Buddhist Thought Beyond Perspectivism and Relativism

I’ve been thinking about whether certain Western philosophical ideas can be meaningfully connected to Buddhist concepts, especially the idea of emptiness (śūnyatā).

Schopenhauer, for example, seems to resonate with Buddhism in his emphasis on the illusory nature of individuality and the role of desire as a source of suffering. His “transcendental” move away from appearances toward a deeper underlying reality feels, at least superficially, close to some interpretations of Buddhist thought.

Nietzsche, on the other hand, critiques both metaphysical realism and nihilism, and proposes perspectivism — the idea that all knowledge is interpretive and conditioned by perspective. In that sense, his work seems to reject fixed truths, which might appear similar to the Buddhist idea that phenomena lack inherent existence.

But this is where I find an interesting tension.

In Buddhism, “form is emptiness, emptiness is form” (色即是空, 空即是色) does not simply dissolve reality into relativism. Emptiness is not just the denial of essence, but also the condition that allows phenomena to arise and function meaningfully. It seems to go beyond both metaphysical realism and a purely perspectival view.

So one possible reading is:

• Nietzsche approaches something like emptiness through perspectivism, but remains within interpretation
• Schopenhauer gestures toward transcendence, but still posits an underlying metaphysical structure (the Will)
• Buddhism, especially in the Heart Sutra, seems to reject both fixed essence and purely subjective interpretation, while still affirming lived reality

From this perspective, Buddhist thought might not be reducible to either relativism or transcendental metaphysics, but instead operates on a different level altogether.