Pleistocene Park is a large-scale science experiment in Arctic Siberia in the form of a future-oriented rewilding project with the goal of mitigating climate change. The park’s creators hypothesize that introducing large herbivores into the area will slow the thawing of permafrost. Using the approach of multispecies ethnography in attending to the nonhuman agencies at work in the project, I argue that the park differs from other rewilding projects, which are usually ecocentric, in emerging as a survivalist project with a (...) distinct anthropocentric bent. Even so, the park’s survivalist goal for humans coexists with ontologies based on collaboration and mutual aid between humans and nonhumans and between organic and inorganic matter, with extensive agency assigned to nonhuman others. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork within the frame of the park’s various genealogies, I trace the project’s underlying assumptions in equal measure to the history of Russian science and to the park’s lead scientists’ experience of sociopolitical rupture following the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a case study, Pleistocene Park is especially suited to exploring issues of time and temporality, apocalypticism and redemption, and extinction and eternity, in addition to particular visions of the natural and the human. (shrink)

This book explores a variety of conceptual and methodological questions about cancer and cancer research: Is cancer one disease, or many? If many, how many exactly? How is cancer classified? What does it mean, exactly, to say that cancer is “genetic,” or “familial”? What exactly are the causes of cancer, and how do scientists come to know about them? When do we have good reason to believe that this or that is a risk factor for cancer? How is cancer a (...) product or byproduct of multilevel evolution? Is cancer research unified? What sort of models, or theories, govern cancer research? This book takes a close look at these philosophical questions, by examining work in disciplines as diverse as cell and molecular biology, epidemiology, clinical medicine, and evolutionary biology. (shrink)

This collection presents the English-language reader for the first time with essays that are representative of Bernstein's much-neglected revisionist period, 1901-1921. Bernstein himself suggested that this later work included significant new elements, indicating further progress in his liberal-socialist theory. Bernstein's later work acquires additional significance in light of the events of 1989, which have discredited not only Marxism-Leninism, but revolutionary Marxist theory in general, thus making the reevaluation of Bernstein's revisionism a worthwhile experience.

By bringing Hannah Arendt’s politics into dialogue with Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics, this book develops an approach to the political that is relational, inclusive, and empowering.

Basil Bernstein rarely had a good press in the forty-odd years in which he presented his developing theories to the public. Early admiration for his sociolinguistic 'discoveries' - of codes which regulate, at a deep-structural level, family beliefs and behaviours and relationships, as well as surface utterances - turned quite quickly into a suspicion that his description of social class difference amounted to a declaration of working class deficit. Although Bernstein's writings, particularly in the 1990s, became opaque to (...) the point of seeming to be purposefully obscurantist, they have always been enlivened by clear, pithy and punchy statements which left no room for ambiguity about the case he was making. The struggle to achieve an education system which would offer genuinely equal opportunities to children from all class and cultural backgrounds continued to underpin the writing and teaching of his later years. (shrink)

Richard J. Bernstein is Vera List Professor of Philosophy at the New School for Social Research. The Essays: Philosophy, History, and Critique.

"A fascinating and timely treatment of the objectivism versus relativism debates occurring in philosophy of science, literary theory, the social sciences, ...

There are several different ways in which chance affects evolutionary change. That all of these processes are called “random genetic drift” is in part a due to common elements across these different processes, but is also a product of historical borrowing of models and language across different levels of organization in the biological hierarchy. A history of the concept of drift will reveal the variety of contexts in which drift has played an explanatory role in biology, and will shed light (...) on some of the philosophical controversy surrounding whether drift is a cause of evolutionary change. (shrink)

The modern synthesis in evolutionary biology is taken to be that period in which a consensus developed among biologists about the major causes of evolution, a consensus that informed research in evolutionary biology for at least a half century. As such, it is a particularly fruitful period to consider when reflecting on the meaning and role of chance in evolutionary explanation. Biologists of this period make reference to “chance” and loose cognates of “chance,” such as: “random,” “contingent,” “accidental,” “haphazard,” or (...) “stochastic.” Of course, what an author might mean by “chance” in any specific context varies. -/- In the following, we first offer a historiographical note on the synthesis. Second, we introduce five ways in which synthesis authors spoke about chance. We do not take these to be an exhaustive taxonomy of all possible ways in which chance meaningfully figures in explanations in evolutionary biology. These are simply five common uses of the term by biologists at this period. They will serve to organize our summary of the collected references to chance and the analysis and discussion of the following questions: • What did synthesis authors understand by chance? • How did these authors see chance operating in evolution? • Did their appeals to chance increase or decrease over time during the synthesis? That is, was there a “hardening” of the synthesis, as Gould claimed (1983)? (shrink)

