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Synopsis The purpose of this book is, as the title suggests, to examine Buddhism as philosophy. Before we actually start doing that though, it might be good to first get a bit clearer about what each of these two things--Buddhism and philosophy--is. That will help up see what might be distinctive about studying Buddhism as a form of philosophy. And it is important to be clear about this, since there are some preconceptions about these matters that might get in the way of fully grasping how the philosophical study of Buddhism works.

Buddhist philosophy deals extensively with problems in metaphysics, phenomenology, ethics, and epistemology. The Buddha rejected certain precepts of Indian philosophy that were prominent during his lifetime. His general outlook has been described as empirical as opposed to ontological or metaphysical. The Buddha taught depend to ontological or metaphysical. The Buddha taught dependent origination as the correct paradigm for analyzing causality; Buddhists view it as avoiding the two extremes of reification and nihilism. Particular points of Buddhist philosophy have often been the subject of disputes between different schools of Buddhism. While theory for its own sake is not valued in Buddhism, theory pursued in the interest of enlightenment is consistent with Buddhist values and ethics.