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 and definitive). These additions frame a soteriological arc grounded not in persistence of experience but in the possibility of its cessation.

In this reconstruction, rebirth is framed as an axiomatic assumption within a coherent system of axiom praxis, verifiable through meditative insight and defended by probability-based reasoning. Furthermore, the apparent paradox found in the EBTs (a pleasure where nothing is felt) is here resolved through paraconsistent logic ─ revealing a framework of superior internal consistency, explanatory scope, and predictive power.

By formalizing the philosophy of the EBTs in cross-reference to the analytic tradition, this work positions Early Buddhism as a foundational philosophy in its own right — one that expands the analytic categories and grounds the possibility of a phenomenological cessation.

Methodology 

I begin by framing the First Principles of Analytic Philosophy through its core categories — epistemology, ontology, phenomenology, and soteriology. I then frame the First Principles of the Early Buddhist Texts within the same categories ─ before integrating the two into a unified system. The result is presented as an integrated, self-referencing, and self-explanatory framework, meant to offer greater internal consistency, broader explanatory scope, and stronger predictive power.

Table of Contents

• 1. Framing the Data

• 1.1 Historical framing

• 1.2 Translations

• 1.3 Terminology

Part 1: First Principles of Foundational Philosophy of Science

In explaining the First Principles of Analytic Philosophy — I will show how Hume's Guillotine frames phenomenological prediction to be of probabilistic confidence – and how this shows up in our models.

• 1.4 Introduction to Foundational Philosophy of Science

• 1.5 Foundational Epistemology: Kant

• 1.6 Kantian Tradition

• 1.7 Hume's Fork

• 1.8 Hume's Guillotine

• 1.9 Foundational Phenomenology

• 2 Foundational Ontology

• 2.1 Foundational Soteriology

• 2.2 The Difference between Mathematics and Physics

• 2.3 Framing the Problem of Measurement

• 2.4 Framing the Hard Problem of Consciousness

• 2.5 Framing The Copenhagen Interpretation

• 2.6 Framing Einstein's Relativity

• 2.7 Framing Heisenberg's Uncertainty

• 2.8 Framing Gödelian Incompleteness 

• 2.9 Framing Bayesian-Probability Principle 

• 3 Framing Korzybski's General Semantics

Part 2: Foundational Philosophy of Early Buddhist Texts:

This part is framing the First Principles of EBTs in light of Foundational Philosophy of Science.

• 3.1 Introduction to Early Buddhist Philosophy

• 3.2 Framing the Soteriology of EBTs

• 3.3 Goals

• 3.4 Morality

• 3.5 Meaning of life

• 3.6 Framing Epistemology of EBTs

• 3.7 Resolving the Ought - Is Problem

• 3.8 Foundational Epistemic Categories

• 3.9 Framing Phenomenology of EBTs

• 4 Change

• 4.1 Framing Ontology of EBTs

• 4.2 Dependent Co-Arising

• 4.3 Foundational Axioms: Rebirth

• 4.4 The Four Noble Truths

• 4.5 Paraconsistent Logic of EBTs

Part 3: Novel Foundational Categories

This part highlights the extended epistemic components required to reconstruct the philosophical frameworks of the EBT's 

• 4.6  Integrated Soteriology

• 4.7 Integrated Epistemology

• 4.8 Integrated Phenomenology

• 4.9 Integrated Ontology

• 5 Extended Foundational Axioms

Part 4: Notes

• 5.1 Notes

• 5.2 About This

• 5.3 About Me

• 5.4 Fair use

1.0 Framing of Data

The EBTs are about 12,000 pages (The Pali Text Society's edition of the Tipitaka (English translation)) pages of foundational data. 

In particular, proper integration of this data is required to explain the foundation of the oldest functioning organization in the world (Theravadin monastic order).

Transmission and preservation of the EBTs, when seen as a Data Set is incredible in and by itself.

This is foundational data, and it is essential to frame the entire scope of human knowledge and foundational philosophy, to make sense of our culture, and to consistently explain everything (including the data itself).

1.1 Historical Framing

The EBTs have only recently been translated into modern languages. The translation efforts started in the late 1800s, mostly after the Panadura debates.

There are now several lineages and generations of translations, the work is mostly done, and with minimal controversy.

So, this has not been studied much for 2000 years. The language was already an old dialect by the time the texts were written down — hardly anyone could read them and there was limited access. It doesn't help that they are very difficult to understand.

1.2 Translations & Definitions

Here are the particular translations I use. I use these particular translations for the purpose of formalization, coherence and standardized expression.

• Sankharā - Synthesis (synonyms: creation, formation, fabrication). I choose synthesis because of the Philosophical framing of this particular work, it is the correct philosophical term within the tradition. Otherwise formation/fabrication are my preference.

• Nibbāna — Extinguishment. This is the literal translation and I see no reason to change this.

• Bhava —  Existence. Some occasionally use “becoming” but existence works consistently and I see no incentive to change.

• Dukkha — Suffering. The semantics are very clear here, the opposite of happiness,  dukkha frames what is categorically bad and shouldn't be.

1.3 Terminology and Definitions

Definitions: Effective

• Philosophy — Foundational Systems of reasoning.

• Soteriology — Philosophy framing the meaning of life, goals and values.

• Epistemology —  Philosophy framing the classes and categories of knowledge underlying the soteriology. 

• Ontology — Philosophy framing epistemological categories as categories of existence.

• Phenomenology — Philosophy framing the ontology as lived experience.

• First Principles — These are foundational assumptions underlying all scientific models. They consist of axioms and rules derived from them, serving as prescriptive guidelines and bridges in our thinking.

• Axiom Praxis — Course of Practice deduced from the First Principles and verifying the axioms.

• Logic — The First Principles of Inference.

• Consistent logic: This is classical Aristotelian logic, eg: 2+2=4

• Paraconsistent / non-classical logic:  This is classical logic which needs to be contextualized to make sense, eg: “when mixing two cups of water the cook spilled some”. Here we could say that 2+2≠4. And it would look contradictory, but the contradiction is resolved by defining the semantic targets and context.

1.4 Introduction to Foundational Philosophy of Science

Analytic Foundations

The philosophy of science is grounded in the analytic tradition, which takes Reality as its foundational category. Within this tradition, reality is explored through four analytic lenses:

• Ontology — What exists? The fundamental categories of being and existence.

• Epistemology — How do we know? The limits and classifications of knowledge, including the conditions under which a belief can be considered justified.

• Phenomenology — What is experienced? How reality appears in consciousness, and how our models are constrained by perception.

• Soteriology (the “ought”) — Though often understated in analytic philosophy, science implicitly carries normative principles, such as the imperative to avoid error, uphold rational consistency, and refrain from making unjustified claims.
  
  

From this framing, the philosophy of science is not only about describing the world but also about clarifying the boundaries of certainty and doubt. Thinkers such as Hume and Kant established that absolute certainty cannot be derived from phenomenological observation alone, which means that scientific knowledge is inherently probabilistic. The philosophy of science thus approximates confidence rather than perfect prediction.

This framework sets the stage for evaluation and integrating Early Buddhist philosophy.

1.5 Foundational Epistemology: Kant

Kant, in his "Critique of Pure Reason", asserts that Logos can not know reality, for it’s scope is limited to it’s own constructs. Kant states that one has to reject logic to make room for faith, because reasoning alone can not justify religion.

This was a radical critique of logic, in western philosophy, nobody had popularized this general of an assertion before Kant.

He reasoned that the mind can in principle only be oriented towards reconstruction of itself based on subjective conception & perception and so therefore knowledge is limited to the scope of feeling & perception. It follows therefore that knowledge itself is subjective in principle.

It also follows that minds can not align on matters of metaphysics because of running into contradictions and a lack of means to test hypotheses. Thus he concluded that reasoning about things like cosmology is useless because there can be no basis for agreement and we should stop asking these questions, for such unifying truth is inaccessible to mind

1.6 Kantian Tradition

Hegel thought that contradictions are only a problem if you decide that they are a problem, and suggested that new means of knowing could be discovered so as to not succumb to the antithesis of pursuing a unifying truth.

He theorized about a kind of reasoning which somehow embraces contradiction & paradox.

Kierkegaard agreed that it is not unreasonable to suggest that not all means of knowing have been discovered. And that the attainment of truth might require a leap of faith.

Schopenhauer asserted that logic is secondary to emotive apprehension and that it is through sensation that we grasp reality rather than by hammering it out with rigid logic.

Nietzsche agreed and wrote about ‘genealogy of morality’. He reasoned that succumbing to reason entails an oppressive denial of one’s instinctual drives and that this was a pitiful state of existence. He thought people in the future would tap into their deepest drives & will for power, and that the logos would be used to strategize the channeling of all one’s effort into that direction.

Heidegger laid the groundwork for the postmodernists of the 20th century. He identified with the Kantian tradition and pointed out that it is not reasonable to ask questions like ‘why existence exists?’ Because the answer would require coming to know what is not included in the scope of existence. Yet he pointed out that these questions are emotively profound & stirring to him, and so where logic dictates setting those questions aside, he has a hunger for it’s pursuit, and he entertains a pursuit of knowledge in a non-verbal & emotive way. He thought that contradictions & paradoxes mean that we are onto something important and feeling here ought to trump logic.

1.7 Hume's Fork

Hume’s Fork which separates between two kinds of statements

Analytical - definitive, eg a cube having six sides (true by definition)

Synthetic - a human has two thumbs (not true by definition because not having two thumbs doesn’t disqualify the designation 'a human').

One can derive that

Any variant subjective interpretation of what is - is a synthetic interpretation.

The objective interpretation of what is - an analytical interpretation.

1.8  Hume's Guillotine

Hume’s Guillotine which asserts that: 'no ought can be derived from what is'

The meaning of Hume’s statement is in that something being a certain way doesn’t tell us that we ought to do something about it.

Example: The ocean is salty and it doesn’t follow that we should do something about it.

Analogy 1: Suppose you are playing an extremely complicated game and do not know the rules. To know what to do in a given situation you need to know something other than what is the circumstance of the game, you need to know the rules and objectives.

Analogy 2: Suppose a person only eats one type of food all of his life, he wouldn’t be able to say whether it is good or bad food because it’s all he knows.

The popularized implication of Hume’s Law is in that: no morality can be derived from studying what is not morality.

