An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy

Cambridge Introductions to Philosophy

by Stephen J. Laumakis

In this clearly written undergraduate textbook, Stephen Laumakis explains the origin and development of Buddhist ideas and concepts, focusing on the philosophical ideas and arguments presented and defended by selected thinkers and sutras from various traditions. He starts with a sketch of the Buddha and the Dharma, and highlights the origins of Buddhism in India. He then considers specific details of the Dharma with special attention to Buddhist metaphysics and epistemology, and examines the development of Buddhism in China, Japan, and Tibet, concluding with the ideas of the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh. In each chapter he includes explanations of key terms and teachings, excerpts from primary source materials, and presentations of the arguments for each position. His book will be an invaluable guide for all who are interested in this rich and vibrant philosophy.

Genres: Philosophy, Buddhism, Nonfiction

300 pages, Paperback

First published February 21, 2008

Reviews

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid academic introductory textbook, although as usual, an instructor will need to at least supplement some sections, if not abandon them.

The presentation is in three parts: Part I A Sketch of the Buddha and the Dhamma, Part II Details of the Dhamma, Part III Development of the Dhamma/Dharma. Laumakis tries to maintain a thread throughout the text, a basic thesis that the core of Buddhist thought from the beginning and throughout is that "the mind and how we use it plays an important and foundational role in how we see and understand our self, the world, and other things" (262), which is for him a touchstone for summarizing ideas and, in the end, recommending Buddhist philosophy for living one's life.

Part I is strong. Laumakis writes clearly and effectively of the traditional account of the life of the Buddha, explicating the conceptual content of the Four Noble Truths as illuminated by the biography and against a broader Indian philosophical background.

Once we get to Part II, unfortunately, things get murkier. Laumakis tries to meet demands of philosophical explication along with historical-sociological explanation. The result, too often, is verbal hand-waving about the complexity of things without getting concretely to grips with the complexity in a way that could help introductory students at least begin to think through it themselves. Describing, or even just asserting, the subtlety of an idea or argument just isn't as helpful as actually offering some analysis.

By Part III, very little attention is given to actually explicating the ideas developed in Madhyamaka, Yogacara, Chan, Pure Land, etc. Instead, there's high-level description of historical background, identifying some key ideas, and even a bit of an altar-call. (The discussion of Pure Land is actually better at exploring how and why it could become a plausible and authentically Buddhist tradition.) None of these things are objectionable to me, neither in themselves nor given Laumakis' stated aims. But the attempt to meet the various demands (self-imposed or imposed by the publisher) leads to an overall loss of effectiveness.

Still, I've never attempted to write such a text, and possibly couldn't. I haven't experienced the push and pull a textbook author goes through with a publisher, and the unwelcome compromised one must make to finally get a finished product "to market" in today's brutal environment of academic publishing and academia more generally. Despite my disappointments, then, I underscore Laumakis' success in laying out the claims at the historical and personal core of Buddhist thought, and showing how those claims could be elaborated in various ways, or perhaps reclaimed and repurposed, in very different social-cultural settings over many, many centuries.

[Alex Solzman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laumakis sets off on a task to give a holistic overview of Buddhism from a scholarly and anthropological perspective. Buddhism is such a broad and enormous topic there is no way that he could have written an undergrad text on it without cutting out many aspects of the philosophy/religion. He is very upfront and honest about these decisions that he had to make which is something that I really respect. Laumakis did an incredible job on what he was trying to do and it was consequently the exact thing that I was looking for. Anyone who is reviewing this book saying otherwise is misunderstanding what he was trying to do or doesn't appreciate why he covered what he did.

There are a few perspectives that this book covers on Buddhism: the context of the places that Buddhism took root, the history and evolution, the canonical stories and legends, the practices and principles, and finally a taxonomy of Buddhism today. I think the most honest thing that Laumakis mentions at the start is how Buddhism is such an enormous umbrella term that it's impossible to say Buddhism in this day and age and have an image of one specific group or philosophy. Buddhism as we understand it today is just whatever system of thought adheres to the Four Noble Truths and comes from a lineage of other Buddhist traditions. That's it. So when people are saying that he didn't cover this or that topic, it's because there are a plethora of topics and unfortunately some of the ones that people wanted covered are not as foundational to other traditions or are as popular.

Going into this book I knew literally nothing about Buddhism and this gave me a really fantastic lay of the land.

[Neal Javia]

Disappointed. The book should be titled "An Introduction to Buddhism" rather than "An Introduction to Buddhist Philosophy". I was expecting the book to discuss metaphysics, ontology, and epistemology of different schools of Buddhist philosophies such as Sautrantika, Vaibhasika, Madhyamaka, and Yogacara. The focus of this book is not on actual philosophy. But it is a decent introduction to Buddhism in general for the lay audience who do not have any prior background knowledge about this tradition.

[Ondřej Plachý · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cleaver and conscise, but also quite scholarly take Buddhist philosophy. My biggest concern is that because the reading was dull in some parts, I will not be able to remember the most important points. On the other hand, it explained many important aspects not only by forming some general buddshist perspective, but it made a comparison of each one of the Buddhist branches (teravada, mahayana, tibetian etc.). I appreciated the chapter dedicated to contemporary buddhist teachers.

[Jules · Rating 2 out of 5]

More of an intro to Buddhism itself rather than Buddhist philosophy which was kinda disappointing because I really wanted to learn more about Buddhist ontology without having to go straight to reading sutras or whatever. Still some interesting stuff to be gleaned, but it literally is a textbook so is quite dry in places.

[Clement Vitis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great introduction on Buddhism and Buddhist philosophy. Creates an excellent rudimentary slate for further pursuit of knowledge. I hope I learned something. Mindfulness is hard and I really want some chicken!!! Want = Dukkha!!!

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

An OK overview, but sticks to the surface.