This paper is to spell out a version of perception dualism, whose ontological description of the mind-body relation is stronger than property dualism but weaker than substance dualism, that is, to define mental events as perceptions from an internal point of view and physical events as perceptions from an external point of view, then, the author set out to tackle some long-persisting ontological issues in philosophy of mind, such as the psycho-physical interaction, the criterion of mind, the (...) clash between free will and natural necessity, Benjamin Libet’s Experiment. It also recovers some of the observations and conclusions achieved byCartesian internalism and Leibniz’s parallelism. Since perception is the most essential feature of mind, while defining mental and physical events in terms of perception, the author also develops a philosophical theory of perception. (shrink)

My project in this paper is to provide a plausible idea of Christ’s suffering and death in terms of two theories of the human person. One is dualism. Dualism is the view that a human person is composed of two substances, that is, a soul and a body, and he (strictly speaking) is identical with the soul. On the other hand, physicalism is the view that a human person is numerically identical with his body. I will argue that (...) dualism is not successful in explaining Christ’s passion for some reasons. Rather, physicalism, as I shall argue, provides a better explanation of how Christ’s physical suffering and death are real just like everyone else’s, so it is philosophically and theologically more plausible than dualism. (shrink)

While Wittgenstein’s Tractatus keeps issues of metaphysics and ontology at arm’s length, the world it presents seems altogether monistic in character. In Wittgenstein’s account, it is a world of objects and facts, a world which lacks selves, values, cognitive relations, and God. I argue that the Tractarian world is nevertheless dualistic. I defend the view that the Tractatus points away from monism towards dualism and that Wittgenstein’s concepts of thought, sense, and understanding are an essential part of its structure. (...) The language Wittgenstein uses was necessitated by his project of giving a sharp account of the nature of description. It is thus ironic that Wittgenstein defends dualism in the Tractatus and does so in the only form in which he thought it could be defended. Along the way, I try to show that his treatment of thought, sense, and understanding is both a continuation and correction of treatments which Frege and Russell had previously given to these concepts. (shrink)

D. Davidson argues that the existence of alternative conceptual schemes presupposes the Kantian scheme-content dualism, which requires a scheme-neutral empirical content and a fixed, sharp schemecontent distinction. The dismantlement of such a Kantian scheme-content dualism, which Davidson calls “the third dogma of empiricism”, would render the notion of alternative conceptual schemes groundless. To counter Davidson’s attack on the notion of alternative conceptual schemes, I argue that alternative conceptual schemes neither entail nor presuppose the Kantian scheme-content dualism. On (...) the contrary, it is exactly the abandonment of the concept-neutral content and the denial of a fixed, absolute scheme-content distinction that turns the Kantian conceptualabsolutism upside down and thus makes alternative conceptual schemes possible. Proposing common-sense experience as the empirical content of alternative schemes, I construct and defend a non-Kantian scheme-content dualism based on a non-fixed, relative scheme-content distinction. The proposed non-Kantian scheme-content dualism is not only “innocent” enough to be immune from Davidson’s charge of the third dogma of empiricism, but also “solid” enough to be able to sustain alternative conceptual schemes. I conclude that in terms of our conceptual schemes, we are connected to the world as closely as possible; only through conceptual schemes can we be connected to the world. (shrink)

A traditional distinction is made in scholarship on Japanese Buddhism between two means for attaining enlightenment: jiriki 自力, or "self power," and tariki 他力, or "other power." Dōgen's Sōtō Zen is the paradigmatic example of a jiriki school: according to Dōgen, one attains enlightenment through strenuous zazen and rigorous ascetic practices. Shinran's Jōdo Shin Buddhism is the paradigmatic example of a tariki school: according to Shinran, human beings are incapable of self-salvation, but by chanting the nembutsu they can invoke the (...) compassionate power of Amida to save them. But the jiriki-tariki distinction is arguably a false one, with no place within Buddhism's nondualistic framework. If the basic Buddhist intuition toward nondualism is correct, then jiriki and tariki cannot be opposed at all, but must rather be two sides of the same coin. In fact, both Dōgen and Shinran are fully in agreement on abandoning the ego (ātman), and on abandoning the artificial self-other distinction that accompanies the ātman. Dōgen had deep faith in the path of the Buddhist patriarchs, and in the power of the sangha; hetaught that both were necessary means for attaining enlightenment. And Shinran firmly believed in incorporating the nembutsu in every facet of one's life, a feat for which supreme self-cultivation is required. Thus Dōgen and Shinran both preach tariki and jiriki; moreover, this is to be expected, for unless jiriki and tariki are one, their approaches to Buddhism would be dualistic. Dōgen and Shinran should be taken as model cases for understanding the unity of jiriki and tariki in all of Japanese Buddhism. (shrink)

"Textes... prononces dans le cadre d'un colloque organise conjointement par le Departement de philosophie de l'Universite de Tours et par l'Association des Amis du Musee Descartes... octobre 1989"--Avant-propos.