It follows that no objective interpretation of existence can be derived from studying subjective existence exclusively.

In other words, what should be cannot be inferred exclusively from what is.

1.9 Foundational Phenomenology

The category of Phenomenology frames epistemically knowable (discernable) Reality as an Experience of knowing or discernment.

The phenomenology is epistemically boxed in by Kant, and the subjective emphasis of phenomenology grounds observed classes & categories of “things” within the context of subjective experience and thus constantly within analytic boundaries. This is most important for grounding experimental in experience ̣─ as the etymological links would suggest.

2 Foundational Ontology

Foundational Ontology can rightly be called “Phenomenological Ontology” because it frames experience as existence.

Ontological frameworks are the basis of scientific thought and are used to explain things and make predictions about what will be experienced, as what will come to exist ─ these are the foundations for our models.

In explaining what exists and in predicting what will exist, in particular ─  we are essentially trying to make an analytic phenomenological prediction which can be framed as a Proposition or a Proposition Bet. 

To make accurate predictions about what we will observe, we use various models; conceptual, classical, consistent, paraconsistent, etc. - but these are not "things" in themselves. They are model frameworks that aid us understand and anticipate our existence.

2.1 Foundational Soteriology

At first glance, it might seem that Analytic Philosophy has no soteriology at all. Yet, in a certain sense, it does—albeit a negative one. Analytic thinkers recognize limits: for instance, one should not claim to make exact phenomenological predictions based solely on present observations. This principle echoes Hume's Guillotine, keeping philosophers grounded in epistemic humility. In this framework, “salvation” consists not in transcendence or liberation, but in avoiding error and foundational commitments — refraining from fooling oneself and preventing others from doing so. It is a soteriology of intellectual caution rather than metaphysical deliverance.

2.2 The Difference Between Physics and Mathematics

In the first analogy, I will use the difference between *mathematics* and *physics* to illustrate the basic principle of establishing something as unreasonable doubt, the second analogy is complementary.

Analogy 1:

In mathematics we can conceptualize a perfectly weighted coin and that coin-flip. We here assert that the probability of flipping tails is exactly 50%. In a thought experiment with this perfect coin, we can flip it twice or more. The probability of flipping tails doesn't change as we throw — because the coin is perfect and conditions remain the same.

In physics no coin is perfectly weighted, as a matter of fact we our best models would be describing the electromagnetic forces in play ─ rather than “a coin”, at least some of  the time. 

Hence in physics, before the first flip — the probability of flipping tails, is also epistemologically assumed 50/50, but not because the coin is perfect; rather because we are agnostic — there is no reason to assign whatever bias there is in either way, not yet, but we will update the odds as soon as we flip.

Therefore:

In physics, we are not dealing in abstracts — on the second flip the epistemology of probability changes in favor of the previous outcome. And at that point the imperfection is reasonably assumed to be slightly more likely to be on the side of the previous outcome. 

It becomes the de facto reasonable assumption based on the evidence available. And the contrary proposition becomes an extraordinary claim which is not inferred from the evidence.

 Analogy 2:

Suppose you have two people and you know that one of them is a nurse — you don't know which is the nurse.

The only known difference otherwise is that one of them is closer to a hospital by 1 meter. 

Agnosticism says the odds are 50/50. But common sense says: the one closer to the hospital is more likely the nurse — even a small difference in conditions shifts confidence intervals. Given this information the epistemology dictates that the weight here ought to be proportionally placed on the person being closer to the hospital.

Here we can summarize Foundational Philosophy:

Physicists, in making experiments are relying on various analytical models in making predictions. Prediction involves models of the electromagnetic spectrum, eg particle accelerators where acceleration of the wave demonstrably requires thinking along these lines. We are essentially using both physical and non-physical frameworks to predict and understand observed experiments.

Other than this, the philosophy of modern physics, understood through the lens of modern epistemology, can't allow positing an existence of anything as divorced from the coming into play of subjective phenomenology.

Thus, when we interpret experiments, we are fundamentally interpreting the workings of our own perceptions and nothing else.

And, while modern physics does not posit the independent existence of purely classical or non-classical entities, it necessarily relies on classical and non-classical reasoning to make sense of our perception. But these frameworks are conventional and have limitations, this is why we see paradoxes where the framework overextends itself — it is a feature, not a bug.

2.3 Framing the Problem of Measurement

Foundational Philosophy predicts that when we do our measurements, we are only going to get an approximation, limited by our epistemic weight. 

For example:

When we are flipping the coin, we are never going to be certain about the exact weight, no matter how many times we flip. And this doesn’t get resolved by changing the method of measurement and experiments ─ because what we are chasing (certainty) doesn’t exist in a purely epistemic sense, and what constitutes the classical absolute of  “a coin” can not be pinned down as a Reality divorced from phenomenological ontology.

This epistemic principle is most evident in Cosmological Measurement:

The Stars are not where we observe them to be, because of the time it takes for the light to reach us ─ and their effective ontological status is indeterminate. The distances in play make this example most glaring but this principle is always in play. 

It follows from Hume’s Guillotine: essentially making an exact prediction would be an overextension of one’s model-frameworks ─ just as we can’t derive an ought from the Is; we can get certainty from uncertainty.

2.4 Framing the Hard Problem of Consciousness

The “Hard Problem of Consciousness” is rather a class of philosophical talking points which frame the effective definitions of “Consciousness”.

In general the Ontology of Consciousness is framed by its implication in measurement.

The Hard Problem is essentially in what is called mind or consciousness having to explain itself. What is It? Is it good or bad? Why is it? Answering these questions requires foundational ontological relativity, meaning multiple foundational ontological categories, not only phenomenological ontology. 

This ties back to being epistemologically boxed-in by Kant and Hume’s Guillotine, the phenomenological system would inevitably overextend itself in making definitive statements about itself ─ any single phenomenological ontology is insufficient. The system can’t frame this without coming to know something other than itself, as a whatnot that it is. In other words there is a need for a not-is to analytically frame the is.

2.5 Framing Framing The Copenhagen Interpretation

Framed by Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg, the Copenhagen Interpretation (CI) of quantum mechanics was developed to formalize the phenomenological foundations of modern physics, particularly in experiments such as light diffraction* and the double-slit experiment. The CI emphasizes that phenomenological ontology is dependent on measurement; firmly grounding physics in analytical philosophy, saying that Reality is effectively defined in relation to the act of observation. 

The CI, together with Einstein’s theory of relativity, has become the effective foundation of modern physics. It frames the philosophical categories and models where the conceptual math provides a probabilistic description rather than a deterministic account of reality. In epistemic terms, this illustrates the principle that certainty is constrained by observation, and our models serve to manage expectations about potential outcomes rather than to capture an independent, fully determinate reality. Again, Foundational Epistemology is in play here.

From the perspective of foundational philosophy, the CI exemplifies the use of paraconsistent reasoning: apparent contradictions, such as the limitations of classical frameworks ─ are resolved by explicitly defining the phenomenological context of measurement. In this sense, the CI is not merely a physical theory but a foundational analytic framework.

* https://youtube.com/shorts/yjrYxd8iD3c?si=ulLGlezdUs9M9xIW

2.6 Framing Einstein's Relativity

Albert Einstein’s contributions formalized the mathematics of phenomenological relativity, providing precise tools to describe how observations vary depending on perspective and context. In this sense, relativity aligns closely with the analytic emphasis on observer-dependent phenomena.

Einstein introduced two foundational models:

Special Relativity (SR) – Focused on the first-person perspective. SR formalizes how phenomenological framing dictates what effectively constitutes to be true, reinforcing Reality as subjective and observation-bound.

General Relativity (GR) – Extends these principles to cross-subject modelling. GR allows us to correlate phenomena across different observers, creating a framework in which multiple perspectives can be analytically reconciled. This is essentially a probabilistic framework for integrating subjective measurement into a coherent single “system model”.

From a foundational philosophy standpoint, Einstein’s relativity exemplifies how analytic models can systematically manage observer-dependence. It shows that apparent contradictions (e.g., time dilation and length contraction) are not paradoxes but features of a framework that properly accounts for phenomenological context.

• Here is a famous thought experiment:

https://youtu.be/wteiuxyqtoM?si=zxliAB3DP_ASORNW

2.7 Framing Heisenberg's Uncertainty

Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (HUP) formalizes the fundamental limit of what can be simultaneously known about properties such position and how special measurement frames the ontological structure of the general system.

From a foundational philosophy standpoint:

• Phenomenological Ontology: HUP illustrates that the act of measurement is inseparable from the phenomena being measured. Observation affects the system, making certainty relative to context and interaction rather than absolute.
  
  

• Foundational Epistemology: The principle enforces a form of epistemic humility—we can predict probabilities, not deterministic outcomes, reflecting Kantian limits on knowledge and Hume’s probabilistic interpretation of “what is.”
  
  

• Paraconsistent Reasoning: Apparent contradictions arise when we attempt to treat certain properties as simultaneously exact. HUP shows that such contradictions are features of overextending classical frameworks rather than flaws in reality itself.
  
  

In practical terms, HUP exemplifies the general analytic principle that models do not capture an independent, fully determinate reality, but instead manage expectations and guide reasoning in the face of uncertainty. Like the Copenhagen Interpretation and Einstein’s relativity, it grounds physics in observer-dependent phenomenology, reinforcing the analytics linking epistemology, ontology, and measurement.

2.8 Framing Gödelian Incompleteness

Kurt Gödel’s Incompleteness reveals fundamental limits in formal systems: any sufficiently rich system cannot be both complete (able to prove every claim) and consistent (free from contradictions). In other words, no system can be complex enough to explain everything (including itself)  without running into contradictions due to epistemic limitations established by Hume’s Guillotine.

From a foundational philosophy perspective:

• Epistemology: Gödel’s results formalize the limits of deductive reasoning. In closed epistemological frameworks, certainty is inherently constrained. This aligns with Kant’s insight that the mind can only access reality through its own constructs, and with Hume’s restraint of epistemic overextension.
  
  

• Phenomenological Ontology: Gödel shows that a closed ontological system can not complete itself within itself exclusively. Any model of reality, like a model of consciousness, quantum mechanics, or relativity, will necessarily need a transcendence for proof. Any foundational model, therefore, cannot be fully proven without transcending the foundational ontological category.
  
