> In other words, Peter is saying that _either_ mental
> events exist in a
> world of their own, prior to and independently of
> all physical activity,
> _or_ they are nothing. If we are not angels we are
> merely automatons. I
> think this is usually called dualism. Damasio points
> out that while
> Descartes's separation of "mind" and "brain" has
> been rejected by most,
> most still do cling to a crude separation of brain
> and body.
This made me think of Baudelaire, and the dear automatons in Lowell's translation, "The Voyage." As a quintessential modernist, does Baudelaire represent a historical shift in dualism, where the purposelessness of the dandy/flaneur confirms the modern individualist ethos (think of Baudelaire's interest in shop fronts, or his "chimeras" as mental events)? "There can be no progress (real, that is, moral) except in the individual and by the individual himself." (from Mon Coeur Mis À Nu, 1897)
This is quite different from the so-called metaphysical poets, where the body/mind dualism could still be subsumed in a single moral sensibility and a different social network. It was more a motif for a fusion of thought and feeling--before the "dissociation of sensibility" Eliot speaks of in Milton and Dryden.
As the change shows, "dualism" itself is subject to history and not as simple a metaphysical categorization as it seems.
Alec
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/