"At places distant from where you are, but also uncomfortably close," writes David Takacs, "a holocaust is under way. People are slashing, hacking, bulldozing, burning, poisoning, and otherwise destroying huge swaths of life on Earth at a furious pace." And a cadre of ecologists and conservation biologists has responded, vigorously promoting a new definition of nature: biodiversity --advocating it in Congress and on the Tonight Show; whispering it into the ears of foreign leaders redefining the boundaries of science and politics, (...) ethics and religion, nature and our ideas of nature. These scientists have infused the environmental movement with new focus and direction, but by engaging in such activities, they jeopardize the societal trust that allows them to be public spokespersons for nature in the first place. The Idea of Biodiversity analyzes what biodiversity represents to the biologists who operate in broader society on its behalf, drawing on in-depth interviews with the scientists most active today in the mission to preserve biodiversity, including Peter Raven, Thomas Lovejoy, Jane Lubchenco, and Paul Ehrlich. Takacs explores how and why these biologists shaped the concept of biodiversity and promoted it to society at large--examining their definitions of biodiversity their opinions about spirituality and its role in scientific work the notion of biodiversity as something of intrinsic value and their views on biophilia, E. O. Wilson's idea that humans are genetically predisposed to love nature. Takacs also looks at the work of twentieth-century forerunners of today's conservation biologists--Aldo Leopold, Charles S. Elton, Rachel Carson, David Ehrenfeld--and points out their contributions to the current debates. He takes readers to Costa Rica, where a group of scientists is using biodiversity to remake nature and society. And in an extended section, he profiles the thoughts and work of E. O. Wilson. "When I'm asked, 'should we save this species orthat species, or this place or that place?' the answer is always 'Yes!' with an exclamation point. Because it's obvious. And if you ask me to justify it, then I switch into a more cognitive consciousness and can start giving you reasons, economic reasons, aesthetic reasons. They're all dualistic, in a sense. But the feeling that underlies it is that 'yes!' And that 'yes!' comes out of the affirmation of being part of it all, being part of this whole evolutionary process. And agreeing with Arne Naess that each species, each entity, should be allowed to continue its evolution and to live out its destiny... just do its thing, as we say. Why not? And the 'why not?' is there's too many people."--Michael E. Soule, from an interview in The Idea of Biodiversity "An important contribution, a first distanced examination of a critical, modern topic by a scholarly, honest broker."--E. O. Wilson, Harvard University. (shrink)

Semiotics is the study of signs addressing their action, usage, communication and signification. Edusemiotics—educational semiotics—is a recently developed direction in educational theory that takes semiotics as its foundational philosophy and explores the philosophical specifics of semiotics in educational contexts. As a novel theoretical field of inquiry, it is complemented by research known under the banner ‘semiotics in education’, which is largely an applied enterprise. In this respect edusemiotics is a new conceptual framework for both theoretical and empirical studies. Edusemiotics has (...) also been given the status of being a new branch of theoretical semiotics and it was launched as such at the 12th World Congress of the International Association for Semiotic Studies in September 2014 at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia. The article presents ‘semiosis’ as the action of signs across culture AND nature and posits ‘learning’ in terms of developing semiotic consciousness and semiotic competence. Semiosis is a process and as such it defies the Cartesian philosophy of substance-dualism that still informs the culture of education. The paper focuses specifically on university education permeated by disciplinary boundaries and the fragmentation of knowledge grounded in objective science inherited from modernity. Where is semiotics as the science of signs in the context of academic culture? The authors conclude by affirming the transdisciplinary character of semiotics and edusemiotics and specify the distinctive focal points of transdisciplinary knowledge afforded by edusemiotics. (shrink)

Contemporary philosophy has been characterized by the presence of a schizoid dualism between the analytic tradition and the fenomenologic-hermeneutic tradition. Its historical origin can be set in the Davos Congress, which sets off the beginning of the oblivion of another program, the philosophy of symbolic forms, proposed by E. Cassirer, and which nowadays can be considered as an alternative and possible surpassing direction of the above-mentioned dualism. That is, in short, the position sustained by M. Friedman in his (...) recent monograph, written in the context of the conviction of a crisis derived from the depauperation of the traditions and from the subsequent need for a re-orientation. The text offered provides a critical comment of Friedman’s study, showing the point from which it can and must be completed and eventually corrected, and how its completion and correction are to be done.La filosofía contemporánea se hacaracterizadopor la presencia de un dualismo esquizoide entre la tradición analítica e la tradición fenomenológico hermenéutica. El origen histórico del mismo puede ser fijado en el Congreso de Davos, el cual, por otra parte, señala el comienzo del olvido de un otro programa, la filosofía de las formas simbólicas de E. Cassirer e que hoy puede ser considerado como alternativa e posible dirección de superación del dualismo mencionado. Tal es, en síntesis, la posición defendida por M. Friedman en su reciente monografía, escrita en el contexto de la convicción de una crisis derivada del agotamiento de las tradiciones y de la subsecuente necesidad de una reorientación. El texto que ofrecemos comenta críticamente el estudio de Friedman, mostrando donde y cómo él puede y debe ser completado o, eventualmente, corregido. (shrink)

