[jjs]

Plato thought that true reality lay in universal abstractions called Forms, or Ideas.

The Buddhist sutras take the position that "objects of mind" are just leaky abstractions created by our limited minds, which struggle to make sense of the world. The greatest fallacy, in this view, is conflating the "objects of mind" with the real objects (+) they supposedly represent.

(+) Buddhist philosophers in India developed a concept of atomism, which leads to existential riddles like, "If I look at this pile of atoms, and see a chair, is the chair inside my mind, or outside?" (If you answer either way, you're wrong! ;)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhist_atomism

http://deoxy.org/koan/76