• Theory of Reality : Ontology & Metaphysics.
• Theory of Knowledge: Epistemology--from episteme and logos.
• Theory of Value: Axiology--from the Greek axios (worth, value) and logos.

• Are the basic things substances--self-contained, self-sufficient and eternal
• Or are they changing processes, interdependent upon one another?
• Substance philosophy dominates both Asian and Euro-American philosophy.

Examples of substances

• God: eternal and unchanging
• souls: eternal and unchanging
• atoms: are not created and cannot be destroyed.

• Europe & America: Heraclitus, Hegel, Bergson, Whitehead, and Hartshorne.
• Asian: Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism.
• Abrahamic vs. Asian religions.

• Materialism: there is only matter and the mind is nothing but brain cells firing.
• Dualism: there is mental substance in addition to material substance.
• Idealism/Mentalism/Spiritualism: the fundamental nature of reality is mind or spirit. Matter is derivative or an illusion.
• Neutral Monism (Gk. monas=one): fundamental nature of reality is neither mind nor matter--perhaps energy?

• Lokayata Materialism: material atoms just as in Greek philosophy.
• Sankhya-Yoga Dualism: soul (purusha) vs. matter/body (prakriti).
• Jaina Dualism: soul (jiva) vs. matter/body (ajiva).
• Hindu Theism: Personal God (Vishnu, Shiva, Goddess) creates world of souls and matter. See Krishna in the Bhagavad-gita.
• Vedantist Spiritualism: soul/spirit (atman) is the nature of reality. All souls same substance as Brahman--the Godhead, universal spirit.
• Absolute Monism (Advaita Vedanta): Brahman-Atman is the only reality; plurarlity, change, motion, etc. are all illusion.

Buddha on Mind-Body: The Five Skandhas

• Body (rupa)
• Feeling (vedana)
• Perception (sanjna)
• Dispositions (sanskara)
• Consciousness (vijnana)
• A pyschophysical monism. A neutral monism?

• What is the relationship between reason, the will, the emotions, and the imagination?
• Are humans intrinsically good, evil, combination of the two, or neither?
• Is the will free or is determined by antecedent causes and conditions (determinism)?
• Is the soul immortal? Is there an afterlife or is this life all there is?

• Generally strong tension among reason, the passions, and the appetites.
• Indian philosophy generally holds to the basic goodness of human nature.
• Determinism: There is very little evidence of a free-will theory comparable to Euro-American philosophy.
• The soul (purusha, atman) is immortal and it will have an afterlife with God or in total union with Brahman.

Human Nature for the Buddha

• The body and the emotions are affirmed.
• The body integrated as one of the five skandas
• No substantial soul (anatma): no purusha or atman.
• There is a jiva soul as the self comprised of the five skandhas.
• Only the jiva soul, not a substantial soul transmigrates to a new body.
• Buddhist "soft" determinism.

• How and what can we know?
• Rationalism: True knowledge already exists in the human soul as "innate" knowledge.
• Plato takes the most radical position on this issue, but Aristotle stands as a compromise between rationalism and empiricism.
• Empiricism: Knowledge comes primarily from experience and the five senses.
• Epicurus, John Locke, and David Hume.
• Locke believed that our minds are like "blank tablets," and experience "writes" on our minds like we write on a blackboard. For him there is no innate knowledge.

• Empiricism in Lokayata materialism and the Buddha.
• Mixture of empiricism and rationalism in most other schools.
• Rationalism in Shankara’s Advaita Vedanta.
• Rationalism in some Mahayana Buddhist schools.

• All knowledge comes from experience.
• Material, mental, and spiritual substances cannot be experienced; therefore, we have no knowledge of them.
• The Buddha’s empiricism is broadened considerably by his claim to ESP powers.
• Clairvoyance, clairaudience, telepathy, retrocognition, etc.

• Ethics: value for the individual--"What ought I do as an individual?"
• Social and Political Philosophy: value for society--"What ought we do together?"
• Philosophy of Art and Aesthetics: the value in the fine arts and natural beauty.

• They who know causation know the Dharma.
• "Causation" = interdependent coorigination
• A fusion of the Is and the Ought.
• A contextual pragmatism
• William James as the Buddha’s equivalent?