Fisher’s ‘fundamental theorem of natural selection’ is notoriously abstract, and, no less notoriously, many take it to be false. In this paper, I explicate the theorem, examine the role that it played in Fisher’s general project for biology, and analyze why it was so very fundamental for Fisher. I defend Ewens (1989) and Lessard (1997) in the view that the theorem is in fact a true theorem if, as Fisher claimed, ‘the terms employed’ are ‘used strictly as defined’ (1930, p. (...) 38). Finally, I explain the role that projects such as Fisher’s play in the progress of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

This paper develops and articulates a metaphysics of intersectionality, the idea that multiple axes of social oppression cross-cut each other. Though intersectionality is often described through metaphor, theories of intersectionality can be formulated using the tools of contemporary analytic metaphysics. A central tenet of intersectionality theory, that intersectional identities are inseparable, can be framed in terms of explanatory unity. Further, intersectionality is best understood as metaphysical and explanatory priority of the intersectional category over its constituents, akin to metaphysical priority of (...) the whole over its parts. (shrink)

This book draws on Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology, psychology, neuroscience and Buddhist philosophy to explicate Merleau-Ponty’s unwritten ethics. Daly contends that though Merleau-Ponty never developed an ethics per se, there is significant textual evidence that clearly indicates he had the intention to do so. This book highlights the explicit references to ethics that he offers and proposes that these, allied to his ontological commitments, provide the basis for the development of an ethics. In this work Daly shows how Merleau-Ponty’s relational ontology, in (...) which the interdependence of self, other and world is affirmed, offers an entirely new approach to ethics. In contrast to the ‘top-down’ ethics of norms, obligations and prescriptions, Daly maintains that Merleau-Ponty’s ethics is a ‘bottom-up’ ethics which depends on direct insight into our own intersubjective natures, the ‘I’ within the ‘we’ and the ‘we’ within the ‘I’; insight into the real nature of our relation to others and the particularities of the given situation. Merleau-Ponty and the Ethics of Intersubjectivity is an important contribution to the scholarship on the later Merleau-Ponty which will be of interest to graduate students and scholars. Daly offers informed readings of Merleau-Ponty’s texts and the overall approach is both scholarly and innovative. (shrink)

Cancer is not one, but many diseases, and each is a product of a variety of causes acting (and interacting) at distinct temporal and spatial scales, or “levels” in the biological hierarchy. In part because of this diversity of cancer types and causes, there has been a diversity of models, hypotheses, and explanations of carcinogenesis. However, there is one model of carcinogenesis that seems to have survived the diversification of cancer types: the multi-stage model of carcinogenesis. This paper examines the (...) history of the multistage theory, and uses the theory as a case study in the limits and goals of unification as a theoretical virtue, comparing and contrasting it with “integrative” research. (shrink)

In an interview with Udi Aloni in 2011, Judith Butler stated: “My politics, my life, even my feminism is about calling into question whether those ideas of femininity are necessary, and if I don’t...

This article traces the hidden race-religion constellation in Europe. The term “race-religion constellation” refers to the connection or co-constitution of the categories of race and “religion.” Specifically, the term “race-religion constellation” is used to refer to the practice of classifying people into races according to categories we now associate with the term “religion.” This calls for a consideration of European history and forms of racism in Europe, such as anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. This article aims to provide an alternative non-secularized or (...) biological account of the origins of the socially constructed category of race in Europe. The alternative story begins in the sixteenth century, when the category of “religion” as a means for classifying peoples was both constructed and politicized. In tracing this alternative story, this article seeks to outline a framework for a critical philosophy of race focused on a European religion line that intersects with Du Bois's color line. (shrink)

