Dualism

This entry concerns dualism in the philosophy of mind. The term ‘dualism’ has a variety of uses in the history of thought. In general, the idea is that, for some particular domain, there are two fundamental kinds or categories of things or principles. In theology, for example a ‘dualist’ is someone who believes that Good and Evil — or God and the Devil — are independent and more or less equal forces in the world. Dualism contrasts with monism, which is the theory that there is only one fundamental kind, category of thing or principle; and, rather less commonly, with pluralism, which is the view that there are many kinds or categories. In the philosophy of mind, dualism is the theory that the mental and the physical — or mind and body or mind and brain — are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. Because common sense tells us that there are physical bodies, and because there is intellectual pressure towards producing a unified view of the world, one could say that materialist monism is the ‘default option’. Discussion about dualism, therefore, tends to start from the assumption of the reality of the physical world, and then to consider arguments for why the mind cannot be treated as simply part of that world.

from: Robinson, Howard, "Dualism", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2009 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2009/entries/dualism/>.

3.7 The “Self that is not a Self” and the Nothingness of Radical Subjectivity

Quotes:

"Ueda argues that both the ego of the Cartesian cogito, as well as the non-ego (Sanskrit: anâtman; Japanese: muga) of Buddhism, must ultimately be comprehended on the basis of an understanding of the self as a repeated movement through a radical self-negation to a genuine self-affirmation. Ueda's formula for this movement is: “I, not being I, am I.” Even when one says “I am I,” if we listen closely there is a pause, a breath, between the first and the second “I.” Precisely that opening—which necessarily occurs as a moment in the ceaseless movement by which the identity of the self is constituted—is the “ecstatic space” wherein an open encounter with another person is possible.

"Such a genuine encounter with another person no longer takes place simply within my, or your, or even our world-horizon. Ueda uses the greeting of the bow as a concrete example to illustrate how mutual self-negation—the emptying of all ego-centered presumptions and agendas—returns us to a communal place where we, paradoxically, share Nothing in common. “There, by way of making oneself into a Nothingness, one returns into the infinite depths of that ‘between’ where there is neither an I nor a you. … Then, when we rise again so as to come back to life anew and face one another, this becomes a matter of, as Dôgen puts it: thus am I; thus are you” (Ueda 1991, 67; see USS X, 107ff.). Open to others, and to the hollow-expanse in which together we dwell, I am I (USS X, 23–24)."

This radical subjective Nothingness is not to be confused with the relative nothingness of a “subjective consciousness” which sets itself over against, and objectifies, the world. As with Zen's kôan of Nothingness (mu), a realization of the radical subjectivity of non-ego (mu-ga) entails breaking through the dualistic barrier that artificially separates self and world. For Nishitani, this breakthrough is expressed as “the self-awareness of the bottom dropping out” (NKC I, iii). It is a radical return, or “trans-descendence,” to “the background of our own selves,” to the Ungrund on which we originally possess “not a single thing” (mu-ichi-motsu) (NKC XI, 243).

With Nishitani's conception of a radical “subjective Nothingness,” understood as a “standpoint of śûnyatâ” realized on the “field of śûnyatâ,” we find an explicit appropriation of both the psychological and the meontological (or mu-logical) paradigms of Nothingness found in the traditions of East Asian. The notions of non-ego (muga) and “no-mind” or “mind of Nothingness” (mushin) are thought in terms of the spontaneous openness of the heart-mind which stands within the field of Emptiness, an open place which grants beings the free space for their unobstructed (muge) interactivity."

from: Davis, Bret W., "The Kyoto School", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2010 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2010/entries/kyoto-school/>

Non-Duality