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 abilit...