One hundred years separates the birth of T. Campanella from that of G. B. Vico. This collection of essays, published in 1969 by the Archives of Philosophy, is the end result of a congress held in Rome commemorating the birth of both philosophers. Campanella and Vico are celebrated in the same volume on the assumption of ideal affinities besides the accidental circumstances of having been born a century apart. Unfortunately, only one essay is expressly devoted to the analysis of Campanella's (...) and Vico's metaphysics. While the first two papers consider Campanella's medical biography and his epistemology, the last four are dedicated solely to various aspects of Vico's thought. On Iacobelli Isoldi falls the responsibility of justifying the title of the volume. But her attempt to demonstrate a family resemblance between Vico's and Campanella's metaphysics remains farfetched. For Campanella's way of solving the theoretical problem arising from Descartes' dualism issues in inevitable skepticism. Campanella never abandoned the position that the cogito is a vehicle of certainty, but not a criterion of truth. Vico on the other hand, overcomes his initial skepticism by transforming the criterion of truth into a criterion of certainty. In the New Science he demonstrates how man can possess true knowledge of the social and historical sciences. To demonstrate that this symposium had been assembled for reasons other than physical convenience, more papers on possible relations between the Dominican friar of Cosenza and the professor of eloquence of Naples would have been a desideratum.--L. M. P. (shrink)

The key issue of traditional theories of human nature in China is De or virtue, Yu or desire and their correlation. It leads to two developing currents: one is the old tradition since Xia, Shang and Zhou, the Three Dynasties which take desire as nature, another is the new tradition later Confucius initiated which take virtue as nature. So the understanding of human nature in early China experienced a process from desire to virtue, or from the instinct of human to (...) the essence of human. Prior to Confucius, nature is desire and instinct. In that time, the theories of human nature has two themes, namely to manage nature by virtue and to explain nature by Qi. Since Lao Zi, virtue was taken as the inner essence of human. Later Confucius further to take virtue as nature directly, so completes the fundamental transformation of traditional theory of human nature. This is the source of the idea nature of reason and the origin of the theory nature is good. Zisi advocated “what Heaven has conferred is called the nature” to promote the new tradition, and named desire as “the inner”. The new excavated bamboo book Xing Zi Ming Chu not only developed the idea of “the inner” of Zisi, but also further to restore desire as nature, and constructed a unique system of outer moral apriorism for it. Shortly afterward, Mencius turns this trend and advocates none but the four beginnings is nature, desire only is impartment, therefore he develops the new tradition to extremes. Even though, before the period between Tang and Song dynasties, the mainstream of the theory of human nature in China was the oldtradition, and that the new tradition merely like a flash in the pan. In fact, the dualism of human nature in Song and Ming dynasties carried on the old tradition, and at the same time, succeeded the new tradition, and put them into a unified thought system. (shrink)

The ecofeminist critique of dualism is applied to a consideration of two alternative paths that we might take in transplantation medicine: the utilization of organs and tissues taken from nonhuman animals, and/or further development of techniques for employing human organs and tissues, including human fetal tissue. It is concluded that from an evolutionary perspective, the assumption of a vast value disparity between human and nonhuman life is untenable, and from a moral point of view the establishment of yet another (...) institution based on a dualistic opposition between human life, postulated to be of ultimate value, versus devalued, disposable "other" life is unacceptable. We are urged to forego xenotransplantation and instead take responsibility for whatever manipulations we choose, respectfully, to make with life that is already valued as "self" rather than "other.". (shrink)

Mythological art of the world population variously demonstrates the appearance and interaction of sexes. But more often it is connected with the beginning of the world from the world egg. Religions views tell about the creation of a first single man by God. The latest biological studies have not yet solved this problem,the idea of dividing vegetable and animal kingdoms being disputable enough. To outline ways of solving this problem was made possible from the dualism point of view. The (...) origins of sexes are found on the base of multicellularity, on the border of vegetable and animal kingdoms, The appearing of sexual reproduction results in a new quality and unity of opposites, preserving its further inner contradiction. The main direction of development – changeability is fixed by the male, while unchangeability is fixed by the female. The understanding both of historical direction in the development of each sexes and its inner contradiction will allow to build proper gender relations in the society. The problem of selecting strategy of gender research still remains disputable. (shrink)

Eyesight is practically a main organ of senses for man orienting in the world. But it is also a result of evolutional development of nature from 600 to 450 mln. years according to evolutional scale and still it preserves its stable contradictory inner structure. The genesis of eyesight has been reconstructed in Arthropoda type. It was made possible by using a philosophical approach, namely, by considering this process from the dualism point of view. Two Laurence's concepts were used as (...) basic interrelated categories. They are intranspecific and interspecific aggressiveness. Development of the two interrelated opposites results in the formation of a new kind – eyesight (Hegelian not Marx’s), typical for all succeeding kinds of animals. The eye has become a unity consisting of on- and off-type ganglionic cells, that percept both fixed end non-fixed objects simultaneously. The two eyes of higher animals and man allow to orient in the world, and depending on outside conditions, they can fully enough demonstrate one of the stable contradictory inner tendencies. This is just one of the directions in studying philosophy of nature. (shrink)

I argue that the temporal boundaries of certain experiences — those I call ‘simple experiential events’ — have a different character than the temporal boundaries of the events most frequently associated with experience: neural events. In particular, I argue that the temporal boundaries of SEEs are more sharply defined than those of neural events. Indeed, they are sharper than the boundaries of all physical events at levels of complexity higher than that of elementary particle physics. If correct, it follows that (...) the most common forms of identity theory-functionalism and dualism events play key roles through identification or correlation) — are mistaken. More positively, the conclusion supports recent approaches that attempt to explain conciousness by appeal to quantum physics. (shrink)

