PHILOSOPHY AND LIBERATION: A CROSS-CULTURAL COMPARISON OF CLASSICAL BUDDHISM AND PLATONIC PHILOSOPHY.

摘要

In this dissertation Plato's dialogues are compared with the literature of classical Buddhism. Like the Buddha, Socrates functions as an ideal role model. The dialogues as dramas show a consistency which contradicts the view that Plato put forth a theory of forms which altered as he changed his personal philosophy. Plato, by the standard of his critics and by Buddhist criterion, is seen to be a mystic. His philosophy is compared to the Four Truth doctrine of the Buddhist Pali discourses and the metaphysics of the Abhidharma, Madhyamika, and Vijnanavada schools. This shows that the dialogues are in a class with the literature of Buddhism. And as Buddhism is regarded as a doctrine of salvation, or liberation, and its works as sacred wisdom literature, so Plato's works should be regarded as wisdom literature and his philosophy as a philosophy of liberation.