  
  

In practical terms, Gödel complements the principles illustrated by the Copenhagen Interpretation, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty, and Einstein’s Relativity: all highlight limitations on absolute knowledge, whether in logic, observation, or phenomenology. The analytic task is to frame models and predictions with explicit boundaries, acknowledging that some truths exist beyond the epistemic threshold of any single ontological system.

2.9 Framing Bayesian-Probability Principle

If Gödel, Hume, and Heisenberg establish the limits of certainty, the Bayesian-Probability Principle provides a framework for reasoning within those limits. Where deductive systems cannot guarantee completeness or consistency, Bayesian inference offers a method for updating epistemic confidence as new evidence arises.

In the coin-flip analogy:

• A priori (before evidence): With no knowledge of the coin, we assign a neutral 50/50 probability. This is epistemic agnosticism.
  
  

• A posteriori (after evidence): Once flips are observed, probabilities are updated in proportion to the outcomes. If tails appear more frequently, the probability of tails increases, not because the system has become deterministic, but because Bayesian reasoning requires us to weight models according to available evidence.
  
  

From a foundational philosophy perspective:

• Epistemology: Bayesian reasoning formalizes the principle that knowledge is never absolute but always conditional and revisable. It is the mathematics of confidence, not certainty, and is therefore aligned with the probabilistic character of phenomenological prediction emphasized by Hume’s Guillotine.
  
  

• Phenomenological Ontology: Bayesian models acknowledge that what “exists” for us is always mediated by prior expectations and updated experiences. Existence, in this framework, is not a static category but a dynamic probability distribution, continually reshaped by observation.
  
  

• Soteriology (analytic sense): The imperative is not to be “right” once and for all, but to minimize error over time. This reframes salvation, in analytic terms, as disciplined adjustment of belief in the face of uncertainty — intellectual humility made operational.
  
  

In practical terms, Bayesian inference is the bridge between the impossibility of perfect prediction (Gödel, Heisenberg, Relativity) and the necessity of practical action. It transforms uncertainty from a problem into a principle: the very structure that allows us to move forward with reasoned confidence, even when absolutes are inaccessible.

3 Framing Korzybski's General Semantics

Alfred Korzybski’s General Semantics highlights the structural difference between phenomenological ontology and our symbolic mapping of it. His central axiom, “the map is not the territory”, captures a foundational principle of being epistemologically limited: our words, models, and categories are models, models are one thing and what is being modeled is another.

From a foundational philosophy standpoint:

• Epistemology: General Semantics demonstrates the limitations of language as a system of reference. Just as Gödel shows that no formal system can prove all its truths from within, Korzybski shows that no linguistic map can capture the totality of the territory. Knowledge is always mediated by abstraction, and abstractions inevitably exclude as much as they include.
  
  

• Phenomenology: Experience itself is filtered through layers of abstraction — from raw sensation, to perception, to conceptual framing. What we take as “reality” is already structured by these semantic maps. And the danger arises when the map is mistaken for the territory — when symbols are reified as the reality they point toward.
  
  

• Ontology: Korzybski emphasizes that categories of being (what we label as “objects,” “selves,” or “things”) are themselves semantic constructs which ought to be grounded in phenomenology. They function pragmatically within experience but are not pinned down as reality. This recognition aligns General Semantics with both Einstein’s relativity (observer-dependence) and the general analytical framework,
  
  

• Soteriology (analytic sense): The practical implication is intellectual humility: by recognizing that all knowledge is mediated by symbolic maps, we avoid mistaking partial abstractions for complete truth. Salvation here means freedom from semantic delusion — the refusal to equate symbols with realities, models with truths, or maps with territories.
  
  

In the broader arc of foundational philosophy, Korzybski provides the linguistic and semantic complement to Gödel’s logical limits and Bayesian probability. Together they point toward a systematic recognition: all systems of knowledge are mediated, provisional, and representational. This insight clears conceptual space for the Early Buddhist Texts, which frame the very problem of suffering as rooted in clinging to misapplied abstractions.

• Primer on General Semantics, Audiobook: “Tyranny of Words” by Stuart Chase
  https://youtu.be/4RH5qAq3xr8?si=i-27xcBXpfEof1FN

3.1 Introduction to Early Buddhist Philosophy

Early Buddhist Philosophy (EBP), as preserved in the Early Buddhist Texts (EBTs), presents itself not primarily as a religion or speculative metaphysics, but as a rigorous analytic framework. Its concern is not with transcendent absolutes or theological assertions, but with the structure of experience, the limits of knowledge, and the conditions for liberation from analytic error and suffering. In this sense, EBP is foundational analytic philosophy ─ one that anticipates, parallels, and surpasses the insights of later analytic and scientific traditions.

Whereas Western philosophy from Kant to Gödel emphasizes the epistemic limits of reason, and modern physics formalizes observer-dependence and uncertainty, grounding the entire philosophy in epistemic rigor. The EBTs begin from recognition of the base analytic category framing Reality as grounded in epistemic principles.

However, where western analysis simply entertained foundational ontological relativity as metaphysics, EBP framed the second element as an axiomatic rule deduced from the possibility of a phenomenological cessation. So these texts have the Not-Is required to define the analytic horizon beyond the Guillotine.

At the heart of EBP lies the principle that phenomenology is to be understood in terms of arising, persistence, and cessation. Thus, the EBTs avoid the pitfalls of asserting eternal substances (as in classical metaphysics) or denying all reality (all is illusion). Instead, they articulate a middle position: what exists is with a cause, the cessation must be caused, and this can only be possible if there is an Uncaused Element. In analytic terms, this is the second ontological category of the unsynthesized: a second foundational Reality apart from phenomenology, which is unconstructed and uncaused.

The orientation of EBP is thus both epistemic and soteriological. Its logic is consistently pragmatic and Its soteriology is analytic: liberation is achieved not through speculative doctrines but through disciplined analysis of experience ─ deduce the causal relations, deduce the axiomatic implications, deduce the course of praxis and consequently verity the axioms. 

Framed in this way, Early Buddhist Philosophy can be read as complementary to the analytic tradition outlined earlier. Where Kant, Hume, Heisenberg, and Gödel disclose limits, the EBTs frame transcendence. They accept the impossibility of absolute certainty being derived from uncertainty, but instead of despair, they frame the certainty of phenomenological cessation.

In short, Early Buddhist Philosophy is not merely a historical curiosity or religious dogma, but a foundational philosophy that operates with the same categories as modern analytic thought — epistemology, ontology, phenomenology, and soteriology ─ while providing an inherently more complex and complete system.

3.2 Framing the Soteriology of EBTs

The Soteriology of EBTs is unique because all other frameworks take persistence of phenomenology for granted and base the entire arc exclusively on phenomenological persistence.

The Soteriological basis of EBTs is unique, they frame it around a special category:  a cessation of phenomenology in particular. 

In other words, the Soteriology of BP depends on a special class of experience, namely its cessation. This attainment is explained as an attainment of cessation of perception & feeling (sannavedaniyanirodha).

• The element of the cessation of perception and feeling is an attainment of cessation.” —SN14.11

Bodhisatta and other people were looking for the Deathless because they thought much about the endless rounds of rebirth and whether an escape could've been possible.

If one asserts the predicament of being locked into a self-perpetuating phenomenology system, which one defines as “a bad” and “a suffering”, and considering whether an escape is possible — one would inevitably see that any transcendence would have to entail a cessation of phenomenology — and cessation would require an Unsynthesized element with its own ontology — hence the Deathless search.

One essentially has an axiom and what lacks is a how to cause the cessation, as to prove the axiom.

So one would go off looking for the Unsynthesized.

Western Philosophy hasn't dealt with this — it deals in epistemic limits and phenomenology but not much about cessation. It's more foreign for a relative lack of reflection on the implications of rebirth. This is what remains overlooked in postmodernity. The persistence of synthesis is taken for granted, the causes unexplored, and this has been a philosophical dead-end defining postmodernity.

This is philosophically universal and could've been inferred without any reference to EBTs.

Somebody could've simply asked:

• What would it take for a moral claim to be beyond criticism based on Hume's Guillotine?

If they really thought about this long enough and drew from Heidegger's hunger to know — they could have seen that any transcendence would have to entail a cessation — and the cessation would require an unsynthesized element with its own ontology. This is the only way the system can logically point beyond itself.

In other words:

There is an implication of Hume's Guillotine: morality, if it can be known, can only be derived from cessation of what isn't morality. And that would entail a cessation of phenomenology for transcendence.

Then one essentially has the same axiom as the Unsynthesized and a basis for the Soteriological transcendence based on absolute certainty.

•  His deliverance, being founded upon truth, is unshakeable. For that is false, bhikkhu, which has a deceptive nature, and that is true which has an undeceptive nature—Nibbāna. Therefore a bhikkhu possessing this truth possesses the supreme foundation of truth. For this, bhikkhu, is the supreme noble truth, namely, Nibbāna, which has an undeceptive nature." — MN140

3.3 Goals

Even though the attainment of sannavedayitanirodha serves as the soteriological foundation purifying the mind — the attainment is framed as a means to finishing the work, thus it is the arising from the attainment with a completely purified mind which is the final soteriological goal of EBTs.

Here is the framing:

• This, bhikkhu, is a designation for the element of Extinguishment (Nibbāna): the removal of lust, the removal of hatred, the removal of delusion. The destruction of the taints is spoken of in that way.” 

The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion: this is called the Deathless ─ SN45.7

• The destruction of lust, the destruction of hatred, the destruction of delusion: this is called the unconstructed (asankhātam) —SN43.12

The end goal is also framed thus:

•  “Whatever exists therein of material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumour, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, extinguishment (Nibbāna).’ If he is steady in that, he attains the destruction of the taints. But if he does not attain the destruction of the taints because of that desire for the Dhamma, that delight in the Dhamma, then with the destruction of the five lower fetters he becomes one due to reappear spontaneously in the Pure Abodes and there attain final Nibbāna without ever returning from that world. This is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters. ─ MN64

Note what is happening here, he pragmatically frames the ultimate goal and immediacy through several frameworks ─ both the proximate cause and the effect are framed here.

3.4 Morality

The morality prescribed by BP is pragmatically framed by the axiom praxis verifying the axioms.

In other words:

• Whatever is conducive to the goal is good, right, and moral; 

• Whatever is not conducive to the goal is bad, wrong, immoral.

