In contrast to Materialism, Dualism
states that over and beyond the physical reality there is a psychic or
spiritual reality, and that our beings are not limited to the body alone.
There are a number of different forms of dualism; for example
Most religions and some philosophies interpret the human entity as
a duality of material physical body and immaterial consciousness or soul
or spirit. Paranormal and mystical phenomena are thus valid and pertain
to the world of the Spirit, while science describes the material world.
Mind-Body (Body-Mind) Dualism assumes the existence of two distinct
principles of being in the universe: spirit and matter, or soul and body.
This was the basic understanding behind the teachings of Plato, according
to which the physical world of sense phenomena is but a poor reflection
or image of the true spiritual world; sense things being mere shadows of
the eternal spiritual things or "Ideas". The goal of the philosopher
was thus the elevation of consciousness, and the contemplation of these
pure spiritual forms. Hence philosophy in its origin was a much more
mystical or spiritual thing than it is today
Dualism in the current philosophical understanding of the term originates
from one man, the seventeenth century French philosopher Rene Descartes.
It was Descartes who gave the world that much quoted utterance "I think,
therefore I am". He was also the one who popularised the idea of
reality as a dichotomy of matter (extended or spatial substance) and spirit
(thinking substance, including God). This form of mind-body dualism
became known as "Cartesian Dualism", after the Latin pronunciation of Descartes
DESCARTES AND THE LEGACY OF MIND/BODY DUALISM
- a skeptical overview - from the Skeptics Dictionary
The German philosopher Immaneul Kant came to the conclusion (contra
Plato) that we can never really know the thing-in-itself (c.f. Hard Sceptism),
which he called the Noumenon. All we can known is our consciousness
or experience of this noumenon, the phenomenon. This idea was taken
up more recently by C. G. Jung
(Depth Psychology), who said that we cannot know anything, whether subjective
or objective, beyond our own psyche or consciousness. An alternative
position, that of Phenomenology (e.g. the German Husserl) denied the existence
of noumena and simply concentrated on the phenomena.
Just as Materialism is usually associated with Atheism, so Dualism is associated
with Theism (or more specifically Monotheism).
Theism, from the Greek theos, "God", is the belief that there is a higher
personal power, God or whoever, who is running things. This may be
thought of in a naive way as a vague "higher power"; in a dogmatic religious
way as the Deity of one's particular religion or sect; or in a mysti-cal
way as the all-embracing Godhead, conceived of as a personal entity.
Existence therefore has a purpose beyond the merely mun-dane, and the fate
of the individual and the universe does not have to be a meaningless existence
ending in a total extinction
Among non-philosophically-minded people, Dualism is the natural alternative
to Materialism, and Theism (belief in a God) is to Atheism (denial of the
existence of a God). Either you are a sceptic, and say there is no
such thing as God, the Soul, ex-istence after physical death, etc, but
only the ceaseless trans-formation of matter and energy; or you are a religious
or spiritual believer, and feel that "there is more to reality than what
we can see and touch", that there is a God or "higher power" who created
the world, that consciousness is independent of the physical body, and
so on. The Theistic position however represents the Divine Reality
(or "God") as a kind of "person", who is separate from, and the creator
of, the rest of existence, including oneself. So it is very dualistic.
I can never become God; I can never transcend my own finitude
The enthusiastic Theist, therefore, holds to a sort of natural-supernatural
dualism, whereby the supernatural reality or God acts in the world through
prophets, miracles, answering prayers, etc. So there is a kind of
"breakthrough" of the Supernatural into the Natural:
REALITY: G O D
NATURAL | |
REALITY: _| |_
Miracles; Prayers answered; Prophets; etc
World of Physical Matter and Energy
Of course, the whole idea of a "breakthrough" is itself tied up with
the Western dualistic and materialistic perspective, according to which
nature and the physical world has become dehumanised, like a vast machine,
so that anything out of the ordinary - anything, in other words, which
is obviously non-"mechanical" - is automatically considered a "miracle";
a "breakthrough" from a higher spiritual reality.
Moral or "Metaphysical" Dualism suggests an irreducable polarity
in the universe between two cosmic metaphysical principles: Light and Darkness,
or Good and Evil. This is the position of certain old Middle Eastern
and Persian religions - e.g. Zoroastrianism, the Dead Sea Scrolls, some
forms of Gnosticicism, and Manichaeism.
Elements have been incorportaed into current religions like Christianity,
especially evangelical or fundamentalist Christianity, which are obsessed
with the existence of Satan in the world (drugs, "witchcraft", rock music,
etc) and choosing Jesus (the principle of Light) as one's savior to counter
him. In any case, Moral or "Metaphysical" Dualism pretty much overlaps
with both Religious Dualism and with Dramaturgy.
Shortcomings of Dualism
Although Dualism is an improvement over gross Materialism,
it still constitutes an extremely naive and simplistic explanation of things,
for it reduces all the manifold aspects and dimensions of consciousness
to only two principles, spirit and matter. Moreover, there is the
dangerous tendency to believe in an external totalitarian Deity, as in
the case of the fundamentalist religionists who believe in God (or God
and the Devil), the world, the soul, and nothing else. And many of
those even deny that the soul can exist apart from the body; hence there
dependence on the myth of bodily resurrection; a truely materialistic scenario
if ever there was one!).
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page uploaded 27 May 1998; last modified 24 August, 2004, by WF.