I have argued elsewhere that our conception of phenomenal consciousness commits us to simple phenomenal experiences that in some sense constitute our complex experiences. In this paper I argue that the temporal boundaries of simple phenomenal experiences cannot be conceived as fuzzy or vague, but must be conceived as instantaneous or maximally sharp. The argument is based on an account of what is involved in conceiving fuzzy temporally boundaries for events generally. If the argument is right, and our conception of (...) phenomenal consciousness is assumed to reflect the facts about consciousness, then since the temporal boundaries of neurophysiological events can be conceived as fuzzy, considerable pressure can be applied to neurophysiological identity theories, as well as to dualist accounts that posit temporal correspondence with neurophysiological events. (shrink)

Notions of fitting seem to be attractive in explaining language understanding. This paper tries to interpret "fitting" in terms of holistic (cheng, 誠) intentionality rather than the dualistic one. I propose to interpret “cheng” as a notion of integration: The cheng of an entity is the power to realize the embedded objective of it in the context where it interacts with all others; "Mind" refers to the ability of not a single kind of entity but to that of all entities (...) of complex degrees in processing informations and to any agent that integrates. I would like to discuss some cases where this notion of fitting is working. First, building of a primitive language could have been done by fittings of primitive expressions which came out of people's basic needs and desires, their forms of life. Second, we do not identify an object on the basis of a criterion of similarity, but by asking questions like whether it would be more fitting to identify two objects in the present context than not to.Third, what is involved in our recognition of a fact is a context. A context does not dictate one single description but does allow any number of descriptions, some of which are more or less fitting and others of which are more or less unfitting. It may take time for the community of language involved to come to a more fitting description. For the sake of convenience, this description may come to have a grammar for the community where it can be classified as true and others as false. (shrink)

Sartre rationalizes sexuality much like Plato. Rationalization here refers to the way Sartre tries to facilitate explanation by changing the terms of the discussion from sexual to nonsexual concepts. As a philosophy which, above all, highlights those features of human existence which seem most resistant to explanation, one would expect existentialism to highlight sexuality as a category that is crucial for considering human existence. Descartes comes immediately to mind when one focuses on Sartre's major categories. In Sartre's case however, it (...) is not mind and matter but consciousness and its opposite: "nothingness" and "being." This irreducible dualism is the key to the trouble human beings have with existence. Humans try to deal with the tensions implied by this dualism by trying to pretend people are not subjects but objects. Sartre calls this "bad faith." He begins by attempting to take human sexuality seriously as a fundamental category, but ends by abandoning the effort in favor of other substitutes. (shrink)

Problem of truth and reality is age old in the field of philosophy as well as in the field of science. People very often confuse between ‘Truth’ and ‘Reality’ Most people think them to be one and the same, but there are differences. Whatever exist is real, reality and existence are interchangeable words. We can say truth, which is unchangeable and reality, which exist but change. False, which is not exist at all. People have suggested various taste to decide the (...) truth falsity of our description of reality. Some suggested Pragmatic theory and some other have suggested Coherence as a test of truth. Realism is also an ontological theory and has been probably the most ancient one. According to ancient man, real is that which perceived. Latter on, due to religious impact the knower became more important then the knowing object. Barkeley developed an extreme position that the objective material world does not exist at all. Dewey has developed the position called Instrumentalism. Halt, Perry, Marvin, Pitkin are the chief advocates of this position. Philosophers such as Darke, Lovejoy, Cellars, and Santayana held a position of Critical Realism. These people hold that mind does not see the object directly as they are but only through their representatives, as regards the object of knowledge is concerned, the Neo Realist are monist while Critical Realist are dualist. Indian rationalist philosopher Dr. D.D. Bandiste introduces a new concept of reality Radical Realism. He proved that knowledge change the knower not the object. to him every new knowledge make some change or other inthe knowing person. Epistemological position of john Dewey called instrumentalism. According to him knowledge is an instrument of action and a meaningful action is always of a problem-solving type. Every knowledge is an instrument to serve some need or other, neither is any knowledge final, nor is any truth final. Not only everything in the world is changing, their mutual relations also change. Knowledge is not a goal, but only a instrument to achieve this or that goal. In my paper I haves discussed various theories regarding whether knowledge change the object known. In this contest I have discussed varieties of realism, Idealismand so on, but importantly I have also discussed a new theory Radical Realism. (shrink)

One of the common targets that contemporary feminists are critical of concerning the problem of the body is Rene Descartes' mind and body relation. Feminist scholars can identify at least three lines of investigation of the body in contemporary thought that may be regarded as legacies of the Cartesian view, which treat the body as primarily an object for: 1) the natural sciences, particularly for the life sciences, biology, and medicine; 2) as an instrument or a machine at the disposal (...) of consciousness or allocating an animating, willful subjectivity; and 3) as a vehicle of expression of private thoughts and feelings; that is, as fundamentally passive and transparent. Recently, feminist scholars are seriously thinking of a new conceptual model that can displace Cartesian dualism and that can emancipate notions of the body from Cartesian dominant mechanistic models and metaphors. In this light, this paper turns to a Confucian theory of the body for revelation and the case of Mencius is introduced, in which the mind is regarded as the major component of the body and a coherent model is adopted. Can we then conclude to ask in what ways the reclaiming of the body in the Contemporary Western discussion may learn from the Confucian ideas of the body...? (shrink)

