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West Meets East

Meditating with Descartes

Karen Parham asks how close Western philosophy gets to Buddhism.

Why did René Descartes (1596-1650) name his famous treatise Meditations on First Philosophy? Broadly speaking, ‘to meditate’ means ‘to think deeply about something’ (OED). Although Descartes probably meant the word in this general sense, I would like to look at whether his method, and Western philosophy in general, has some correlation with meditation in the Eastern sense of the word. To do this I will consider the meditation techniques of Zen and of traditional Theravada Buddhism.

Peace of Mind

First let us consider whether Western philosophy aims for peace of mind.

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