After the goal is attained, this framework becomes inapplicable and overextended. This occurs because people keep moral guidelines out of fear, and one who has completed the training no longer has fear.

•  Whoever here (in the Dispensation) lives a holy life, transcending both merit and demerit, and walks with understanding in this world — he is truly called a monk. ─ Dhp267

• 11 and 12. What sort of person is restrained by fear?

The seven (kinds of) learners are restrained by fear and those average persons who observe the precepts: the Arahants are not restrained by fear. ─ Abh.PP2.1

• “Mendicants, there are these four fears. What four? The fears of guilt, shame, punishment, and going to a bad place.

And what, mendicants, is the fear of guilt? It’s when someone reflects: ‘If I were to do bad things by way of body, speech, and mind, wouldn’t I blame myself for my conduct?’ Being afraid of guilt, they give up bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and develop good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, keeping themselves pure. This is called the fear of guilt.

And what, mendicants, is the fear of shame? It’s when someone reflects: ‘If I were to do bad things by way of body, speech, and mind, wouldn’t others blame me for my conduct?’ Being afraid of shame, they give up bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and develop good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, keeping themselves pure. This is called the fear of shame.

And what, mendicants, is the fear of punishment? It’s when someone sees that the kings have arrested a bandit, a criminal, and subjected them to various punishments—whipping, caning, and clubbing; cutting off hands or feet, or both; cutting off ears or nose, or both; the ‘porridge pot’, the ‘shell-shave’, the ‘Rāhu’s mouth’, the ‘garland of fire’, the ‘burning hand’, the ‘bulrush twist’, the ‘bark dress’, the ‘antelope’, the ‘meat hook’, the ‘coins’, the ‘caustic pickle’, the ‘twisting bar’, the ‘straw mat’; being splashed with hot oil, being fed to the dogs, being impaled alive, and being beheaded.

They think: ‘If I were to do the same kind of bad deed, the kings would punish me in the same way.’ … Being afraid of punishment, they don’t steal the belongings of others. They give up bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and develop good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, keeping themselves pure. This is called the fear of punishment.

And what, mendicants, is the fear of rebirth in a bad place? It’s when someone reflects: ‘Bad conduct of body, speech, or mind has a bad result in the next life. If I were to do such bad things, when my body breaks up, after death, I’d be reborn in a place of loss, a bad place, the underworld, hell.’ Being afraid of rebirth in a bad place, they give up bad conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, and develop good conduct by way of body, speech, and mind, keeping themselves pure. This is called the fear of rebirth in a bad place.

These are the four fears.” ─ AN4,121

3.5 Meaning of Life

The soteriological framework of EBTs effectively frames this Arc:

First a person has to find out what the meaning is and this mirrors the analytical error-avoidance and search for truth. The search for meaning is at that point the qualified meaning of life. When the meaning has become known and sense of the goal acquired, one verifies and eventually the training culminates. 

•  "I, too, monks, before my Awakening, when I was an unawakened bodhisatta, being subject myself to birth, sought what was likewise subject to birth. Being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, I sought [happiness in] what was likewise subject to illness... death... sorrow... defilement. The thought occurred to me, 'Why do I, being subject myself to birth, seek what is likewise subject to birth? Being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, why do I seek what is likewise subject to illness... death... sorrow... defilement? What if I, being subject myself to birth, seeing the drawbacks of birth, were to seek the unborn, unexcelled rest from the yoke: extinguishment? What if I, being subject myself to aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, seeing the drawbacks of aging... illness... death... sorrow... defilement, were to seek the aging-less, illness-less, deathless, sorrow-less,, unexcelled rest from the yoke: extinguishment?' ─ MN26

Effectively because phenomenological complex is defined as a predicament, subject to death, and something that ought to cease, and its cessation being the definitive pleasure ─ that is essentially the development Arc:

•  When, on observing that the monk is purified with regard to qualities based on delusion, he places conviction in him. With the arising of conviction, he visits him & grows close to him. Growing close to him, he lends an ear. Lending ear, he hears the Dhamma. Hearing the Dhamma, he remembers it. Remembering it, he penetrates the meaning of those dhammas. Penetrating the meaning, he comes to an agreement through pondering those dhammas. There being an agreement through pondering those dhammas, desire arises. With the arising of desire, he becomes willing. Willing, he contemplates (lit: "weighs," "compares"). Contemplating, he makes an exertion. Exerting himself, he both realizes the ultimate meaning of the truth with his body and sees by penetrating it with discernment.

"To this extent, Bharadvaja, there is an awakening to the truth. To this extent one awakens to the truth. I describe this as an awakening to the truth. But it is not yet the final attainment of the truth.

"Yes, Master Gotama, to this extent there is an awakening to the truth. To this extent one awakens to the truth. We regard this as an awakening to the truth. But to what extent is there the final attainment of the truth? To what extent does one finally attain the truth? We ask Master Gotama about the final attainment of the truth."

"The cultivation, development, & pursuit of those very same qualities: to this extent, Bharadvaja, there is the final attainment of the truth. To this extent one finally attains the truth. I describe this as the final attainment of the truth."

"Yes, Master Gotama, to this extent there is the final attainment of the truth. To this extent one finally attains the truth. We regard this as the final attainment of the truth. ─ MN95

3.6 Framing the Epistemology of EBTs

As previously discussed, the epistemology of EBTs is made distinct from other systems by the immediacy serving as the soteriological foundation.

As the framework is based on a special phenomenological category of cessation — the epistemological framework frames this as a special foundational category divorced from phenomenology but associated with the realization of phenomenological cessation. 

• Now it's possible, Ananda, that some wanderers of other persuasions might say, 'Gotama the contemplative speaks of the cessation of perception & feeling and yet describes it as pleasure. What is this? How can this be?' When they say that, they are to be told, 'It's not the case, friends, that the Blessed One describes only pleasant feeling as included under pleasure. Wherever pleasure is found, in whatever terms, the Blessed One describes it as pleasure.' ─ MN59

Here we see the demand to utilize paraconsistent logic in reading the texts, this is where the overcoming of Hume’s Guillotine occurs, this is where the framework points beyond itself without falling into contradiction.

• There he addressed the monks: “Reverends, nibbāna is bliss! Nibbāna is bliss!”

When he said this, Venerable Udāyī said to him, “But Reverend Sāriputta, what’s blissful about it, since nothing is felt?

“The fact that nothing is felt is precisely what’s blissful about it. ─ AN9.34

Because the epistemological system is pointing beyond itself here, in pointing to an Unsynthesized ─ the Unsynthesized can not be otherwise inferred from the constructed or empirically verified. Anything that can be inferred from the constructed is just another constructed phenomena. If we’re relying on inference,or empirical verification, we’re still operating within the category of  phenomenological ontology. The Unconstructed isn’t something that can be grasped that way ─ it’s realized through direct cessation, not conceptualization or another subjective existence. Therefore it is always explained as what it is not.

Therefore the attainment of cessation doesn't require empirical proof ─  the attainment is a non-empirical proof – verifiable by those who can attain it.

It can however be asserted to be real by asserting that the constructed is caused and that these causes can be exhausted, this would posit a cessation of the constructed which would then be possible because there is what is by definition not constructed. Yet the verification would require a leap of faith.

3.7 Resolving the Ought ─ Is Problem

Here is exactly how Buddha resolved the Ought-Is Problem:

Here is the complete arc of Siddhartha's thought eventually transcending Humean Epistemology and categorical expansion:

• First Siddhartha Gotama was like everybody else. He had ideas about how he ought to live his life and philosophized like everybody else, held beliefs like everybody else — and like everybody else he was deriving his Oughts from what Is.

• At some point he entertained the idea of a cessation of the Is and the implications of there being a Not-Is. He wasn't alone in this, there are others in the texts. At this point he is still deducing axioms. His Oughts are still derived exclusively from what Is

• He eventually framed the axioms of Causality, the Unsynthesized, and derived that he Ought to cause a cessation of the Is. Still all his oughts are derived exclusively from the is. 

•  Consequently, through axiom praxis he causes the cessation of the Is. This attainment is called cessation of perception and feeling

Which is possible because there is an ontological Unmade Truth & Reality, apart from the Phenomenology.

• Now his axioms are verified working as intended. And he can claim that his Oughts are no longer derived exclusively from what Is.

He has done what Heidegger couldn’t dream of:

•  [Heidegger] pointed out that it is not reasonable to ask questions like ‘why existence exists?’ Because the answer would require coming to know what is not included in the scope of existence. 

Buddha:

• Having directly known the all as the all, and having directly known the extent of what has not been experienced through the allness of the all, I wasn't the all, I wasn't in the all, I wasn't coming forth from the all, I wasn't "The all is mine." I didn't affirm the all. Thus I am not your mere equal in terms of direct knowing, so how could I be inferior? I am actually superior to you.' — MN49

The All is defined here:

• Monks, I will teach you the All. Listen & pay close attention. I will speak."

"As you say, lord," the monks responded.

 The Blessed One said, "What is the All? Simply the eye & forms, ear & sounds, nose & aromas, tongue & flavors, body & tactile sensations, intellect & ideas. This, monks, is called the All. [1] Anyone who would say, 'Repudiating this All, I will describe another,' if questioned on what exactly might be the grounds for his statement, would be unable to explain, and furthermore, would be put to grief. Why? Because it lies beyond range." — SN35.23

• So, at this point his Oughts and axioms are verified, and are not derived exclusively from the Is but also from the Not-Is. He now has verified the complete analytical map.

Hence he says there are two ontological elements — The made phenomenology and the Unmade element.

And he tells others how to verify this for themselves. 

3.8 Foundational Epistemic Categories

Faith, in this context, isn’t just blind belief or analytic confidence –  it’s a trust in the axioms and the process leading to direct verification. The cessation of perception and feeling isn’t something one can prove to another person through measurement or inference. It requires a leap ─ the willingness to commit to a path without empirical guarantees, trusting that the attainment itself will be the proof.

This is where Buddhism, in defining faith, diverges from both Bayesian-Probability and traditional faith-based religions. It doesn’t demand belief in something falsifiable or unverifiable forever, but it does require faith until verification.

• “Sāriputta, do you have faith that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, culminate, finish, and end in freedom from death?”