Categorization-based diagnosis, which endeavors to be consistent with the third-person, objective measures of science, is not always adequate with respect to problems concerning diagnostic accuracy, demarcation problems when there are comorbidities, well-documented problems of symptom amplification, and complications of stigmatization and looping effects. While psychiatric categories have proved useful and convenient for clinicians in identifying a recognizable constellation of symptoms typical for a particular disorder for the purposes of communication and eligibility for treatment regimes, the reification of these categories has (...) without doubt had negative consequences for the patient and also for the general understanding of psychiatric disorders. We argue that a complementary, integrated framework that focuses on descriptive symptom-based classifications (drawing on phenomenological interview methods and narrative) combined with a more comprehensive conception of the human subject (found in the pattern theory of self), can not only offer a solution to some of the vexed issues of psychiatric diagnosis but also support more efficacious therapeutic interventions. (shrink)

Debates concerning the character, scope, and warrant of abductive inference have been active since Peirce first proposed that there was a third form of inference, distinct from induction and deduction. Abductive reasoning has been dubbed weak, incoherent, and even nonexistent. Part, at least, of the problem of articulating a clear sense of abductive inference is due to difficulty in interpreting Peirce. Part of the fault must lie with his critics, however. While this article will argue that Peirce indeed left a (...) number of puzzles for interpreters, it will also contend that interpreters should be careful to distinguish discussion of the formal and strictly epistemic question of whether and how abduction is a sound form of inference from discussions of the practical goals of abduction, as Peirce understood them. This article will trace a history of critics and defenders of Peirce’s notion of abduction and discuss how Peirce both fueled the confusion and in fact anticipated and responded to several recurring objections. (shrink)

In 2015, Tomasetti and Vogelstein published a paper in Science containing the following provocative statement: “… only a third of the variation in cancer risk among tissues is attributable to environmental factors or inherited predispositions. The majority is due to “bad luck,” that is, random mutations arising during DNA replication in normal, noncancerous stem cells.” The paper—and perhaps especially this rather coy reference to “bad luck”—became a flash point for a series of letters and reviews, followed by replies and yet (...) further counterpoints. In this paper, I critically assess Tomasetti and Vogelstein's argument, discuss the meaning of “luck” (or, better: “chance”) in the context of the debate, and use this case study to address larger questions about methodological criteria for causal explanations of population level patterns in biomedicine. (shrink)

Merleau-Ponty's reversibility thesis argues that self, other and world are inherently relational, interdependent at the level of ontology. What is at stake in the reversibility thesis is whether it overcomes skeptical objections in both assuring real communication and avoiding solipsism in assuring real difference; the Other must be a genuine, irreducible Other. It is objected that across the domains of reversibility, symmetry and reciprocity are not guaranteed. I argue that this is a non-problem; rather the potentialities for asymmetry and non (...) reciprocity in fact guarantee the irreducibility of the Other; reversibility needs to be appreciated as dialectical or aesthetic, not as a literal or ‘mechanistic’ reversal. A further criticism targets the viability of ontology itself, whether alterity is ever compatible with ontology. This paper considers these objections from two of Merleau-Ponty's contemporaries—Claude Lefort and Emmanuel Levinas. Levinas developed a philosophy which while intersecting with Merleau-Ponty's at important junctures, nonetheless arrived at an entirely different destination. I argue alongside Martin Dillon against the objections of Lefort, and alongside Dan Zahavi against the objections of Levinas. Both of these interpreters, I propose remain faithful to the core directions and spirit of Merleau-Ponty's endeavours without becoming diverted by the less significant inconsistencies. (shrink)

Free will, if such there be, involves free choosing: the ability to mentally choose an outcome, where the outcome is 'free' in being, in some substantive sense, up to the agent of the choice. As such, it is clear that the questions of how to understand free will and mental causation are connected, for events of seemingly free choosing are mental events that appear to be efficacious vis-a-vis other mental events as well as physical events. Nonetheless, the free will and (...) mental causation debates have proceeded largely independently of each other. Here we aim to make progress in determining how the free will and mental causation debates bear on one another. We first argue that the problems of free will and of mental causation can be seen as special cases of a more general problem, concerning whether and how mental events of a given type may be efficacious, qua the types of event they are---qualitative, intentional, freely deliberative---given their apparent causal irrelevancy for effects of the type in question; here we generalize what Horgan 1989 identifies as "the problem of mental quausation" (S1). We then build on this result to identify fruitful parallels between hard determinism and eliminative physicalism (S2) and soft determinism and non-reductive physicalism (S3). (shrink)