One of the common targets that contemporary feminists are critical of concerning the problem of the body is Rene Descartes' mind and body relation. Feminist scholars can identify at least three lines of investigation of the body in contemporary thought that may be regarded as legacies of the Cartesian view, which treat the body as primarily an object for: 1) the natural sciences, particularly for the life sciences, biology, and medicine; 2) as an instrument or a machine at the disposal (...) of consciousness or allocating an animating, willful subjectivity; and 3) as a vehicle of expression of private thoughts and feelings; that is, as fundamentally passive and transparent. Recently, feminist scholars are seriously thinking of a new conceptual model that can displace Cartesian dualism and that can emancipate notions of the body from Cartesian dominant mechanistic models and metaphors. In this light, this paper turns to a Confucian theory of the body for revelation and the case of Mencius is introduced, in which the mind is regarded as the major component of the body and a coherent model is adopted. Can we then conclude to ask in what ways the reclaiming of the body in the Contemporary Western discussion may learn from the Confucian ideas of the body...? (shrink)

There are three results in this study. First, redefinition of "Being". I've classified and redefined the concept of "being" into "Being", "Existence", "Reality" which have been used confusingly. And the definition of God has been also renewed. So we came to understand what "a triangle exists", "a sharp pencil exists", "the God exists" mean. Also I proved that the mean of "I will be who I will be" which is the name of God in Bible equals to the mean of (...) almightiness. Second, trinitarianism. I proved that the essence of God does not belong to the "the world of idea" which the essence of triangle belongs to and also to the "the physical world" which the essence of sharp pencil belongs to. This is the same to physical rules like "E=mc²". And I refer to the world which includes "the God" and"physical rules" as "the world of causes". In this way, a view of world suggested in this study is not dualism but trinitarianism. Third, the new cosmological argument. I've suggested "the new cosmological argument" using modern science's imperfection which inferred from "Werner Karl Heisenberg's uncertainty principle". The conclusion of this proof is that a man who recognizes the reality of "physical rules" should recognize the reality of "God". In other word a rational man who believes causality should recognize the reality of "The cause which is cause of every causes but don't need any cause" "the God". (shrink)

Bunhwang Wonhyo (芬皇 元曉, 617-686) was a philosopher in the Korean Shilla Dynasty. He was a successor to the Buddha's wise thought and merciful life on the basis of One Mind (一心) - Reconcilement (和會) -Interfusion(無碍). His One Mind philosophy opened a new way for researching the human abyss and worldessence. The breadth of his enlightenment also enabled many people to live in the vast sea of Buddha dharma, as his manner of thinking and living opened up completely new, unique, (...) and encompassing vistas well beyond the conventional limits of his age, people, religion and philosophy. Wohyo's One Mind philosophy was based on the One Mind-Two Approaches (一心二門) formulation described in Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith. He was not restricted by the commonly accepted view of Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith, wherein One Mind is understood in light of dualistic opposition of the Combined Consciousness of True and False (眞妄和合識)1). On the contrary, he applied a different view of One Mind to Combined Consciousness, unlike the Ālaya-vijñāna view of the Consciousness-Only school that tried to understand One Mind as True Consciousness of Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom (大圓鏡智). Therefore, his understanding of One Mind is very dynamic and elastic. The dynamics and elasticity are also caused by the dualistic structure of Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith (大乘起信論), that divides One Mind into two characteristics such as white-clean and dirty-contaminated. Wonhyo, who investigated deeply into the suffering mind in order todetermine whether to classify the unenlightened person and Buddha as two or whether to unify them, also made One Mind open to the Ninth Consciousness (九識) without restricting the range of it to Eight Consciousnesses (八識). This ground of understanding is due to Wonhyo's dynamics and Miraculous Understanding. Wonhyo connects One Mind to Tathāgata-garbha (如來藏), while saying that 'it is called Tathāgata-garbha because the body of One Mind is defined as Original Enlightenment (本覺) and it causes phenomenon depending on ignorance.' In order to explain this, he 'coins' the expression of Miraculous Understanding and provides expands the existing understanding of One Mind by adding the meaning of Miraculous Understanding to the understanding of One Mind. And heexplains Miraculous Understanding on the basis of the property of Nirmāṇa-kāya that does not adopt inanimate objectivity, which shows that Wonhyo's One Mind exposes the changeable meaning of an absolute aspect and the unchangeable meaning of a phenomenal aspect at the same time. Wonhyo quoted the concept of Miraculous Understanding in order to explain changeability of an absolute aspect rather than its unchangeability, and unchangeability of a phenomenal aspect rather than its changeability. And finally, Wonhyo's Miraculous Understanding of One Mind shows that the real nature of Original Enlightenment is miraculous by itself. And the meaning of Miraculous Understanding belongs in the Ninth Consciousness, Amala-vijñāna, rather than being restricted to the eighth consciousness, Ālaya-vijñāna. In this way, Wonhyo harmonizes the Eight Consciousnesses theory of Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith and the Nine Consciousnesses theory of Vājrasamādhi–Sūtra (金剛三昧經論) through dynamics and Miraculous Understanding of One Mind. As a result, Wonhyo enlarged the extension of One Mind understanding by granting the meaning of dynamics and Miraculous Understanding to One Mind, which challenged the existing interpretation of his time. (shrink)