“Sir, in this case I don’t rely on faith in the Buddha’s claim that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, culminate, finish, and end in freedom from death. There are those who have not known or seen or understood or realized or experienced this with wisdom. They may rely on faith in this matter. But there are those who have known, seen, understood, realized, and experienced this with wisdom. They have no doubts or uncertainties in this matter. I have known, seen, understood, realized, and experienced this with wisdom. I have no doubts or uncertainties that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, culminate, finish, and end in freedom from death.”

“Good, good, Sāriputta! There are those who have not known or seen or understood or realized or experienced this with wisdom. They may rely on faith in this matter. But there are those who have known, seen, understood, realized, and experienced this with wisdom. They have no doubts or uncertainties that the faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, immersion, and wisdom, when developed and cultivated, culminate, finish, and end in freedom from death.” ─ SN 48.44

This creates two novel epistemic categories 

• Unverified absolute confidence. Absolute for lack of epistemic doubt [no reasonable doubt]. But one still has has doubt due to ignorance and psychological bias [unreasonable doubt].

• Verified absolute confidence. One can no longer have epistemically reasonable doubt. And can no longer have unreasonable doubt due to ignorance and psychological bias.

So this is the expansion to our foundational epistemological categories:

1. The Unsynthesized as a novel ontological element apart from phenomenology, The Not-Is.

Two new classes of confidence. 

• Two Categories of Truth — as definitive and qualified. Buddha does this himself:

•  “Monk, they say that ‘extinguishment is apparent in the present life’. In what way did the Buddha say extinguishment is apparent in the present life?” 

“First, take a monk who, quite secluded from sensual pleasures … enters and remains in the first jhana. To this extent the Buddha said that extinguishment is apparent in the present life in a qualified sense. … Furthermore, take a monk who, going totally beyond the dimension of neither perception nor non-perception, enters and remains in the cessation of perception and feeling. And, having seen with wisdom, their defilements come to an end. To this extent the Buddha said that extinguishment is apparent in the present life in a definitive sense.” ─ AN9.47 

3.9 Framing Phenomenology of EBTs

The phenomenological framework of EBTs is grounded in epistemology and mirrors the western category framing subjective existence but they also frame it’s cessation as a special class and a sort of analogical experience:

• On one occasion, friend Ānanda, I was dwelling right here in Sāvatthī in the Blind Men’s Grove. There I attained such a state of concentration that I was not percipient of earth in relation to earth; of water in relation to water; of fire in relation to fire; of air in relation to air; of the base of the infinity of space in relation to the base of the infinity of space; of the base of the infinity of consciousness in relation to the base of the infinity of consciousness; of the base of nothingness in relation to the base of nothingness; of the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception in relation to the base of neither-perception-nor-non-perception; of this world in relation to this world; of the other world in relation to the other world, but I was still percipient.”

“But of what was the Venerable Sāriputta percipient on that occasion?”

“One perception arose and another perception ceased in me: ‘The cessation of existence is extinguishment; the cessation of existence is extinguishment.’ Suppose there was a burning pile of twigs. One flame would arise and another would cease. In the same way, one perception arose in me and another perception ceased ─ AN10.7

In general, as already explained, the phenomenology itself is framed as a suffering and it follows that it is not approved of:

• Monks, just as even a tiny amount of feces is foul-smelling, in the same way, I don’t praise even a tiny amount of becoming1—even as much as a finger-snap. ─ SN1.329

4 Change

EBTs treat phenomenological ontology as ever-changing, something not even momentary ─  because a moment would have a beginning, middle and end, three instances of cognized change — thus three distinct instances of cognition-discernment.

The change here is framedhe change of anything in relation to anything in the world — it's incomprehensible in terms of calculable speed. It is a radical impermanence where change leaves no room even for momentariness.

• “I do not see, bhikkhus, any single phenomenon that comes and goes so quickly as this mind . Indeed, monks, even a simile would not be easy to find to show how quickly mind turns about.” ─ AN1.48

• what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another. Just as a monkey, swinging through a forest wilderness, grabs a branch. Letting go of it, it grabs another branch. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. Letting go of that, it grabs another one. In the same way, what's called 'mind,' 'intellect,' or 'consciousness' by day and by night arises as one thing and ceases as another. — SN12.61
  
  Three Ends

• But what is one end? What’s the second end? What’s the middle? And who is the seamstress?” When this was said, one of the mendicants said to the senior mendicants.
  
  

• Contact, reverends, is one end. The origin of contact is the second end. The cessation of contact is the middle. And craving is the seamstress, for craving weaves one to being reborn in one state of existence or another. That’s how a mendicant directly knows what should be directly known and completely understands what should be completely understood. Knowing and understanding thus they make an end of suffering in this very life.
  
  

• When this was said, one of the mendicants said to the senior mendicants:
  “The past, reverends, is one end. The future is the second end. The present is the middle. And craving is the seamstress … That’s how a mendicant directly knows … an end of suffering in this very life.”
  
  

• When this was said, one of the mendicants said to the senior mendicants:
  “Pleasant feeling, reverends, is one end. Painful feeling is the second end. Neutral feeling is the middle. And craving is the seamstress … That’s how a mendicant directly knows … an end of suffering in this very life.”

• When this was said, one of the mendicants said to the senior mendicants:
  “Name, reverends, is one end. Form is the second end. Consciousness is the middle. And craving is the seamstress … That’s how a mendicant directly knows … an end of suffering in this very life.”
  
  

• When this was said, one of the mendicants said to the senior mendicants:
  “The six interior sense bases, reverends, are one end. The six exterior sense bases are the second end. Consciousness is the middle. And craving is the seamstress … That’s how a mendicant directly knows … an end of suffering in this very life.”—AN6.61

If we think of any stretch of time, even a moment, it will need to have three distinct instances; a beginning, middle and end — eg a week, a day, an hour, a minute, etc… Even an abstract conception of "a moment" will retain this philosophical structure. Each instance is in itself an atemporal phase and presuming the others.

Thus, in the framework of EBTs: discernment of subjective existence presumes change, and is thus treated as an ontological complex, with beginning, middle, and end — not just as a phenomenological flow. In talking about the ontology of any arisen experience, each instance presumes its own relational "temporal triangulation" as change, in as far as persistence of measurement/existence goes.

This is easily contextualized by the first principles of measurement.

4.1 Framing the Ontology of EBTs

The ontology of EBTs is based on the phenomenological categories therein:

1. A category framed by phenomenological persistence.

2. Another special category framed by phenomenological cessation.
   
   

• Very good. Both formerly & now, it is only suffering that I describe, and the cessation of suffering." ─ SN22.86

Just like FP we are here dealing with a single category phenomenological ontology, everything is boxed in, This is how the BP frames it:

• Why now do you assume 'a being'?
  Mara, have you grasped a view?
  This is a heap of sheer constructions:
  Here no being is found.
  
  Just as, with an assemblage of parts,
  The word 'chariot' is used,
  So, when the aggregates are present,
  There's the convention 'a being.'
  
  It's only suffering that comes to be,
  Suffering that stands and falls away.
  Nothing but suffering comes to be,
  Nothing but suffering ceases. ─ SN5.10

Essentially, the EBT frameworks have two foundational ontological categories: phenomenological and not-phenomenological. The demand for a not-phenomenological ontology is dictated by the axiom of a cessation being possible:

•  There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated (Unsynthesized). If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that escape from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, escape from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned. ─ Ud8.3

Hence there are two foundational ontological categories in BP:

• “There could, Ānanda. There are these two elements: the Synthesized element and the Unsynthesized element. When a mendicant knows and sees these two elements, they’re qualified to be called ‘skilled in the elements’.” ─ MN115
  
  

• 1. "Monks, these three are fabricated characteristics of what is fabricated. Which three? Arising is discernible, passing away is discernible, alteration (literally, other-ness) while staying is discernible.

"These are three fabricated characteristics of what is fabricated.

2. "Now these three are unfabricated characteristics of what is unfabricated. Which three? No arising is discernible, no passing away is discernible, no alteration while staying is discernible.

"These are three unfabricated characteristics of what is unfabricated." ─ AN3.47

4.2 Dependent Co-Arising

Dependent Co-Arising frames causal relations explaining phenomenological persistence:

• "'Everything exists': That is one extreme. 'Everything doesn't exist': That is a second extreme. Avoiding these two extremes, the Tathagata teaches the Dhamma via the middle: From ignorance as a requisite condition comes synthesis. From synthesis as a requisite condition comes consciousness. From consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name-&-form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving as a requisite condition comes clinging. From clinging as a requisite condition comes existence. From existence as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of suffering. ─ SN12.15
  
  

• At Savatthī. “Bhikkhus, this body is not yours, nor does it belong to others. It is old kamma, to be seen as generated and fashioned by intention, as something to be felt. Therein, bhikkhus, the instructed noble disciple attends carefully and closely to dependent origination itself thus: ‘When this exists, that comes to be; with the arising of this, that arises. When this does not exist, that does not come to be; with the cessation of this, that ceases. That is, with ignorance as condition, synthesis comes to be; with synthesis as condition, consciousness…. Such is the origin of this whole mass of suffering. But with the remainderless fading away and cessation of ignorance comes cessation of synthesis; with the cessation of synthesis, cessation of consciousness…. Such is the cessation of this whole mass of suffering. ─ SN12.37

Analogy

• "Very well then, Kotthita my friend, I will give you an analogy; for there are cases where it is through the use of an analogy that intelligent people can understand the meaning of what is being said. It is as if two sheaves of reeds were to stand leaning against one another. In the same way, from name-&-form as a requisite condition comes consciousness, from consciousness as a requisite condition comes name-&-form. From name & form as a requisite condition come the six sense media. From the six sense media as a requisite condition comes contact. From contact as a requisite condition comes feeling. From feeling as a requisite condition comes craving. From craving [lit. thirst] as a requisite condition comes clinging [meaning: having desire for]. From clinging as a requisite condition comes existence. From existence as a requisite condition comes birth. From birth as a requisite condition, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair come into play. Such is the origination of this entire mass of suffering.