There have been two different schools of thought on the evolution of dominance. On the one hand, followers of Wright [Wright S. 1929. Am. Nat. 63: 274–279, Evolution: Selected Papers by Sewall Wright, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; 1934. Am. Nat. 68: 25–53, Evolution: Selected Papers by Sewall Wright, University of Chicago Press, Chicago; Haldane J.B.S. 1930. Am. Nat. 64: 87–90; 1939. J. Genet. 37: 365–374; Kacser H. and Burns J.A. 1981. Genetics 97: 639–666] have defended the view that dominance (...) is a product of non-linearities in gene expression. On the other hand, followers of Fisher [Fisher R.A. 1928a. Am. Nat. 62: 15–126; 1928b. Am. Nat. 62: 571–574; Bürger R. 1983a. Math. Biosci. 67: 125–143; 1983b. J. Math. Biol. 16: 269–280; Wagner G. and Burger R. 1985. J. Theor. Biol. 113: 475–500; Mayo O. and Reinhard B. 1997. Biol. Rev. 72: 97–110] have argued that dominance evolved via selection on modifier genes. Some have called these “physiological” versus “selectionist,” or more recently [Falk R. 2001. Biol. Philos. 16: 285–323], “functional,” versus “structural” explanations of dominance. This paper argues, however, that one need not treat these explanations as exclusive. While one can disagree about the most likely evolutionary explanation of dominance, as Wright and Fisher did, offering a “physiological” or developmental explanation of dominance does not render dominance “epiphenomenal,” nor show that evolutionary considerations are irrelevant to the maintenance of dominance, as some [Kacser H. and Burns J.A. 1981. Genetics 97: 639–666] have argued. Recent work [Gilchrist M.A. and Nijhout H.F. 2001. Genetics 159: 423–432] illustrates how biological explanation is a multi-level task, requiring both a “top-down” approach to understanding how a pattern of inheritance or trait might be maintained in populations, as well as “bottom-up” modeling of the dynamics of gene expression. (shrink)

Richard J. Bernstein argues that many of the important themes in philosophy during the past 150 years are variations and developments of ideas that were prominent in the classical American pragmatists: Charles S. Peirce, William James, John Dewey, and George H. Mead. The pragmatic thinkers reject a sharp dichotomy between subject and object, mind-body dualism, the quest for certainty, and the spectator theory of knowledge. They seek to bring about a sea change in philosophy that highlights the social character (...) of human experience and normative social practices, the self-correcting nature of all inquiry, and the continuity of theory and practice. And they - especially James, Dewey, and Mead - emphasize the democratic ethical-political consequences of a pragmatic orientation. Many of the themes developed by the pragmatic thinkers were central to the work of major twentieth-century philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Heidegger, but the so-called analytic/Continental split obscures this underlying continuity. Bernstein develops an alternative reading of contemporary philosophy that brings out the persistence and continuity of pragmatic themes. He explains why the discussion of pragmatism is alive, varied, and widespread"--Jacket. (shrink)

The recent literature in philosophy of biology has drawn attention to the different sorts of explanations proffered in the biological sciences—we have molecular, biomedical, and evolutionary explanations. Do these explanations all have a common structure or relation that they seek to capture? This paper will answer in the negative. I defend a pluralistic and pragmatic approach to explanation. Using examples from classical population genetics, I argue that formal demonstrations, and even strictly “mathematical truths,” may serve as explanatory in different historical (...) contexts. (shrink)

Fisher’s ‘fundamental theorem of natural selection’ is notoriously abstract, and, no less notoriously, many take it to be false. In this paper, I explicate the theorem, examine the role that it played in Fisher’s general project for biology, and analyze why it was so very fundamental for Fisher. I defend Ewens and Lessard in the view that the theorem is in fact a true theorem if, as Fisher claimed, ‘the terms employed’ are ‘used strictly as defined’. Finally, I explain the (...) role that projects such as Fisher’s play in the progress of scientific inquiry. (shrink)

