Buddhism & science

"Buddhism & science" by Paul Dahlke is a philosophical treatise written in the early 20th century. It argues that Buddhism provides a rigorous world-theory that surpasses both faith-based religion and mechanistic science by grounding meaning, morality, and knowledge in direct insight into actuality. The work develops a Buddhist account of causality, consciousness, karma, and rebirth, and sets this framework against questions in physics, biology, and cosmology. The opening of the treatise declares its purpose and audience: it seeks thinking readers dissatisfied with both dogmatic belief and purely technical science, and it frames three perennial questions—What am I? How should I act? To what end am I here? It contends that morality and religion must be functions of cognition, not mere emotion, and that neither faith (which posits a transcendent “adequate cause in itself”) nor science (which restricts itself to the sensible and the mechanical) can answer these questions. The author critiques faith as contrary to sense and ultimately selfish in motivation, and portrays science as amoral, limited to re-actual (measurable) processes, and incapable of providing existential support. He then introduces the Buddha’s “teaching of actuality,” situating it historically and linguistically, and emphasizing its radical, experiential grasp of transience and suffering.

Buddhism & science, by Paul Dahlke. Republished by OpenStories from Project Gutenberg eBook #77146.