If one were to pull away one of those sheaves of reeds, the other would fall; if one were to pull away the other, the first one would fall. In the same way, from the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of consciousness, from the cessation of consciousness comes the cessation of name-&-form. From the cessation of name-&-form comes the cessation of the six sense bases. From the cessation of the six sense bases comes the cessation of contact. From the cessation of contact comes the cessation of feeling. From the cessation of feeling comes the cessation of craving. From the cessation of craving comes the cessation of clinging. From the cessation of clinging comes the cessation of existence. From the cessation of existence comes the cessation of birth. From the cessation of birth, then aging & death, sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair all cease. Such is the cessation of this entire mass of suffering."—SN12.67

4.3 Foundational Axioms: Rebirth

The classic "afterlife debate" in philosophy  comes down to a familiar dichotomy:

• Either there is renewed existence 

•  Or there is nothing

In general, many thinkers assume the second option is **rational** and the first is **superstitious**; or assert that agnosticism is the most reasonable stance.

I will show how the framework of the EBTs calls to redirect discussion — from the discussion about whether there is a recurrent existence or a nothingness; to analysis of the causal relations begetting phenomenology and deducing what would make a cessation of subjective existence possible.

EBTs don't treat rebirth as a belief to be taken on faith, nor as a hypothesis beyond verification — rather, as an axiomatic assumption*within its own coherent philosophical system, offering means of verification which extend beyond recollection of past lives and function as a means of "proof" within their axiomatic praxis. As to further proof, they describe a cultivated form of vision — known as the divine eye — that purportedly allows advanced practitioners to directly perceive the rebirth process, including the arising and passing of beings across realms like heavens, hells, and other planes. This isn't framed as blind faith but as an experiential outcome of deep meditative development, aligning with the system's emphasis on verifiable insight through axiomatic practice.

I assert that Rebirth in the framework of EBTs functions as an axiom in a wider system of praxis. And that the rejection of rebirth is itself an extraordinary claim — and requires extraordinary evidence. Because it assumes that consciousness starts at birth and must therefore end at death, without a sequel nor residue — something never proven and empirically unobservable. This is a metaphysical assumption, not a scientific fact. 

Here the Occam's Razor is often misused to displace the burden of proof — essentially saying that it isn't obvious how there would be a continuation because it is not obvious; and that those who think otherwise are overcomplicating things and need to explain more such as the mechanics of the recurrence.

Furthermore, the idea that there is nothing after death operates with the metaphysics of nothingness — and so in as far as the Early Buddhist is concerned, doubt here introduces metaphysics — whereas the faith in the axiom remains epistemologically grounded.

Philosophy has always had a singularity, as the same concept — the before birth and the after death — an unknowable, epistemological black box. And yet we do know for a fact that existence can sprout as our existence emerged from it at least once already.

• If this very existence emerged once from this singularity… it is not only entirely reasonable to assume that it could happen again — it is the only rational stance in the absence of evidence.

The explanatory and predictive powers of the axiom — these are what dictates confidence here. They don't prove rebirth, but they dictate the epistemic weight and definitions. In this landscape, skepticism or agnosticism, then, isn't rational or neutral — It's refusing to update your odds.

The real superstition isn't believing in rebirth — it's in entertaining metaphysics. The Buddhist axiom doesn't overreach; it simply starts with what we know: that existence changes as it persists. From there, it asks what conditions beget it and what makes the cessation possible. 

The real discussion is not existence vs nothing — it's about the conditions that make existence arise and persist, and — if a cessation is possible — then there must necessarily be an Unmade Element, a categorically different ontological reality.

4.4 The Four Noble Truths

The Four Noble Truths are axiomatic postulates which frame the praxis ─  and can only be verified by transcending  the phenomenological ontology (the cessation attainment)  — they are analytical (true by definition).

Essentially this is our system completing its own analysis, something which no system can do without transcending it’s own ontology.

I will analyze the Four Noble Truths in detail. Here are some excerpts framing the context:

• The Synthesis is called "Suffering" 

• The Cessation of Synthesis is the definitive pleasure where nothing is felt.

Here are a few excerpts:

• 202. There is no fire like lust and no crime like hatred. There is no ill like the aggregates (of existence) and no bliss higher than the peace (of Nibbana).

• 203. Hunger is the worst disease, conditioned things the worst suffering. Knowing this as it really is, the wise realize Nibbana, the highest bliss.

• 204. Health is the most precious gain and contentment the greatest wealth. A trustworthy person is the best kinsman, Nibbana the highest bliss.

• 205. Having savored the taste of solitude and peace (of Nibbana), pain-free and stainless he becomes, drinking deep the taste of the bliss of the Truth. ─ Dhp

The term “aggregates” is a reference to the aggregated phenomenological complex. Below the Four Noble Truths analyzed by cross-reference:

The First Noble Truth

Here's the definition

• Pali: Idaṁ kho pana, bhikkhave, dukkhaṁ ariyasaccaṁ—jātipi dukkhā, jarāpi dukkhā, byādhipi dukkho, maraṇampi dukkhaṁ, appiyehi sampayogo dukkho, piyehi vippayogo dukkho, yampicchaṁ na labhati tampi dukkhaṁ—saṅkhittena pañcupādānakkhandhā dukkhā —SN56.11

English: This, indeed, monks, is the noble truth of suffering—birth is suffering, aging is suffering, illness is suffering, death is suffering, association with the disliked is suffering, separation from the liked is suffering, not obtaining what one desires is suffering—in brief, the five clung-to aggregates (pañc'upādānakkhandhā) are suffering. — SN56.11

Pañc'upādānakkhandhā here is a compound noun, meaning the five clung-to aggregates for which one has desire. This is established by cross-reference with SN22.82

• Venerable sir, is that clinging (upādāna) the same as pañc'upādānakkhandhā, or is the clinging something apart from pañc'upādānakkhandhā?”

“Bhikkhus, that clinging is neither the same as these pañc'upādānakkhandhā, nor is the clinging something apart from pañc'upādānakkhandhā. But rather, the desire and lust for them, that is the clinging there. ─ SN22.82

Thus, the meaning of pañc'upādānakkhandhā is, verily, the five aggregates for which one has desire– and it's literal translation is the five clung-to aggregates.

Furthermore SN45.165 gives us further explanation of “dukkha [suffering] therein.

• Pali: Tisso imā, bhikkhave, dukkhatā. Katamā tisso? Dukkhadukkhatā, saṅkhāradukkhatā, vipariṇāmadukkhatā—imā kho, bhikkhave, tisso dukkhatā. Imāsaṁ kho, bhikkhave, tissannaṁ dukkhatānaṁ abhiññāya pariññāya parikkhayāya pahānāya …pe… ayaṁ ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo bhāvetabbo”ti.

English translation is awkward because of the compound nouns therein but it's literally close to this:

• Monks, there are these three kinds of suffering. What three?

Suffering-as-suffering (dukkhadukkhatā), suffering-as-formations (saṅkhāradukkhatā), suffering-as-change (vipariṇāmadukkhatā)—these, monks, are the three kinds of suffering.

For direct knowledge, full understanding, complete destruction, and abandonment of these three kinds of suffering, … therefore, the noble eightfold path should be developed.

The dukkhadukkhatā might seem strange at first glance but we can explain this as mental and bodily pain drawing from SN36.6

• The Blessed One said, "When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental.

The saṅkhāradukkhatā and vipariṇāmadukkhatā can be explained by cross referencing with SN36.11

• I have spoken of these three feelings. Pleasant, painful, and neutral feeling. These are the three feelings I have spoken of.

But I have also said: ‘Suffering includes whatever is felt.’

When I said this I was referring to the impermanence of formations, to the fact that formations are liable to end, vanish, fade away, cease, and perish.

• This noble truth of dukkha is to be comprehended.' —SN56.11

The Second Noble Truth

Here's the definition

• Pali: Idaṁ kho pana, bhikkhave, dukkhasamudayaṁ ariyasaccaṁ—yāyaṁ taṇhā ponobbhavikā nandirāgasahagatā tatratatrābhinandinī, seyyathidaṁ—kāmataṇhā, bhavataṇhā, vibhavataṇhā.

English: "This, monks, is the Noble Truth of the Origin of Suffering— it is this craving that leads to renewed existence, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; namely, craving for sensual pleasures (kāmataṇhā), craving for existence (bhavataṇhā), and craving for non-existence (vibhavataṇhā). — SN56.11

I highlighted because that part is often overlooked. It is derived from "punabbhava" with the suffix "-ikā"

Puna — again, anew
Bhava — arising, existence, becoming
-ikā — a suffix meaning "leading to" or "causing"

Thus the compound means something that leads to, perpetuates or generates existence again. In short this is a reference to craving's role in perpetuating rebirth.

• 'This noble truth of the origination of dukkha is to be abandoned' —SN56.11

The Third Noble Truth

Here's the definition

• Pali: Idaṁ kho pana, bhikkhave, dukkhanirodhaṁ ariyasaccaṁ—yo tassāyeva taṇhāya asesavirāganirodho cāgo paṭinissaggo mutti anālayo.

English: This, indeed, monks, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of Suffering—which is the complete fading away and cessation of that very craving, giving up, relinquishment, release, and non-attachment. —SN56.11

At this point, the meaning here should be drawn out by cross-reference with the first and the second noble truths, in two ways: long and short:

• Long formulation:
  This, indeed, monks, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of  [suffering as: of birth, aging, illness, death, association with the disliked, separation from the liked, not obtaining what one desires; etc…] —which is the complete fading away and cessation of that very craving, giving up, relinquishment, release, and non-attachment.

• This, indeed, monks, is the Noble Truth of the Cessation of [suffering as: the five clung-to aggregates (meaning the five clung-to aggregates for which one has desire)] — which is the complete fading away and cessation of that very craving, giving up, relinquishment, release, and non-attachment.

This is where things get interesting.

Here, we are essentially talking about the cessation of pañc'upādānakkhandhā as the cessation of craving and an undoing of the would-be perpetuated renewed existence (birth, aging, death, etc).

The meaning here can be drawn out from MN26

• Pali: Idampi kho ṭhānaṁ duddasaṁ yadidaṁ—sabbasaṅkhārasamatho sabbūpadhipaṭinissaggo taṇhākkhayo virāgo nirodho nibbānaṁ.

English: This too is a difficult thing to see, namely—the stilling of all formations (sabbasankharāsamatha), the relinquishment of all acquisitions, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, nibbāna. —MN26

The Buddha explains the destruction of craving in several ways.

Sabbasankharāsamatha here should be cross-referenced with progressive stilling and progressive cessation of synthesis.

