Is There a Root of Being? Indic Philosophies and the Parmenidean Problem

This article is a survey of various philosophical schools, focusing primarily on South Asian ones, and how they address the problem of being and nonbeing. The early Greek poet Parmenides stated that nonbeing is something that we cannot actually conceptualize and, thus, cannot speak of meaningfully....

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Veröffentlicht in:Religions
1. VerfasserIn: Corduan, Winfried (VerfasserIn)
Medienart: Elektronisch Aufsatz
Sprache:Englisch
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Veröffentlicht: MDPI 2023
In: Religions
Jahr: 2023, Band: 14, Heft: 5
weitere Schlagwörter:B Therāvada
B Vedānta
B Hindu
B Brahman
B Buddhist
B Nonbeing
B Puruṣa
B Nyāya
B Sāṃkhya
B Being
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Zusammenfassung:This article is a survey of various philosophical schools, focusing primarily on South Asian ones, and how they address the problem of being and nonbeing. The early Greek poet Parmenides stated that nonbeing is something that we cannot actually conceptualize and, thus, cannot speak of meaningfully. Plato and Aristotle are two examples of Western philosophers who came up with different ways of resolving the issue. As we turn to Indic schools of philosophy, we encounter a colorful array of different approaches. The Upanishads gave rise to a variety of points of view, though the Advaita Vedānta school of Adi Śankara has dominated the discussion over the last few centuries. Other schools represented in this survey are Sāṃkhya, Buddhism (Therāvada, Sarvāstivāda, Sautantrika, Yogācāra, and Mādhyamaka), Vaiśeṣika, and Nyāya. Unsurprisingly, each comes up with different constructs that are frequently mutually exclusive, despite efforts by some writers to look past some obvious differences that are not reconcilable. There are also some conceptual similarities with Western philosophy, but the different cultural backdrops limit the ability to easily transfer ideas from one context to the other. My method is to quote short passages from the central writings (usually the “official” sutras) and show how they fit into their particular systems.
ISSN:2077-1444
Enthält:Enthalten in: Religions
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.3390/rel14050660