In this article, we argue, first, that there are very different research projects that fall under the heading of “systems biology of cancer.” While they share some general features, they differ in their aims and theoretical commitments. Second, we argue that some explanations in systems biology of cancer are concerned with properties of signaling networks and how they may play an important causal role in patterns of vulnerability to cancer. Further, some systems biological explanations are compelling illustrations of how “top-down” (...) and “bottom-up” approaches to the same phenomena may be integrated. (shrink)

The world is “already there” before reflection begins and this is the launching place of philosophy; philosophers are driven to understand the hidden structures of experience and the world. This is no mere common curiosity; there is a voracity about this philosophical curiosity. Unlike scientists who also seek to understand hidden structures, such as the biologist with regard to the biosphere, the philosopher aims to explore even below those levels; not just to find causal and mechanistic explanations, but to interrogate (...) ontologies, reasons, meaning, purpose and value underlying and supporting the structures. Importantly, for phenomenologists, there is no pretence that any absolute or objective stance is possible. The “objectivism” of phenomenologists is more one of consensus; that you will see or understand what I see or understand if you are situated where I am. And at the same time the world that is interrogated is not a fixed, closed system – it is dynamic and emergent. Thus, it is an objectivism that is progressive and always up for negotiation. The claim of some philosophers and scientists that they can assure an absolute objectivity is rejected by phenomenologists because it is impossible to eliminate the subject, and all events (including scientific experiments) carry a date and location. There are no disembodied a-cosmic subjects; subjects are always situated temporally, physically and culturally. (shrink)

In the past five years, there have been a series of papers in the journal Evolution debating the relative significance of two theories of evolution, a neo-Fisherian and a neo-Wrightian theory, where the neo-Fisherians make explicit appeal to parsimony. My aim in this paper is to determine how we can make sense of such an appeal. One interpretation of parsimony takes it that a theory that contains fewer entities or processes, (however we demarcate these) is more parsimonious. On the account (...) that I defend here, parsimony is a ‘local’ virtue. Scientists’ appeals to parsimony are not necessarily an appeal to a theory’s simplicity in the sense of it’s positing fewer mechanisms. Rather, parsimony may be proxy for greater probability or likelihood. I argue that the neo-Fisherians appeal is best understood on this interpretation. And indeed, if we interpret parsimony as either prior probability or likelihood, then we can make better sense of Coyne et al. argument that Wright’s three phase process operates relatively infrequently. (shrink)

This book provides a rigorously researched, critically comparative introduction to yoga. Is this Yoga: Concepts, Histories, and the Complexities of Contemporary Practice recognizes the importance of contemporary understandings of yoga and, at the same time, provides historical context and complexity to modern and pre-modern definitions of yogic ideas and practices. Approaching yoga as a vast web of concepts, traditions, social interests, and embodied practices, it raises questions of knowledge, identity, and power across time and space, including the dynamics of "East" (...) and "West." The text is divided into three main sections: thematic concepts; histories; and topics in modern practice. This accessible guide is essential reading for undergraduate students approaching the topic for the first time as well as yoga teachers, teacher training programs, casual and devoted practitioners, and interested non-practitioners. (shrink)

The surviving portion of the tenth-century Egyptian Muḥammad b. Aḥmad al-Tamīmī’s recently edited Ṭīb al-ʿarūs has several formulas relating to the dying and perfuming of textiles. Some refer to the use of carved molds to impress designs upon textiles. Tamīmī’s formulas treat in particular the application of gold leaf and perfumed dye pastes with blocks, but presuppose the technology of using blocks to apply designs to textiles and include a vocabulary of technical terms for the process. This textual evidence provides (...) additional context for surviving early medieval Islamic block-printed gilded textiles. The attestation of the use of blocks to decorate textiles is contemporary with the use of blocks to print Arabic amulet texts, known by the tenth century from extant specimens and some literary evidence. (shrink)

