Ron, Horse, Kevin, Craig, et al -- A variety of opinions have been offered on this topic, and while everyone seems to agree that dualism must be reduced to a monism, there is little if any agreement as to what a dualism is.
For example, Ron said: > Dualism, from my point of view, is any formal system > of thought or behavior that approaches reality as if it > were divided into parts. Subject/object metaphysics is > clearly dualistic. Science and mathematics as well as > religious and political institutions are dualistic. He also thanked me for something I never said: > [I]f a person approaches reality as if it were of separate parts > or finite (thank you Ham for making this distinction) then they > are behaving dualistically. Horse said: > Intellectual patterns of value are Dualistic > The Metaphysics of Quality is Dualistic Kevin said: > [T]here's reality (one part) and > there's the system that points to reality (second part). Ian said: > Lila is the whole, ZMM is the part which contains the whole. Let me say first that dualism always denotes two (as in "dual"). Philosophical dualism is the theory that reality consists of two irreducible elements or modes. It does NOT mean "divided into parts", "finite", "patterned", or two types of institutions, such as science/math, religious/political, or reality and an ontology "that points to it". (And Ian, a part cannot contain the whole.) Although the word first appeared in 1700 to denote the religious dualism of good and evil, and more recently by Leibniz to distinguish the actual from possible worlds, its philosophical use has followed the platonic tradition of "mind and matter", culminating in the Cartesian theory of "thought and substance" -- basically the S/O duality. Obviously any two things, processes or events can be paired and considered a duality. But there is no duality in the experienced world as sharply defined as subject and object. This is the dualism of most concern to philosophers. I've tried to emphasize the significance of this fundamental dualism by defining it as "Being-Aware", stressing the fact that it is really a "dichotomy" because the contingencies are mutually exclusive, contradictory, and yet co-dependent. The reaction from this group is that I'm plugging "egotism", resurrecting Descartes' Cogito, failing to grasp the Quality concept, and even leaning towards Quantum probability. Actually, all I'm in effect saying is, "Look fella's...Existence isn't being that has thoughts; it's knowing that there's being." If you can discern the difference, you might just begin to comprehend existence as the experience of a subject rather than the evolution of an object. That's the Essence of Essentialism. Is it the Quality of the MoQ?? Cheers, Ham moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
