Foundational Philosophy of Early Buddhism The First Principles
Foundational Philosophy of Early Buddhism The First Principles Author: u/rightviewftw rightviewftw@gmail.com Abstract This work reconstructs the philosophical framework of the Early Buddhist Texts (EBTs) by formalizing their First Principles within the categories of epistemology, ontology, phenomenology, and soteriology. The aim is to demonstrate that Early Buddhist philosophy is not merely a spiritual or religious tradition but a coherent foundational system that can stand alongside, and complement, the foundational philosophy of science. Beginning with the analytic tradition, I frame the epistemic limits established by Hume’s Guillotine and explain the First Principles. I then explain the First Principles of the EBTs, framed through the analytic categories — introducing extensions to these categories: an ontological element beyond phenomenology (the Unsynthesized), two novel classes of epistemic confidence (unverified and verified absolutes), and two classes of truth (qualified ...