Buddhism and Platonism: A Brief Comparison

     Buddhism and Platonism

    While Buddhism and Platonism are two philosophies that emerged around the same period, they fundamentally disagree on the concepts of the self, human nature, and the reality of existence. Buddhism posits that everything, including humans, is impermanent and constantly changing. Whilst the Platonic view is the opposite as it asserts that there is an eternal and unchanging self beyond the physical world. 

    Due to everything being in a state of flux, this would entail that there is no atman or greater permanent soul or self either. In Hinduism, the atman is associated with the Brahman or God and since Buddhism does not affirm the atman, there would be no God either. Included in this belief is that the self is composed of five aggregates: form, sense, perception, consciousness, and mental formations. The form refers to one’s body, sense refers to one’s ability to feel sensations, perception is the ability to understand one’s experiences, consciousness refers to one’s awareness of being alive and existing, and mental processes include one’s thoughts and emotions. The self cannot exist without these five and they are constantly changing. In terms of human nature, their position is formulated under the paradigm that suffering is unavoidable and therefore intrinsic to the human condition. This can be expressed in the Four Noble Truths which were said to be articulated by the Buddha. The first truth is that suffering is a part of existence, the second truth is that the cause of suffering is desire and attachment, the third truth is that suffering can be overcome, and the final truth is that there is a path to overcoming suffering known as the eightfold path. The ultimate freedom from suffering is known as Nirvana.

Platonists hold the belief in the existence of a permanent and greater self that exists outside the physical world. One’s true self is beyond the physical body and is the soul. The true meaning of life then is to realize this true self, and this will be done through gaining knowledge. 

    The soul is an immortal being and, just like the rest of the world, existed before time in an eternal form. This is in direct contrast with the Buddhist belief that there is nothing immortal and denies the existence of a soul. The Platonists give the analogy of shadows in a cave to explain this phenomenon of the eternal forms. In the analogy, a group of people are trapped inside a dark cave and have never seen anything outside of the cave. A fire burns that casts shadows of objects on the wall. The people inside the cave mistakenly attribute the shadows for reality and create stories and meanings about them believing it is true knowledge. But one of the prisoners escapes from the cave and realizes that the fire projects the shadows and thus concludes that the true objects are outside the cave. However, after the freed prisoner explains their revelation, the other prisoners do not believe the claims and thus only believe in the shadows. The analogy serves the purpose of explaining how one’s senses can deceive regarding the true nature of reality and that true knowledge will only be obtained through these eternal forms and this is a knowledge that is difficult to comprehend. 

    Buddhists and Platonists may agree that this physical world is only an illusion and impermanent and agree that there is a normative ethos that is necessary to escape this world to attain Nirvana or to understand these eternal forms respectively. The view that aligns most with my worldview would be the Platonists. The idea of Nirvana seems to entail becoming nothing which can be seen as existential nihilism.