Definition of Dependent Co-Arising (Pratītyasamutpāda)

What is Dependent Co-Arising (Pratītyasamutpāda)?

Central Buddhist philosophical concept for how all things come into being relationally. Nothing has an independent existence, an independent essence, or radical autonomy. Everything that exists exists in, of, and as an intra-dependence of conditions and conditioning – in short, it is relationally constituted.  And conditions/conditioning in turn depend on other conditions that dynamically loop back into the web of intra-dependent dynamic relations. There is no final or original condition or cause – it is a web of co-constituting, co-transforming relations. 

Buddhist philosophy is soteriological – it is interested in identifying suffering and bringing it to an end. The cause of suffering is the act of holding onto (grasping) an ontology of independent essences. The self, like all conditioned things, does not have an independent core that then forms relations; it arises from and continues through relations. 

Where relational theories (networks, assemblages, emergence, etc.) are recent developments in Western philosophy (West Asian) – they are a key aspect of a far longer and richer tradition(s) in South Asian and East Asian philosophical traditions. 

See also: Assemblage, Apparatus/Dispositif, Emergence