• For someone who has attained the first absorption, speech has ceased. For someone who has attained the second absorption, applied and sustained thought have ceased. For someone who has attained the third absorption, rapture has ceased. For someone who has attained the fourth absorption, breathing has ceased. For someone who has attained the base of infinite space, the perception of form has ceased. For someone who has attained the base of infinite consciousness, the perception of the base of infinite space has ceased. For someone who has attained the base of nothingness, the perception of the base of infinite consciousness has ceased. For someone who has attained the base of neither perception nor non-perception, the perception of the base of nothingness has ceased. For someone who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling, perception and feeling have ceased. For a monk who has ended the defilements, greed, hate, and delusion have ceased.

And I have also explained the progressive stilling of conditions. For someone who has attained the first absorption, speech has stilled. For someone who has attained the second absorption, the applied and sustained thought has been stilled. (Continued analogically) For someone who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling, perception and feeling have stilled. For a monk who has ended the defilements, greed, hate, and delusion have stilled. —SN36.11

Here we should look at the progression up to the removal of defilements.

Note here that the Buddha doesn't say that for one who has attained cessation of perception and feeling the base of neither perception nor non-perception has been calmed/ceased. Rather he says that for one who has attained the cessation of perception and feeling – perception and feeling have ceased/been stilled. This is because some people attain cessation of perception and feeling without having the formless attainments. I'll get back to this later with excerpts.

Furthermore note that the cessation attainment is a stilling of all formations, this is established thus

• There are these three kinds of formations: the bodily formation, the verbal formation, the mental formation —MN9
  
  

• "When a monk is attaining the cessation of perception & feeling, verbal fabrications cease first, then bodily fabrications, then mental fabrications." —SN41.6

Here is how it all ties together

A person in training has pañc'upādānakkhandhā (he relishes existence and that is why he has to train), and when he attains the cessation (as the attainment of cessation of perception and feeling): this is a cessation of pañc'upādānakkhandhā; stilling of all formations; the removal of taints; destruction of craving; cessation; nibbāna.

• This noble truth of the cessation of dukkha is to be directly experienced' ─ SN56.11

The Fourth Noble Truth

Here's the definition

• Pali: daṁ kho pana, bhikkhave, dukkhanirodhagāminī paṭipadā ariyasaccaṁ—ayameva ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo, seyyathidaṁ—sammādiṭṭhi …pe… sammāsamādhi.

English: This, indeed, monks, is the Noble Truth of the Path Leading to the Cessation of Suffering—it is just this Noble Eightfold Path, namely:Right View … (etc.) … Right Concentration. —SN56.11

Here I will use the MN64 to unpack the doctrinal implications as to tie everything together rather than defining every factor of the Path.

MN64 excerpts:

• There is a path, Ānanda, a way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters; that anyone, without relying on that path, on that way, shall know or see or abandon the five lower fetters—this is not possible. Just as when there is a great tree standing possessed of heartwood, it is not possible that anyone shall cut out its heartwood without cutting through its bark and sapwood, so too, there is a path…this is not possible

“And what, Ānanda, is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters? Here, with seclusion from the acquisitions, with the abandoning of unwholesome states, with the complete tranquillization of bodily inertia, quite secluded from sensual pleasures, secluded from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first jhāna, which is accompanied by applied and sustained thought, with rapture and pleasure born of seclusion.

“Whatever exists therein of material form, feeling, perception, formations, and consciousness, he sees those states as impermanent, as suffering, as a disease, as a tumour, as a barb, as a calamity, as an affliction, as alien, as disintegrating, as void, as not self. He turns his mind away from those states and directs it towards the deathless element thus: ‘This is the peaceful, this is the sublime, that is, the stilling of all formations, the relinquishing of all attachments, the destruction of craving, dispassion, cessation, Nibbāna.’ If he is steady in that, he attains the destruction of the taints. But if he does not attain the destruction of the taints because of that desire for the Dhamma, that delight in the Dhamma, then with the destruction of the five lower fetters he becomes one due to reappear spontaneously in the Pure Abodes and there attain final Nibbāna without ever returning from that world. This is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters.

(The text goes on to repeat this formula, replacing the first jhāna with progressive attainments with perception and adjusts 'whatever exists therein' accordingly)

Towards the end Ananda asks

• “Venerable sir, if this is the path, the way to the abandoning of the five lower fetters, then how is it that some bhikkhus here are said to gain deliverance of mind and some are said to gain deliverance by wisdom?”

“The difference here, Ānanda, is in their faculties, I say.”

This is a reference to the fact that not all people who attain the destruction of taints have the formless attainments and this is why these attainments are not included in Right Concentration.

This is echoed in SN12.70

• Ven. Susima heard that "A large number of monks, it seems, have declared final gnosis in the Blessed One's presence: 'We discern that "Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world."'" Then Ven. Susima went to those monks and, on arrival, exchanged courteous greetings with them. After an exchange of friendly greetings & courtesies, he sat to one side. As he was sitting there, he said to them, "Is it true, as they say, that you have declared final gnosis in the Blessed One's presence: 'We discern that "Birth is ended, the holy life fulfilled, the task done. There is nothing further for the sake of this world"'?"

"Yes, friend."

Then, having known thus, having seen thus, do you dwell touching with your body the peaceful emancipations, the formless states beyond form?"

"No, friend."

"So just now, friends, didn't you make that declaration without having attained any of these Dhammas?"

"We're released through discernment, friend Susima."

"I don't understand the detailed meaning of your brief statement. It would be good if you would speak in such a way that I would understand its detailed meaning."

"Whether or not you understand, friend Susima, we are still released through discernment."

Unlike the formless attainments, the cessation attainment is not included in Right Concentration because it immediacy tied to the goal.

• This noble truth of the way of practice leading to the cessation of suffering is to be developed'. ─ - SN56.11

4.5 Paraconsistent Logic of EBTs

There is a paradox associated with the phenomenological cessation described in EBTs as "a pleasure where nothing is felt". Rather it looks like a paradox in the classical logic sense but we are working with a specific semantic model here which ought to resolve the apparent contradiction by assigning correct semantic targets.

Explaining the paraconsistent logic of Cessation-Extinguishment with metaphorical mathematics

We resolve the classical contradiction by making a semantic model where what looks like a contradiction is resolved by contextualizing properly.

I can explain it using metaphorical mathematics:

Suppose every aggregate of personal experience, eg person1, person2... is represented by a real number such as 1,2,3,4,5, etc

These are subjective, constructed realities — self-indexing and self-perpetuating epistemological systems.

We can frame the decimals in two ways:

1. As change or variance.

2. As internal conception of other numbers. 

Now suppose that 0 is also a reality but not a subjective reality.

Now suppose that the subjective reality #1 could become extinguished by internally performing the operation 1-1=0

This would result in the not coming into play of the special phenomenological ontology.

This operation represents the narrative of constructing a cessation of feeling & perception and consequently the final extinguishment.

The 0 here represents a not constructed reality — undistorted and unimaginable, a happiness by definition — real and true. If there was no real 0 then the operation 1-1 wouldn't be possible.

• There is, monks, an unborn— unbecome — unmade — unsynthesized. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that escape from the born — become — made — synthesized would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unsynthesized, escape from the born — become — made — synthesized is discerned. — Ud8.3

The narrative of there being "a person" only goes in as far as the real numbers go and the 0 doesn't change nor pertains to either subject — it just makes the extinguishment possible.

Whether it is 1-1 or 2-2 or 3-3, the 0 is unaffected and remains as it is. Once the operation is performed — the narrative of there being a real number ends — the value disappears.

• See the world, together with its devas,
  conceiving not-self to be self.
  Entrenched in name & form,
  they conceive that 'This is true.'
  
  In whatever terms they conceive it
  it turns into something other than that,
  and that's what's false about it:
  Changing, it's deceptive by nature.
  
  Undeceptive by nature is Extinguishment:
  that the noble ones know as true.
  They, through breaking through to the truth,
  free from hunger, are totally extinguished. — Sn3.12

So we have a two-fold metaphorical explanation of what is 0 in Buddhism:

1.  When used in the operational expression such as '#-#=0' — In the narrative of a being : it is framing the cessation as caused.

2.  When taken out of the context of cessation — in & by itself — it is the Unsynthesized Element.

Having performed the operation 1-1 there is only a 0, there is no more narrative of the #1.

So the phenomenological ontology narrative here only goes until the system collapses in cessation.

• "Herein, Bahiya, you should train yourself thus: 'In the seen will be merely what is seen; in the heard will be merely what is heard; in the sensed will be merely what is sensed; in the cognized will be merely what is cognized.' In this way you should train yourself, Bahiya.

"When, Bahiya, for you in the seen is merely what is seen... in the cognized is merely what is cognized, then, Bahiya, you will not be 'with that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'with that,' then, Bahiya, you will not be 'in that.' When, Bahiya, you are not 'in that,' then, Bahiya, you will be neither here nor beyond nor in between the two. Just this is the end of suffering." ─ Ud1.10

The two elements don't co-exist, the #1 doesn't dissolve, go into or change into a 0. These are two ontologically different elements.

The operation (1 - 1 = 0) is only meaningful because 0 is an entirely different ontological element. If the number exists, then 0 is not epistemologically evident and can only be deduced, like #1 could think what if 1-1=0? and this experience could be mapped as experience #1.x — but the epistemic proof will be performing the operation.

• Where neither water nor yet earth
  Nor fire nor air gain a foothold,
  There gleam no stars, no sun sheds light,
  There shines no moon, yet there no darkness reigns.
  When a sage, a brahman, has come to know this

For himself through his own wisdom,
Then he is freed from form and formless.
Freed from pleasure and from pain. ─ Ud1.10

The paraconsistency is in that the narrative of all of existence known to #1 ends in 1-1 but the ontology had two epistemologically possible elements to begin with 0 and #1.

•  0 is not a continuation of #1 like 1.1 or 1.12 or 1.125, etc

•  0 doesn't change if #1 performs 1-1 or #2 performs 2-2

•  0 doesn't change, has no decimal variant expression.

• It's not a result of addition nor a leftover of deduction.

4.5 Integrated Soteriology

The integrated soteriology represents the point at which the two systems — analytic philosophy of science and Early Buddhist Texts — converge and complete one another.

