by the Indian Buddhist monk and philosopher Nāgārjuna. The foundational text of the Mādhyamaka tradition is Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. More broadly, Mādhyamaka also refers to the ultimate nature of phenomena as well as the non-conceptual realization of ultimate reality that is experienced in meditation.
The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, abbreviated as MMK, is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahāyāna Buddhist philosophy. It was composed by the Indian philosopher Nāgārjuna.
Tsongkhapa was an influential Tibetan Buddhist monk, philosopher and tantric yogi, whose activities led to the formation of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism as a synthesis of the earlier Kadampa school lineages. He was the teacher of the 1st Dalai Lama.
In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, and De Anima.
Metaphysics is one of the principal works of Aristotle, in which he develops the doctrine that he calls First Philosophy. The work is a compilation of various texts treating abstract subjects, notably substance theory, different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical objects and the cosmos, which together constitute much of the branch of philosophy later known as metaphysics.
In scholastic philosophy, Actus Purus is the absolute perfection of God.
Svabhava literally means "own-being" or "own-becoming". It is the intrinsic nature, essential nature or essence of beings.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to metaphysics:
In logic, reductio ad absurdum, also known as argumentum ad absurdum or apagogical arguments, is the form of argument that attempts to establish a claim by showing that the opposite scenario would lead to absurdity or contradiction.
Ousia is a philosophical and theological term, originally used in ancient Greek philosophy, then later in Christian theology. It was used by various ancient Greek philosophers, like Plato and Aristotle, as a primary designation for philosophical concepts of essence or substance. In contemporary philosophy, it is analogous to English concepts of being, and ontic. In Christian theology, the concept of θεία ουσία is one of the most important doctrinal concepts, central to the development of trinitarian doctrine.
The history of ontology studies the development of theories of the nature and categories of being from the ancient period to the present.
Ontological priority is a philosophy concept that was first introduced by Aristotle in c. 350 BCE, in his significantly influential book Categories. For over two millennia, this concept influenced and continues to influence the reasonings of many philosophers and some discussion in ontology and logic. A thing's ontological priority over another may be chronological, by reciprocally and non-reciprocally implied existence, order, "esteem," or "truth-maker," depending on the formulation used.
