Modern Western thought is often seen as beginning with Descartes and the notion that the thinking self and the physical body are fundamentally distinct substances. But critics have claimed this makes a mystery of how one affects the other, and have sought to get rid of the two substances in favour of a single underlying stuff of the universe. The Western scientific tradition has favoured the physical, often denying the self altogether, while idealists and some Eastern traditions have focused on consciousness, sometimes denying the physical. But in a world with a single sort of 'stuff', be it physical or mental, human experience becomes inexplicable since experience requires both something that has experience and something that is experienced.
Do we have to accept that a single substance, both in its materialist Western form, or in its Eastern idealist form, is mistaken? Should we return to dualism or adopt a Buddhist stance of abandoning all categories in favour of flux and process? Or must the world consist of one substance, with materialism capable of explaining thought, or idealism capable of accounting for the physical?
Do we have to accept that a single substance, both in its materialist Western form, or in its Eastern idealist form, is mistaken? Should we return to dualism or adopt a Buddhist stance of abandoning all categories in favour of flux and process? Or must the world consist of one substance, with materialism capable of explaining thought, or idealism capable of accounting for the physical?
