Buddhist philosophy reconceives possibility through the lens of relationality and impermanence. Central is the principle of pratītyasamutpāda (dependent origination): all phenomena arise in dependence upon multiple conditions, and nothing exists in isolation. The self, like all entities, is not a fixed substance but a nexus of interdependent processes, each moment contingent upon prior and surrounding relations.
Possibility is therefore relational and contingent. Liberation, ethical action, and the realisation of potential are inseparable from awareness of interdependence. Each choice and act is embedded in a network of relations that shape what can occur and how phenomena coalesce into experience. The temporal, processual nature of existence makes every moment a site of both constraint and emergence, where the horizon of potential is continually negotiated.
In this framework, relationality governs ontology, ethics, and epistemology simultaneously. Understanding is not the apprehension of static truths but the discernment of conditions that enable or inhibit arising. Potentiality is continuously actualised through mindful engagement with these conditions, emphasising fluidity, responsiveness, and co-constitution.
Buddhist relationality contrasts sharply with substance-based ontologies: rather than treating possibility as a property of enduring entities, it situates potential within the unfolding web of interdependencies, demonstrating how construal itself is emergent, contingent, and historically situated.
Modulatory voices: Early Buddhist sutras, the concept of pratītyasamutpāda.
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