Aside from "moronic" is there a name for my thoughts on monism, dualism, etc.? I always know what I'm thinking, but I'm not always educated in the appropriate philosophical terms associated with those thoughts.

I would be tempted to call my position "weak dualism," but that's just something I made up.

Getting to the point, you probably want to know what my position is. I understand "monism" to mean that existence stems from one source - one essence, one being, whatever, and that what we see are only facets of this one source. "Dualism", on the other hand, supposes two sources - often stated as "good" and "evil." I would say that when most people speak of dualism, they mean a strong dualism where the two sources are equal and opposite. In my way of thinking, though, they are not equal.

I am usually not the first to come upon ideas like this, so I wondered if some ancient Greek statue has already had such thoughts and given them a name. If so, what?

It needs a lot more elaboration before it can be described, doesn't it? When you say 'existence stems from one source' this does not necessarily imply monism which is (strictly speaking) that there is only one real Being, or that reality is One, or something similar. Existence is obviously vastly manifold - there are uncountable billions of individual things, and the idea that they might have come from a common source is not really a monist position. I mean, modern cosmology posits that they all originated from the singularity which we suppose is what expanded via the Big Bang. I don't think that makes physical cosmology monist.

Also dualism might not only be the duality of good and evil. It might be the duality of spirit and matter, or some other pair of different fundamental categories.

Although I do like the idea - 'name my position' could become an excellent Philosophy Forum Parlour Game.

Thanks for the clarification.



:bigsmile:

Actually, the name that springs to mind for your general view is, Manichaeism.

Ouch! If I'm coming across as gnostic (edit: or Taoist), I definitely need to find a better way to express myself. Thanks for the help. You've given me a place to start and I'll see what I can dig up.