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Summary
A provocative survey of interdisciplinary challenges to the concept of dualism.
During the last few decades, the fundamental premises of the modern view of knowledge have been increasingly called into question. Questioning Nineteenth-Century Assumptions about Knowledge, III: Dualism provides an in-depth look at “dualism” in the sciences, social sciences, and the humanities in detailed and wide-ranging discussions among experts from across the disciplines. Issues explored include the questionable necessity of a transcendent nomos; individualistic approaches versus systems ontology; and how the divide between material and formal rationality might impinge on the possibility, but not the inevitability, of progress. A combination of detailed articles and invigorating follow-up discussions, this volume showcases debates over the status and validity of dualism. Of special interest are the examination of such topics as developing alternatives to traditional dualistic categories through a new approach based on biological naturalism, challenges to the dualism of people and things, the imperfectness and subjectivity of perception, and overcoming the dualism of philosophy and science.
“Modern knowledge, according to the contributors to this multivolume exercise (based on three symposia), is based on three questionable premises and principles: determinism, reductionism, and dualism. Each volume interrogates these three principles and seeks to find alternative and more satisfying bases for knowledge. The volumes include formal papers as well as commentaries and edited transcripts of the discussions at each symposium. The range is truly extraordinary, with papers covering everything from economics to opera, cognitive neuroscience, literary studies, mathematical modeling, and systems theory … [the volumes] open a host of questions for scholars to ponder and suggest many enlightening lines of inquiry … Highly recommended.” — CHOICE
Richard E. Lee is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Fernand Braudel Center at Binghamton University, State University of New York. He is the author of Life and Times ofCultural Studies: The Politics and Transformation of the Structures of Knowledge and the coeditor (with Immanuel Wallerstein) of Overcoming the Two Cultures: Science versus the Humanities in the Modern World-System.
Table of Contents
Participants
Illustrations
Foreword Immanuel Wallerstein
Introduction Richard E. Lee
SESSION I. Why Dualism (and Materialism) Fail to Account for Consciousness John R. Searle
Discussion
SESSION II.
After Dualism Andrew Pickering
Discussion
SESSION III. The Imperfect Observer: Mind, Machines, and Materialism in the Twenty-First Century Judith Donath
Discussion
SESSION IV. Organizers’ Opening Remarks Jean-Pierre Dupuy: Preserving Distinctions, Complexifying Relationships Immanuel Wallerstein