On the one hand, analytic philosophy frames a soteriology of intellectual humility. It insists that one should refrain from making claims beyond the scope of epistemic justification. This is a kind of negative salvation — the “deliverance” from error, dogmatism, and overreach. In this light, the Humean warning that no “ought” can be derived from an “is” preserves us from deriving moral or metaphysical certainty from contingent facts. Gödel’s incompleteness further ensures that no system can fully prove itself without contradiction. This tradition cultivates freedom from delusion, but only in a limited, negative sense: salvation as restraint.

On the other hand, the EBTs present a positive and transcendent soteriology. They frame the predicament of conditioned existence as an unsatisfactory cycle, and they point beyond it to cessation (nirodha). Where the analytic tradition stops at caution and probability, the EBTs advance a categorical solution: liberation (Nibbāna) as the realization of the Unsynthesized. The Buddha’s insight is that cessation is not merely metaphysical speculation but a verifiable attainment. This is a radical soteriology, one in which the limits established by Hume and Kant are not denied but transcended.

When integrated, the soteriology thus becomes two-tiered and self-completing:

Tier One (Analytic): Avoidance of error, intellectual humility, refraining from claiming certainty where certainty is not possible. This ensures rigor and guards against superstition.

Tier Two (Buddhist): Deduction from axioms and praxis leading to direct verification of cessation. This ensures not only consistency but completion — salvation not only as freedom from error but as freedom from existence as suffering.

The integrated soteriology therefore does not collapse into quietism or skepticism. Rather, it harmonizes analytic humility with Buddhist transcendence. It makes the bold claim that the only non-contradictory resolution to epistemic limitation is the soteriological realization of cessation, and that this cessation is verifiable through praxis. Salvation is not just intellectual — it is ontological.

4.7 Integrated Epistemology

The integration of epistemology arises from the recognition that the analytic tradition and the EBTs both confront the same problem: how to know, and how to define the limits of knowing.

Analytic epistemology establishes several key principles:

• Knowledge is inherently conditional and probabilistic (Hume’s Guillotine, Bayesian inference).

• Formal systems cannot prove their own completeness without contradiction (Gödel).

• Observation is always constrained by the perspective of the observer (Heisenberg, relativity, Kant).

Thus, analytic epistemology grounds itself in humility: knowledge can be mapped in probabilities, not certainties. The task is not to arrive at final truth but to constantly update confidence with new evidence.

Buddhist epistemology, however, extends these limits by introducing novel categories. The EBTs speak of two distinct classes of confidence:

• Unverified absolute confidence, where faith in axioms and praxis motivates the path even before verification.

• Verified absolute confidence, where direct realization (cessation of perception and feeling) confirms the axioms beyond any possible doubt.

Additionally, two classes of truth are introduced:

• Qualified truths (those contingent on constructed phenomena, e.g., states of meditation, provisional teachings).

• Definitive truths (those verified by cessation, pointing to the Unsynthesized).

The integrated epistemology therefore frames knowledge as stratified into three layers:

• Probabilistic confidence — conditional, Bayesian, open to revision (analytic foundation).

• Unverified absolutes — good faith-based epistemic commitments grounded in probability and consistency but not yet verified (EBT confidence stage).

• Verified absolutes — realization through cessation, which constitutes a non-empirical but self-verifying form of knowledge (EBT completion).

Here is an example of how there is a progression from understanding to verified knowledge:

First, the general framing of progression:

• "It was not long before I quickly learned the doctrine. As far as mere lip-reciting & repetition, I could speak the words of knowledge, the words of the elders, and I could affirm that I knew & saw — I, along with others.

"I thought: 'It isn't through mere conviction alone that Alara Kalama declares, "I have entered & dwell in this Dhamma, having realized it for myself through direct knowledge." Certainly he dwells knowing & seeing this Dhamma.' So I went to him and said, 'To what extent do you declare that you have entered & dwell in this Dhamma?' When this was said, he declared the dimension of nothingness.

"I thought: 'Not only does Alara Kalama have conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, & discernment. I, too, have conviction, persistence, mindfulness, concentration, & discernment. What if I were to endeavor to realize for myself the Dhamma that Alara Kalama declares he has entered & dwells in, having realized it for himself through direct knowledge.' So it was not long before I quickly entered & dwelled in that Dhamma, having realized it for myself through direct knowledge. I went to him and said, 'Friend Kalama, is this the extent to which you have entered & dwell in this Dhamma, having realized it for yourself through direct knowledge?'

"'Yes, my friend...'

"'This, friend, is the extent to which I, too, have entered & dwell in this Dhamma, having realized it for myself through direct knowledge.' ─ MN26

Here is the progression framing in Buddha’s Dhamma:

• At Savatthi. "Monks, the eye is inconstant, changeable, alterable. The ear... The nose... The tongue... The body... The mind is inconstant, changeable, alterable.
  
  

• "One who has conviction & belief that these phenomena are this way is called a faith-follower: one who has entered the orderliness of rightness, entered the plane of people of integrity, transcended the plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable of doing any deed by which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal womb, or in the realm of hungry shades. He is incapable of passing away until he has realized the fruit of stream-entry.
  
  

• "One who, after pondering with a modicum of discernment, has accepted that these phenomena are this way is called a Dhamma-follower: one who has entered the orderliness of rightness, entered the plane of people of integrity, transcended the plane of the run-of-the-mill. He is incapable of doing any deed by which he might be reborn in hell, in the animal womb, or in the realm of hungry shades. He is incapable of passing away until he has realized the fruit of stream-entry.
  
  

• "One who knows and sees that these phenomena are this way is called a stream-enterer, steadfast, never again destined for states of woe, headed for self-awakening."

So, the faith-followers and dhamma-followers have no reasonable doubt and have conceptualized theepistemic category of unverified absolute confidence. Whereas the stream-enterer has realized cessation by direct experience and has verified absolute confidence. Here it is important to clarify that it is classed as absolute confidence because it transcends probability based prediction and grounds the prediction in the certainty of cessation.

This integration allows us to maintain analytic humility while also admitting additional categories of knowledge. The EBTs extend epistemology by showing that, while certainty cannot be obtained from within the phenomenal system, it can be obtained by transcending it through praxis. The analytic tradition secures us against error, and the Buddhist tradition completes the arc by securing the possibility of certainty.

4.8 Integrated Phenomenology 

Phenomenology is where the dialogue between analytic thought and Buddhist philosophy becomes most striking.

Analytic phenomenology recognizes that all knowledge is mediated by perception. Kant shows that the mind can never know “things in themselves” but only its own constructs and models. The Copenhagen interpretation demonstrates that physical reality is inseparable from measurement. Relativity and uncertainty principles reinforce that experience is observer-dependent and probabilistic. Thus, phenomenology in the analytic tradition is a horizon of relativity — the study of how reality appears but not of anything beyond appearance.

Philosophers have consistently failed at framing the Beyond as anything but metaphysics.

Buddhist phenomenology, however, introduces the necessary foundations for analytic framing of the beyond. 

• First, it insists that phenomenology itself is a predicament that ought to begone — it is defined by impermanence and many other characteristics we wouldn't attribute to an idealized conception of Truth or Happiness. 

• Second, it frames cessation of phenomenology as a verifiable state, a “special class” of attainment. Thus, while the analytic tradition accepts that phenomenology defines our epistemic limits, the EBTs show that  the phenomenological framing itself is neither absolute nor complete. Its cessation reveals the Unsynthesized, which is ontologically real but not phenomenological per definition.

This integrated framework is radical. It maintains the analytic emphasis on perception and relativity, but also admits that phenomenology is not final. Where Heidegger could only hunger for “what is not included in the scope of existence,” the Buddha demonstrated cessation as its realization. Thus, integrated phenomenology grounds experience while also framing its transcendence.

4.9 Integrated Ontology

As I’ve pointed out, Analytic ontology is essentially phenomenological ontology: existence is what can be experienced, measured, and modeled. It is always observer-relative and provisional. Science does not speak of things-in-themselves but of models predicting how experience will unfold under certain conditions.

Buddhist ontology expands this by positing two categories:

1. The Synthesized (constructed, fabricated, in formation; changing, arising and ceasing).

2. The Unsynthesized (unconstructed, unmade, uncaused; neither arising nor ceasing).

Without the Unsynthesized, cessation would be logically impossible. If all reality were conditioned, then cessation would be a contradiction. The EBTs therefore insist that the very possibility of liberation proves the existence of a second ontological category.

The integrated ontology thus becomes relative in it’s foundation. It is forked but coherent:

1. Phenomenological ontology (conditioned reality as observer-dependent existence).

2. Non-phenomenological ontology (the Unsynthesized as the necessary condition for cessation).

This integration allows analytic philosophy to escape the trap of its own limits: where Gödel shows that no system can prove itself, the EBTs demonstrate that proof is possible once we accept the Unsynthesized as a second ontological category. Ontology thus shifts from being a single category of experience to a complete system acknowledging both constructed reality and its cessation

5 Integrated Foundational Axioms 

The integrated system can now be summarized as a coherent set of axioms that unite analytic philosophy and the EBTs into a single foundational philosophy framed by The Four Noble Truths:

Epistemic Humility Axiom

• All systems are bounded by their own conditions. No system can establish certainty from within itself. (Hume, Kant, Gödel, Heisenberg).

Causality Axiom

• Whatever arises does so with conditions. Nothing conditioned exists without cause. Dependent Co-Arising.

Impermanence Axiom

• Whatever has arisen must pass away. All conditioned phenomena are impermanent and uncertain. This frames suffering and non-self.

Cessation Axiom

• Because conditioned phenomena can arise and pass away, their complete cessation is possible. This cessation is the principal soteriological attainment and immediacy.

Unsynthesized Axiom

• The possibility of cessation requires an unconditioned element. This Unsynthesized is ontologically real, though not phenomenological. It is the basis for liberation.

Soteriological Axiom

• Liberation is achieved by praxis that verifies these axioms directly. Analysis informs faith and motivates practice; practice realizes cessation; cessation confirms the axioms.

Together, these axioms create a complete system: analytic philosophy contributes epistemic humility Buddhist philosophy contributes transcendence, cessation, and completion. The integration produces a unified foundational philosophy — one that can account for both the persistence and the cessation of experience.

5.1 Notes

5.2 About This

5.3 About Me

6.3 Fair Use