Modern interpreters tend to approach Abhidhamma not as a simple revelation of how the universe is built, but as a highly refined, historically evolved attempt to systematize earlier Buddhist teachings. Its elaborate lists of dhammas, theories of momentariness, and intricate causal schemes are often read as scholastic constructions that seek to render the more pragmatic and sometimes fluid teachings of the early discourses logically coherent. From this angle, Abhidhamma appears as a later doctrinal development rather than a verbatim record of the Buddha’s speech, shaped in part by intra‑Buddhist debate and the need to clarify contested points.

A prominent strand of interpretation treats Abhidhamma as a kind of phenomenological or psychological map of experience rather than a literal ontology of substances. Dhammas are understood as units of experiential analysis or functional events—neither solid “things” nor metaphysical atoms, but precise ways of tracking how consciousness and its factors arise and pass. The distinction between conventional and ultimate realities is then seen less as a rigid two‑tiered metaphysics and more as a heuristic device, a way of speaking that supports insight into impermanence and non‑self. On this reading, the system’s value lies in its capacity to clarify experience for contemplative practice.

Scholars also examine Abhidhamma’s claims philosophically, weighing its accounts of momentariness, causality, and no‑self alongside other metaphysical traditions. The strict momentariness of mental and physical events and the complex causal relations are frequently treated as idealized models that explain continuity and karma without positing a permanent self, rather than as descriptions of the fabric of time and nature. Some see here an early form of process philosophy or event‑ontology, while others regard these structures as conceptual tools whose primary function is soteriological rather than speculative.

There is, however, no single scholarly consensus. Traditional Theravāda interpreters are more inclined to accept Abhidhamma’s metaphysical framework, even while emphasizing its pragmatic role in supporting insight meditation. Secular and critical scholars, by contrast, tend to bracket or downplay stronger metaphysical and cosmological claims, retaining what can be harmonized with careful psychological observation and contemplative phenomenology. Across these perspectives runs a shared recognition that Abhidhamma is a sophisticated, historically situated philosophy of mind and experience, whose metaphysical language can be read either as literal description or as a skillful means oriented toward liberation.