This work compares Daoist philosophy with the antinatalist philosophy of David Benatar, arguing that both offer a radical critique of consciousness as a destructive force in existence. While not claiming equivalence, the author identifies meaningful communication between classical Chinese sources and modern antinatalism. Both perspectives view consciousness as a disruptive element that distances humans from harmony—in Daoism, from the Dao—and both propose a praxis of return to undo this disruption. For Daoism, this return requires transcending ordinary conscious existence, achieved through sagehood. The author shows that the trajectory of sagehood shares key parameters with antinatalism's challenge to human hubris and its aim to reinstate cosmic humility.
This article critically compares Toshihiko Izutsu's reconstruction of Zen metaphysics with Descartes' philosophy grounded in "cogito ergo sum." It examines Izutsu's argument based on the subject-object distinction and places his terminological choices in the context of Zen Buddhism. The analysis proceeds step by step from the perspective of Descartes' Meditations, focusing on prima facie similarities in meditative and reflective methodologies. It highlights unequivocal differences: for Descartes, the subject serves as an indubitable foundation for epistemological access to objective reality; for Zen, the subject involves introspective apprehension of the egoless void or absolute reality.
Stoic philosophers in the late Greco-Roman period employed philosophical exercises and spiritual technologies that resemble a meditative practice found in Buddhism. The essay examines Stoic theories of moral development, cosmopolitanism, and oikeiōsis, arguing that these commitments required exercises to cultivate universal moral concern. By drawing on Buddhist practice, the author identifies passages in Stoic texts that prescribe moral exercises. Comparing the form rather than just the content of these traditions reveals that Stoic philosophy, viewed as a "way of life," shares formal characteristics with Buddhist religious practices. The comparison enriches Greco-Roman philosophies by reading them through the lens of lived, practical Buddhist traditions.
The Language of Thought Hypothesis (LOTH) claims that thinking uses a language-like symbolic system in the brain, but it cannot explain intuitions, emotions, or intentions because these lack the required compositional structure. Theravāda Buddhism, an early Buddhist tradition combining philosophy with meditation, anticipated a solution over 2,300 years ago. Both LOTH and Buddhism share a syntactic view of the mind, though LOTH relies on combinatorial syntax and semantics while Buddhism uses meditative practice. The paper proposes that Buddhism's recursive, structured experiential models provide a layered foundation for symbolic processes, solving LOTH's symbol grounding problem—where no symbol is inherently meaningful—without abandoning formal structure. This reframes the tension as a syntactic enrichment, allowing cognitive architectures to handle both symbolic representations and experience-grounded processes.