Bunhwang Wonhyo was a philosopher in the Korean Shilla Dynasty. He was a successor to the Buddha's wise thought and merciful life on the basis of One Mind - Reconcilement -Interfusion. His One Mind philosophy opened a new way for researching the human abyss and worldessence. The breadth of his enlightenment also enabled many people to live in the vast sea of Buddha dharma, as his manner of thinking and living opened up completely new, unique, and encompassing vistas well beyond (...) the conventional limits of his age, people, religion and philosophy. Wohyo's One Mind philosophy was based on the One Mind-Two Approaches formulation described in Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith. He was not restricted by the commonly accepted view of Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith, wherein One Mind is understood in light of dualistic opposition of the Combined Consciousness of True and False 1). On the contrary, he applied a different view of One Mind to Combined Consciousness, unlike the Ālaya-vijñāna view of the Consciousness-Only school that tried to understand One Mind as True Consciousness of Great Perfect Mirror Wisdom. Therefore, his understanding of One Mind is very dynamic and elastic. The dynamics and elasticity are also caused by the dualistic structure of Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith, that divides One Mind into two characteristics such as white-clean and dirty-contaminated. Wonhyo, who investigated deeply into the suffering mind in order todetermine whether to classify the unenlightened person and Buddha as two or whether to unify them, also made One Mind open to the Ninth Consciousness without restricting the range of it to Eight Consciousnesses. This ground of understanding is due to Wonhyo's dynamics and Miraculous Understanding. Wonhyo connects One Mind to Tathāgata-garbha, while saying that 'it is called Tathāgata-garbha because the body of One Mind is defined as Original Enlightenment and it causes phenomenon depending on ignorance.' In order to explain this, he 'coins' the expression of Miraculous Understanding and provides expands the existing understanding of One Mind by adding the meaning of Miraculous Understanding to the understanding of One Mind. And heexplains Miraculous Understanding on the basis of the property of Nirmāṇa-kāya that does not adopt inanimate objectivity, which shows that Wonhyo's One Mind exposes the changeable meaning of an absolute aspect and the unchangeable meaning of a phenomenal aspect at the same time. Wonhyo quoted the concept of Miraculous Understanding in order to explain changeability of an absolute aspect rather than its unchangeability, and unchangeability of a phenomenal aspect rather than its changeability. And finally, Wonhyo's Miraculous Understanding of One Mind shows that the real nature of Original Enlightenment is miraculous by itself. And the meaning of Miraculous Understanding belongs in the Ninth Consciousness, Amala-vijñāna, rather than being restricted to the eighth consciousness, Ālaya-vijñāna. In this way, Wonhyo harmonizes the Eight Consciousnesses theory of Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith and the Nine Consciousnesses theory of Vājrasamādhi–Sūtra through dynamics and Miraculous Understanding of One Mind. As a result, Wonhyo enlarged the extension of One Mind understanding by granting the meaning of dynamics and Miraculous Understanding to One Mind, which challenged the existing interpretation of his time. (shrink)

The paper presents the reflection on philosophical foundations of contemporary physical concepts of global history and global structure of Universe. It shows that Democritus's dualism of "matter and void" is changed now in dualism of "matter and energy" in the frame of the strings theory, where anything what looks like "a void" is absent. At the same time the Poincare-Perelman's theorem calls to rethink Democritus's philosophy in the light of "space and hole" discourse and call it to come (...) back. On the level of philosophy doctrines for contemporary fundamental physics it in necessary to combine dialectically the concept of "matter and void/hole" and the concept "matter and energy" (or "matter and singular conditions"). It is possible to do on the way of rethinking of H. Bergson's ideas presented in his book "Matter and memory". The conclusion is that fundamental dualism consists the relation "visible matter - invisible historical memory" inside of Universe. (shrink)

The paper discusses Ibn Tufayl’s Hay ibn Yaqzan, a philosophical novel written in Andalusia in the 12th century. The novel’s eponymous character is a solitary individual growing up in a deserted island, who only meets another human being and gets initiated into language at an advanced age. As Ibn Tufayl presents it, in solitude Hay has developed elaborate ways of thinking, discovered God as the ultimate cause of the world and worships him in a direct, personal way. Given the context (...) of Ibn Tufay’s story, the paper focuses on the relation between language and thinking. Drawing on Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations it criticizes the idea that language and community are inessential to human identity and ways of thinking. It argues that Ibn Tufayl should not be interpreted as putting forward a dualist picture of the self like Descartes’, but rather, as influenced by the Sufi ideals of genuine faith and personal experience of God. (shrink)

Although we cannot find any Aesthetics system in the works of NISHIDA Kitarõ (1870-1945), the most significant and influential Japanese philosopher of the twentieth-century, one of his central themes is the role of art and aesthetics in relation with morality and religion. His aesthetics approaches are magnificent examples of his aim to overcome the innate dualism that sustains modern epistemology and a door, apparently hidden, to a better understanding of all his speculative scheme of philosophy. This paper attempts to (...) throw light to the importance of the first aesthetic approximation developed by Nishida eleven years before the publication of Zen no Kenkyû [ 善 の?究 ] (An Inquiry into the Good) (1911) and twenty-three years before the publication of the more accurate system of aesthetics that we read in Geijutsu to dôtoku [芸術 と 道? ] (Art and Morality) (1923). We will analyze the small essay entitled "Bi no Setsumei" [美 の?明] ("An explanation of Beauty") (1900) and Nishida's first definition of beauty as muga [無我] (self-effacement or ecstasy). (shrink)