Islamic pharmacology included numerous plant-derived substances, especially from South and Southeast Asia, that were unfamiliar in ancient Greek and Roman times. The arrival of these new materia medica is commonly accepted to be a consequence of the expanding horizons of trade in the Islamic period. Closer examination, however, reveals that many of these substances are in fact attested in pre-Islamic times. In addition, the philological evidence of the names of these materia medica in Arabic frequently shows that their path into (...) the Near East occurred through Persian culture. These factors suggest that we must look to the pre-Islamic Sasanian period for the context of the arrival of many of the new so-called Islamic drugs. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to reply to Morrison's ([2000]) claim that while ‘structural unity’ was achieved at the level of the mathematical models of population genetics in the early synthesis, there was explanatory disunity. I argue to the contrary, that the early synthesis effected by the founders of theoretical population genetics was unifying and explanatory both. Defending this requires a reconsideration of Morrison's notion of explanation. In Morrison's view, all and only answers to ‘why’ questions which include the (...) ‘cause or mechanism’ for some phenomenon count as explanatory. In my view, mathematical demonstrations that answer ‘how possibly’ and ‘why necessarily’ questions may also count as explanatory. The authors of the synthesis explained how evolution was possible on a Mendelian system of inheritance, answered skepticism about the sufficiency of selection, and thus explained why and how a Darwinian research program was warranted. While today we take many of these claims as obvious, they required argument, and part of the explanatory work of the formal sciences is providing such arguments. Surely, Fisher and Wright had competing views as to the optimal means of generating adaptation. Nevertheless, they had common opponents and a common unifying and explanatory goal that their mathematical demonstrations served. Introduction: Morrison's challenge Fisher v. Wright revisited The early synthesis Conclusion: unification and explanation reconciled. (shrink)

Cancer is not one, but many diseases, and each is a product of a variety of causes acting at distinct temporal and spatial scales, or ‘‘levels’’ in the biological hierarchy. In part because of this diversity of cancer types and causes, there has been a diversity of models, hypotheses, and explanations of carcinogenesis. However, there is one model of carcinogenesis that seems to have survived the diversification of cancer types: the multi-stage model of carcinogenesis. This paper examines the history of (...) the multistage theory, and uses the theory as a case study in the limits and goals of unification as a theoretical virtue, comparing and contrasting it with ‘‘integrative’’ research. (shrink)

This paper uses a number of examples of diverse types and functions of models in evolutionary biology to argue that the demarcation between theory and practice, or "theory model" and "data model," is often difficult to make. It is shown how both mathematical and laboratory models function as plausibility arguments, existence proofs, and refutations in the investigation of questions about the pattern and process of evolutionary history. I consider the consequences of this for the semantic approach to theories and theory (...) confirmation. The paper attempts to reconcile the insights of both critics and advocates of the semantic approach to theories. (shrink)

Roberto Frega & Giovanni Maddelena – Can you recollect what the situation was concerning the study of pragmatism when you were in college? Richard J. Bernstein – I was an undergraduate at the University of Chicago from 1949 to 1951. At the time the “Hutchins College” was an unusual institution. The entire curriculum was fixed and it was organized around reading many of the great books of the Western tradition. From the time I arrived, I was reading Plato, Aristotle, (...) Galileo, Darwin, Herodotus... (shrink)

Cancer is typically spoken of as a “complex” disease. But, in what sense are cancers “complex”? Is there one sense, or several? What implications does this complexity have – both for how we study, and how we intervene upon cancers? The aim of this paper is first, to clarify the variety of senses in which cancer is spoken of as "complex" in the scientific literature, and second, to discover what explanatory and predictive roles such features play.

The focus of this chapter will be on the epistemic and normative questions at issue in debates about cancer screening, with a special focus on mammography as a case study. Such questions include: How do we know who needs to be screened? What are the benefits and harms of cancer screening, and what is the quality of evidence for each? How ought we to measure and compare these benefits and harms? What are the sources of uncertainty about our estimates of (...) benefit and harm? Why are such issues so contested? What are the major drivers of dissent and consensus on the data and their interpretation? How, if at all, do values play a role in debates surrounding mammography screening? In sum: In what ways does inductive risk, broadly conceived, 1 come into play in the science behind cancer screening, and mammography screening in particular? (shrink)

The overall aim of this paper is to defend the value of the arts as uniquely instructive regarding philosophical questions. Specifically, I aim to achieve two things: firstly, to show that through the phenomenological challenge to dualist and monist ontologies the key debate in aesthetics regarding subjective response and objective judgment is reconfigured and resolved. I argue that Merleau-Ponty’s analyses complement and complete Kant’s project. Secondly, I propose that through Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological interrogations of the creative process the broader issue of (...) the viability of his relational nondualist ontology is defended against accusations that it has not gone beyond dualism or that it has collapsed into a monism. (shrink)