THE BUDDHIST ABSOLUTE AND THE NECESSITY OF THE INFINITE: A PHILOSOPHICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN BUDDHISM AND SKEPTICISM

This article examines, from a skeptical perspective, the theme of foundation and its relationship with the founded, highlighting significant correspondences between the metaphysical conception, which emerges already in ancient Greek philosophy, and Buddhist philosophy. The finite proves insufficient unto itself, and such insufficiency cannot be overcome through relation with another finite, but only by virtue of the vertical emergence of the absolute foundation. However, the latter does not enter into relation with the founded, as it unilaterally conditions them, such that the unconditioned and absolute condition cannot be determined nor, consequently, reduced to a sum of determinates, i.e., to a “totality.”