Although we cannot find any Aesthetics system in the works of NISHIDA Kitarõ (1870-1945), the most significant and influential Japanese philosopher of the twentieth-century, one of his central themes is the role of art and aesthetics in relation with morality and religion. His aesthetics approaches are magnificent examples of his aim to overcome the innate dualism that sustains modern epistemology and a door, apparently hidden, to a better understanding of all his speculative scheme of philosophy. This paper attempts to (...) throw light to the importance of the first aesthetic approximation developed by Nishida eleven years before the publication of Zen no Kenkyû [ 善 の ?究 ] (An Inquiry into the Good) (1911) and twenty-three years before the publication of the more accurate system of aesthetics that we read in Geijutsu to dôtoku [芸術 と 道? ] (Art and Morality) (1923). We will analyze the small essay entitled "Bi no Setsumei" [美 の ?明] ("An explanation of Beauty") (1900) and Nishida's first definition of beauty as muga [無我] (self-effacement or ecstasy). (shrink)

For Howard Gardner, Multiple Intelligences Theory (MI) constitutes “a new understanding of human nature,” on a par with those proffered by Socrates and Freud. While the educational community in general has responded enthusiastically to MI, because it enables them to deal with students more holistically, MI embeds a significant dualism that is detrimental to truly holistic education. I will argue that: values are pervasive; intelligence requires the exercise of judgment, which no computational system can emulate; domains in which intelligence (...) functions are contested, as much as in the realm of “values,” judgments about “values” are “intelligent” in seeking to determine what conditions will promote flourishing, and the more appropriate distinction to draw is not between two structural domains of “empirical fact” and “subjective value,” but between structural conditions and directional responses to these conditions. (shrink)

I explicate and argue for a way of looking at life, and responding to it, that is uncompromisingly secularist. It is an atheism and a social naturalism: a distinctive form of naturalism that I argue answers better than religious orientations or “scientific” forms of naturalism to both our cognitive interests and to our moral and political and other affective interests. It is a thoroughly anti-metaphysical naturalism rejecting metaphysical realism and physicalism without taking an antirealistor dualist turn. How it is a (...) social naturalism is explained and defended as well as the senses in which it is non-scientistic, historicist, and contextualist. It will alsoseek to make clear what really grips some religiously sensitive people, even people fully attuned to modernity, about religion and then to show how we can live full well and even flourishingly without religion. However, I do not only argue that we can so live, but that we should so live. We should be secularists all the way down. (shrink)

Do classical, contemplative philosophies have anything to teach which is relevant to life here and now? In the case of Plotinus, yes. While Platonic metaphysics is most often summarized as dualistic, where one sensible world stands apart from and in tension with an intelligible world, in the case of Plotinus this interpretation is incorrect. He does distinguish between sensibles and sense-experience, on one hand, and intelligibles and intelligible experience, on the other; but the two belong together intimately: both are located (...) in the same space, and the sensible is related to the intelligible as a shadow to its object or a reflection to what it reflects. Plotinus’ world is one. Given this picture, one rightly wonders at the status of the Plotinian exhortation for the soul to flee "alone to the Alone." Does not the journey of the soul to its source require a passing beyond of this world to some other? No, Plotinus exhortation should be understood as a reorientation, a reordering within the world here and now, not a rejection of one reality in favor of some other. This can be likened to Aesop’s fable, "The Dog and the Bone," where the dog had the choice between one real and one illusory bone, not two separate bones. Similarly, Plotinus’ world, though it can be perceived dualistically, is ontologically one; hence his metaphysics, far from otherworldly, offers a means of understanding life as it is to be lived here and now. (shrink)

John Hawthorne (2002), David Braddon-Mitchell (2003), and Robert Stalnaker (2002), almost simultaneously but independently, developed a physicalistic argument which depends on such two conditional analyses: (1) If we experience dualistic pain, zombies are possible; (2) If our world is physicalistic, zombies are impossible. Hawthorne assumes that only an oracle will tell us which conditional is the case. From this setting, he concludes that zombies are conceivable butimpossible. I first show that Hawthorne actually fails in deriving neither the conceivability of zombies (...) nor their impossibility. Next, I argue that Hawthorne’s reasoning entails an absurdity that any entity like God, whose existence is controversial, will be conceivable but impossible. (shrink)

Tanabe Hajime, another pole of the so-called Kyoto-School of Philosophy of modern Japan, attempts to construct a dialectical, triadic logic of genus, species and individual as a creative synthesis between Eastern and Western philosophy. Although the formal pattern of his method is influenced by the Hegelian dialectic, the way of his thinking is rather prevailed by Kantian dualism. This makes a sharp contrast to his mentor Nishida Kitaro, whose logic of Topos or Place qua Absolute Nothingness is criticized as (...) all-embracing and static in character by him. The difference between them might be parallel to that of Greek and Latin theology concerning the Trinity. Tanabe never presupposes any preexistent entity as the primordial One in the eternal dimension, but rather maintains the individuality as the free subjective agent in the field of history. The dichotomy between the universal and the individual is overcome in and through the mediation of the third term— the species — as the negatively self-realized, specific form of the genus. The species, however, turns out to be the self-estrangement, when it loses the perpetually negative mediation of the free subjective activity of the individual. (shrink)

