Gary Childress wrote: ↑Sun Jul 07, 2019 2:03 pm
I would assume that monism is no more a "disguised form of dualism" than dualism is a disguised form of monism.
I don't think it makes sense to assume these things. If you examine Russell's paradox this is exactly the problem that arises for monism. It is not logically possible to reduce all things to one thing or two things. For one thing to exist two things must exists, and for two things to exist three things must exist.
This would be why the word
advaita (not-two) is widely used in the Perennial philosophy. It denies dualism while avoiding an endorsement of monism. Both these 'isms' would be false and logically indefensible, You may disagree about monism, but its equivalence with dualism is the reason why it is rejected by those who endorse non-dualism. If the non-dual doctrine is true then monism is false.
Here is Francis Bradley in his
Appearance and Reality explaining that non-dualism is not monism. The term 'Unity' would not imply monism but rather non-dualism. He might agree with you that monism and dualism are disguised forms of each other.
“Reality is one. It must be single, because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality implies relations, and, through its relations, it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. To suppose the universe plural is therefore to contradict oneself and, after all, to suppose that it is one. Add one world to another, and forthwith both worlds have become relative, each the finite appearance of a higher and single Reality. And plurality as appearances (we have seen) must fall within, must belong to, must qualify the unity.
We have an idea of this unity which, to some extent, is positive. It is true that how in detail the plurality comes together we do not know. And it is true again that unity, in its more proper sense, is known only as contra-distinguished from plurality. Unity therefore, as an aspect over against and defined by another aspect, is itself but appearance. And in this sense the Real, it is clear, cannot be properly called one. It is possible, however, to use unity with a different meaning.”
I'm not arguing for the sake of it. It's an interesting issue and much misunderstanding of mysticism arises from a confusion of non-dualism with monism. But monism cannot be a fundamental doctrine since it runs into problem of self-reference, as Russell discovered.
The question for philosophy of mind, at least how it is traditionally laid out, is whether mind is "composed" of protons, electrons, etc. or not as just about everything else we know of in the world. The problem is, we can't really see, touch, smell or observe mind (or consciousness) in the same way we can just about everything else in the world. That seems like a fundamental distinction to me.
Not fundamental, but certainly a perceived distinction. Unity is the idea that there are no fundamental distinctions. For the mind-matter dichotomy we see this from Schopenhauer, who speaks of the breakdown of the subject-object distinction in what he calls his 'better' consciousness. For a doctrine of Unity protons and electrons and the space-time they inhabit would be artifacts of Mind. Mind and Matter would reduce to a third term. This third term would be Bradley's Unity.
The point being that for a study of the Perennial philosophy it would be vital not to confuse it with monism. Philosophers have been playing around with dualism and monism for millennia and cannot make either idea work. Descartes speculates that by reduction Mind and Matter are a Unity, but this is not an idea we can make much sense of without a study of mysticism.
There's a lot more that could be said but it would take us off-topic. Although now I think of it I've forgotten the topic.