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date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:50:59 GMT,    group: uk.philosophy.misc        back       
Physicalist dualism?   
According to Wikipedia, "Dualism is the view that two fundamental concepts
exist" and "materialism is that form of physicalism which holds that the only
thing that can truly be said to exist is matter" and "Physicalism is the
metaphysical position that everything which exists has a physical property".

Suppose I take the view that there are only two fundamental concepts, Matter and
Structure. You might argue this is just materialism, since structure depends on
matter. I would argue that our experience and concept of matter at least equally
depends on structure. You might argue that structure is not "real" or physical
and so less important.  I would argue that the concept of structure is at least
as useful, and therefore fundamental, as the concept of matter.

Is this view a form of physicalist dualism then?

Practically any physicalist view requires structure, so this can be regarded as
a particular perspective on bog-standard physicalism, but a productive one I
hope.  For example, in this view the mind/brain problem is resolved as an
example of structure/matter duality.

Toby
date: Fri, 10 Aug 2007 11:50:59 GMT   author:   Toby Kelsey

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