/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12481408]

Have there been any works that offer criticism of Buddhism (the actual philosophy, not watered down or westernized versions)? In particular on whether it's life-denying and overly negative. I heard Nietzsche delved into it, but i do not know which works and whether he truly criticized it. I also know Schopenhauer based his extreme pessimism somewhat in Buddhism, while Nietzsche wanted to be life-affirming.
Pic unrelated, i dont have any buddhist pics.

[Anonymous No.12481584]

pls someone respond

[Anonymous No.12481608]

>>12481408
The Bible

[Anonymous No.12481775]

>>12481408
>Have there been any works that offer criticism of Buddhism (the actual philosophy, not watered down or westernized versions)?

Most of the 18th-19th century figures who criticized (and even the ones who praised) Buddhism did not really understand it that well and only read a few translated texts without much understanding of the context and often these translations were poor. Moving into the 20th and 21st centuries there are not really any well-known public intellectuals who critique Buddhism in-depth. The ones who actually read a lot of the texts and form a good idea are usually academics who are not interested in critiquing it as a whole and the well-known people who attack it usually haven't studied to the same depth as academics (God is Not Great or something else by Hitchens has a chapter on it just full of ad-hominems and strawmen). I've seen some academic articles containing very heavy criticism of the logic of certain Buddhist philosophers like Nagarjuna for instance but academics usually refrain from attacking the religion as a whole. There are some classical Hindu and Jain thinkers from the first millenium BC/AD who criticize Buddhism heavily in their writings and who claim to refute its logic like Shankaracharya for instance but the Buddhist teachings they critique are only representative of one slice of Buddhism and the stuff they criticize is sometimes not even accepted by a decent amount of the other Buddhist schools. There are many schools of Buddhism and they often critique each other but these all come with their own Buddhist metaphysical claims as well. Your best bet is probably searching on google scholar for academic articles criticizing certain doctrines/thinkers from it or articles summarizing the critiques by other eastern thinkers and then downloading those articles through sci-hub. Calling the religion as a whole life-denying or nihilistic is usually seen as a misunderstanding although there are certain Buddhist schools where that accusation rings more true.

[Anonymous No.12481837]

>>12481775
>Calling the religion as a whole life-denying or nihilistic is usually seen as a misunderstanding although there are certain Buddhist schools where that accusation rings more true.

Is it, though? It seems that the extinguishment found in nirvana is ultimately a form of non-existence, and that those who enter the stream will not return. Is that not a nihilistic and life-denying view on life?

[Anonymous No.12481856]

>>12481408
>I heard Nietzsche delved into it, but i do not know which works and whether he truly criticized it
He does so in The Antichrist. As I recall, he contrasts the Buddhist's understanding of suffering with that of the Christian's, ultimately viewing it as being more honest (or at least less life-draining) yet still finds it to be a deficient worldview.

[Anonymous No.12481926]

>>12481837
To go into that topic on 4chan would honestly be a waste of time, it is a topic that has been discussed to death since the 19th century and I consider it fruitless to spend any time debating it. If you search Buddhism and nihilism/nihilist on google scholar or other academic search engines you ahould be able to find many articles which summarize the various arguments and positions on that question. My only point in saying what I said was just to explain that it's not the consensus among scholars/experts that it's nihilistic, although once you get into researching specific schools you'll find that depending on the school sometimes more scholars will say that it is.

[Anti-/lit/ !N4bnZoKwfU No.12482067]

>>12481775
Very solid post