A shorter and less technical treatment of its subject than the author’s acclaimed Buddhism As Philosophy (second edition, Hackett, 2021), Mark Siderits's The Buddha’s Teachings As Philosophy explores three different systems of thought that arose from core claims of the Buddha. By detailing and critically examining key arguments made by the Buddha and developed by later Buddhist philosophers, Siderits investigates the Buddha's teachings as a set of claims—in this case, claims about the nature of the world and our place in it—supported by rational argumentation and, here, developed with a variety of systematic results. The Buddha’s Teachings As Philosophy will be especially useful to students of philosophy, religious studies, and comparative religion—to anyone, in fact, encountering Buddhist philosophy for the first time.
Mark Siderits Book order






- 2022
- 2022
How Things Are
- 208 pages
- 8 hours of reading
It is widely known that Buddhists deny the existence of the self. However, Buddhist philosophers defend interesting positions on a variety of other issues of fundamental ontology. In particular, they have important things to say about ontological reduction, and about the nature of the causal relation. Amidst the prolonged debate over global anti-realism, Buddhist philosophers devised an innovative approach to the radical nominalist denial of all universals and realresemblances. While some defend presentism, others propound eternalism. In How Things Are, Mark Siderits presents the arguments that Buddhist philosophers developed on these and other issues.
- 2015
Personal Identity and Buddhist Philosophy
- 248 pages
- 9 hours of reading
Fully revised and updated, and drawing on developments in the author's own thinking, Siderits's second edition explores the conversation between Buddhist and Western Philosophy showing how concepts and tools drawn from one philosophical tradition can help solve problems arising in another. Siderits discusses afresh areas involved in the philosophical investigation of persons, including recent attempts by scholars of Buddhist philosophy to defend the attribution of an emergentist account of personhood to at least some Buddhists, and whether a distinctively Buddhist antirealism can avoid problems that beset other forms of ontological anti-foundationalism.
- 2013
Nagarjuna's Middle Way
- 351 pages
- 13 hours of reading
Winner of the 2014 Khyenste Foundation Translation Prize. Nagarjuna's renowned twenty-seven-chapter Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way (Mulamadhyamakakarika) is the foundational text of the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana Buddhist philosophy. It is the definitive, touchstone presentation of the doctrine of emptiness. Professors Siderits and Katsura prepared this translation using the four surviving Indian commentaries in an attempt to reconstruct an interpretation of its enigmatic verses that adheres as closely as possible to that of its earliest proponents. Each verse is accompanied by concise, lively exposition by the authors conveying the explanations of the Indian commentators. The result is a translation that balances the demands for fidelity and accessibility.
- 2012
The book explores the potential insights that classical Indian philosophy can offer to the philosophy of language, challenging outdated stereotypes of Indian thought. Despite advancements in understanding Indian epistemology and metaphysics, the philosophy of language has yet to fully embrace these contributions. The author highlights the work of scholars who have begun to bridge this gap, particularly in areas like personal identity, suggesting that Indian Buddhist perspectives could enrich contemporary discussions. The text aims to foster a deeper engagement with these philosophical traditions.
- 2007
Shows how the Buddhist tradition deals with the same sorts of problems that get treated in Western philosophy and employs the same sorts of methods. This book investigates the Buddhist tradition by way of the characteristically philosophical concern for finding out the truth about complicated matters in metaphysics, epistemology and ethics.