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Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 8.1 (2025): 93–161; https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.08.01.04
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Asia-European Exchanges Mediated through Buddhism, Buddhism and Medicine: New Perspectives)
Buddhism and Philosophy in Europe
Rafal K. Stepien
Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia, Austrian Academy of Sciences
Rafal.Stepien@oeaw.ac.at
Abstract: What is the state of Buddhism and philosophy in Europe? This paper provides a descriptive account of the place of Buddhism in the conduct of philosophy in Europe today. As such, I initially provide working definitions of key terms and issues so as to clarify the scope of the ensuing inquiry. On this basis, and having summarized the methods utilized as well as their inherent limitations, I go on to provide an overview of the place of Buddhism in the conduct of philosophy in Europe today. This place turns out to be a very small one indeed. For if we define philosophy in descriptive terms as that which happens in institutions of philosophy—pre-eminently university philosophy departments—then we are confronted with a notable absence. Nevertheless, a substantial amount of scholarship in Europe is in fact devoted to Buddhist philosophy; it is just that the preponderant bulk of such work is not to be found, institutionally speaking, in philosophy. I summarise this situation and, in the final portion of my paper, proffer some general observations regarding the relationship between Buddhism and philosophy in Europe and suggest avenues for further study.
Keywords: Buddhism, Buddhist Philosophy, Philosophy, Europe
About the Author: Rafal K. Stepien is a Principal Researcher at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia within the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, where he leads a research project in Chinese Buddhist philosophy (ChinBuddhPhil) funded by the European Research Council. He is concurrently Editor-in-Chief at the Journal of Buddhist Philosophy. Previously, Rafal was the inaugural Berggruen Research Fellow in Indian Philosophy at the University of Oxford, the inaugural Cihui Foundation Faculty Fellow in Chinese Buddhism at Columbia University, a Humboldt Research Fellow in Buddhist Studies at Heidelberg University, the Soudavar Memorial Research Scholar in Persian Studies at the University of Cambridge, Assistant Professor of Asian Religions at Hampshire College, and Assistant Professor in Comparative Religion at Nanyang Technological University. His latest book is Buddhism Between Religion and Philosophy: Nāgārjuna and the Ethics of Emptiness (Oxford University Press, 2024).
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
