Zen Buddhism on the Limits of Knowledge and the Practice of Wisdom
Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte April 9, 2026 Bret W. Davis
The article examines how Zen Buddhism conceives the relationship between intellectual knowledge and holistic wisdom, contrasting this with Western philosophy's tendency to reduce philosophy to epistemology. Drawing on Aristotle and the history of Western philosophy, it poses the question of whether modern philosophy has become narrowly focused on knowledge. It then turns to two modern Japanese philosophers of the Kyoto School, Nishida Kitarō and Nishitani Keiji, who were both Zen practitioners and scholars of Western philosophy. The article investigates how the Zen tradition, using Mahāyāna Buddhist and Daoist texts, reveals the limits of knowledge and the delimiting effects of knowing, and how Zen meditation and holistic practices cultivate wisdom to intuitively apply perspectivally delimited knowledge.