john@bcsaic.UUCP (10/02/86)
2.0 Metaphysical Dualism
A. Theological Dualism
The two reals are _God_ and _nature_. (Aquinas: God transcends nature, as
Creator transcends created).
(1) Existence of God
(a) Cosmological Argument: Existence of God inferred from necessity of
assigning a _first or supreme cause_: Why does world exist? Neither any
part nor the whole can be the cause of its own existence. Hence there must
be a cause not identical with the world, namely God.
(b) Ontological Argument: God's existence follows from the definition or
analysis of the _idea of God_: perfection is an attribute contained in the
idea of God (implies God lacks nothing). To exist is more perfect
(complete) than not to exist. Hence God exists.
(c) Teleological Argument: Existence of God inferred from evidence of
_order, design, purpose_ in the world: World exhibits order. Where there
is order there is an orderer. Hence there must be an orderer of the world,
i.e., God.
B. Mind-Matter (Psychophysical) Dualism
(1) The Two Reals. _Mind, Matter_ - neither is reducible to the other.
Descartes not a pure dualist, admits (a) God is the third real and (b) two
kinds of substances.
(2) The Two Kinds of Substances. _Mind_ (res cogitans = thinking
substance) and _body_ (res extensa = extended substance). Mind has
thought, including will; body has extension, figure, motion, divisibility,
etc. (so-called "primary qualities"). Body and mind interact causally;
seat of interaction is pineal gland.
(3) Descartes' Proof that Mind is Independent of Body. I can doubt
existence of my body, but can't doubt my own existence as a thinking being.
If I doubt, I think, hence I exist. (_Cogito ergo sum_: I think,
therefore I am.) Hence I am a thinking substance essentially; as a pure
thinking being, I do not need body to exist; hence my thinking self is
substantially different from my body.
C. Form - Matter (Hylomorphic) Dualism
The two reals are _form_ (idea, universal, structure) and _matter_ (stuff).
Form more real than matter.
(1) Plato's Concepts.
(a) World of eternal Ideas or Forms is superior to changing world of
sense-experience. True reality = universal Idea or form of which perceived
things are individual instances: an individual animal is an instance of a
universal form or Idea of its species.
(b) Form is superior to the changing things of the world. Form is perfect,
particular things of sense-experience are not. Form is intelligible;
particulars not completely so. _Particulars_ "participate" in forms, are
reflections of Ideas, "imitate" them. _Form, Idea_ = archetype or model on
which particulars are patterned.
(c) Highest Idea = Idea of Good. Other ideas form a system below it,
according to degree of their universality, intelligibility, perfection.
(2) Aristotle's Concepts.
(a) Truly real things are individual substances: this tree, this man, God.
(b) Substances: (except divine substances, which are pure forms) are
analyzable into form and matter, according to the distinction of actuality
and potentiality in them.
(c) Form = principle of actuality in a substance, in virtue of which a
thing is or functions as this or that substance.
(d) Matter = principle of potentiality, in virtue of which a thing can have
form, can be this or that; the substratum in which form is present and
actualized: Form of man is his soul, matter of man is tissues and organs
of his body. In substance, matter's potentialities are actualized in
development of form.
(3) Aristotle's Four Causes
(a) Formal Cause or Essence: The form in the thing itself, making it what
it is; its structure.
(b) Efficient Cause: The form in another thing acting on the given thing
and inducing change: the art of Polyclitus is the form in his soul, acting
through his skill on marble to induce shape in the marble, resulting in
statue.
(c) Final Cause: Form, and, goal for the sake of which a thing exists or a
change occurs (can be in or out of the thing): acorn grows into oak,
heading toward actualization of form of oak in matter available to it. God
is the final cause of all process in world, as object of love.
(d) Material Cause: That out of which a thing comes or is made and that
remains in the result as substratum: marble is the material cause of a
statue, wood is material cause of a tree.
(4) Neo-Platonism (Plotinus).
(a) Ultimate reality = the Ineffable One, source of all being, goodness,
beauty, truth. The universe is an "emanation" from the One, a descent down
the scale of being, each lower level being an image reflecting
(participating in) the next higher.
(b) Successive Levels: (i) One. (ii) Mind (Nous). (iii) Soul (Psyche):
Physical world of nature = descent of soul into matter; a fall, bringing
evil. (iv) Matter = lowest or outermost limit; "indeterminateness and
nothing else;" ultimate darkness into which being radiates.
(c) Man = soul fallen into matter. His salvation: to rise to ultimate
union with the One.
(d) Stages of Ascent. (i) Moral purification of the soul. (ii)
Philisophical thinking moving upwards to _dialectic_: ascent in mind to
comprehension of unity of knower and known. (iii) Ecstatic identification
with the One.
--
"The arrdvark knows what he knows, and that's it."
John Boose uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!john