Hegel’s critique of traditional metaphysics is well-known. The first half of the Phenomenology, in particular, attempts to expose the faults underlying the metaphysics of the thing, and the subject-object dualism that arises out of it. This section in the Phenomenology aligns Hegel with Modern Philosophy, thematizing the tensions between thing-in-itself and appearance, the one and its properties, and substance and accidents. For Hegel, the thing is exposed as Spirit, albeit Spirit frozen and isolated from itself. By bringing up Locke (...) in this context, I show how Locke’s own conclusions confirm Hegel’s. A close reading of Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding shows that Hegel’s conclusions about the thing is immanent to the empiricist’s very own formulations of the problem. The theme of the presentation is both an apology for Hegel and a critique of Locke. (shrink)

Kant has little to say about moral frailty or weakness. But for his readers, the topic is a fruitful site of interpretive projection that deserves focus. How we approach it reveals much about Kant’s theory of motivation and his general metaphysics of mind as it relates to the practical philosophy. Prominent views on the subject range from affectivism, which holds that sensible incentives motivate weak action independently of reason’s activity, to intellectualism, which holds that weak actions are ultimately grounded in (...) reason, reflecting the subject’s true maxims. After briefly unpacking two well-known versions of each position, I will argue that neither can succeed. For in both cases, reason and sensibility are too dualistically opposed and insulated from one another to capture Kant’s view. I propose, instead, that we must completely reconsider the relationship between these capacities, and the role that sensible desire plays in light of our ability to reason. The result is a more desirable account of weakness that can both invoke the role that reason plays in determining human action, and appeal to strong sensible desires and their ability to disrupt our practical lives. (shrink)

Explaining phenomenal consciousness may be the scientific and philosophical problem of our time, the last frontier of knowledge. This is not at all an easy task. For any serious attempt at finding a place for consciousness within the natural world was not successful so far. There is a conceptual tension here which makes this business of coming up with a unified (monist) explanation of mind and physical world one of the most intriguing mystery. The most predominant image of the natural (...) world is one of a physicalist type, whereas the mind, and especially the conscious subjective experience seem not to fit well within that physicalistexplanation. That explanatory failure may require a dualist metaphysical scheme (probably of a neo-Cartesian type). It may seem very well that we are caught in a dilemma, for we either embrace a physicalist explanation, but then it seems that we leave out consciousness from the big picture we are looking for, or else we face the huge task of conceiving a dramatic change of our scientific outlook about the natural world, and we don’t quite see how that would be possible or desirable. But then, should any attempt at understanding consciusness be a dead-end, something doomed to fail from a theoretical and explanatory point of view? In my paper I explore some philosophical underpinnings of contemporary dualism, focussing on the modal facets of the conceivability (neo-Cartesian) arguments. I will asses both the prospects and the moot points of this type of arguments. Of particular interest is the role that two-dimensional semantics plays in nowadays discussions of this topic. (shrink)

Kant has little to say about moral frailty or weakness. But for his readers, the topic is a fruitful site of interpretive projection that deserves focus. How we approach it reveals much about Kant’s theory of motivation and his general metaphysics of mind as it relates to the practical philosophy. Prominent views on the subject range from affectivism, which holds that sensible incentives motivate weak action independently of reason’s activity, to intellectualism, which holds that weak actions are ultimately grounded in (...) reason, reflecting the subject’s true maxims. After briefly unpacking two well-known versions of each position, I will argue that neither can succeed. For in both cases, reason and sensibility are too dualistically opposed and insulated from one another to capture Kant’s view. I propose, instead, that we must completely reconsider the relationship between these capacities, and the role that sensible desire plays in light of our ability to reason. The result is a more desirable account of weakness that can both invoke the role that reason plays in determining human action, and appeal to strong sensible desires and their ability to disrupt our practical lives. (shrink)

The Seed Thoughts by YU Youngmo and HAM Sukhun each may be summed up in “People are a May-fly seed” and “Seeds embodies the eternal meaning”. They used “seed” to refer to humans or people on the one hand and placed the notion of seed in the holistic context of the Eastern Asian tradition. Then, I seek to connect the anthropological notion and the holistic notion via cheng or integration. 『The Doctrine of the Mean』 says that any ultimate integration (至誠) (...) reflects a total nature of objects involved (盡性) by showing that self realization and all other realizations are one and not two (成己成物) and by arriving at the stage ofholiness (聖). Then, I may be allowed to say that cheng is a mind or a power not only of humans but also of all other things. Important elements of cheng intentionality can be read out of two thinker’s various conceptual aspects. YU’s interpretation of history to be internalistic, his view of Hangul (Korean written language) as a revealational medium, his hermeneutics of Christian God as the Vacuum cannot be understood on the dichotomous model of humans-nature. HAM’s seed holism, his beliefs that humans’s minds are the heavenly mind and that all things under the heaven should come to be unified are best to be understood on the model of cheng intentionality of integration. (shrink)