I know it sounds strange. I think a negative ontology is necessary.

I have brought up the question of which is more fundamental mind/body and idealism/materialism...Is there some question that is more fundamental than both...perhaps the most fundamental question of all such as "Why is there something rather than nothing?" or "Is there anything that I cannot doubt?"

Negative ontology makes sense enough especially with reference to negative theology...the former a secular form of the later? I do wonder how much of what you are calling negative ontology will ultimately arrives at the positive anti-metaphysical method of just not asking the questions or dismissing such problems as nonsense.

Yes, I was trying to say too much at once. Because I do think there is a more fundamental question. But first I should agree that the mind-body seems more natural and more fundamental of a question than idealism/materialism. I should have responded to that first. It seems that the body is an object, and the mind is thought of as a subject. And from here, perhaps, the idealism/materialism question invades. Because the mind is apparently "in" the brain. But the brain is apparently "in" the mind. A moebius strip?

I suppose negative ontology is more secular, but perhaps it subsumes negative theology. If beings are unified by/as concepts, then "god" would be just one more. Still, one could use the god in a new way and not be absurd. I think that would be a matter of taste. God as the negative one. Or god as the unnameable set of all sets. I honestly don't think it resolves to the dismissal, as I find it quite valuable.

...I am thinking of objective idealism as a sort of idealism that is trying to forget where it came from. But is my thinking darkened too much by the shadow of Descartes?

Of course the negative theologian would say that God is not a concept.

There are many ways to dismiss. One can dismiss things by making them into metaphors, filters, reality tunnels etc.

.Does the negative ontologist go about saying "being is not x, being is not y...ad infinitum" But this method eventually leads to the zen koan moment of "Wait a second, why am I even thinking about this! Why am I so obsessed with what Being is! or is not!" which I equate with dismissal of all ontological questions and an anti-metaphysical stance. Similarly negative theology can lead to atheism and then maybe, if you're lucky, nirvana...But I'm not sure if we are talking about the same things.

If there was no mind/body problem then there would be no theories of materialism nor theories of idealism. No one would reach the conclusion or posit the theory without first struggling with the mind/body problem.

For me, being is "conceptual." "

For me, being is "conceptual." "

I wonder how you know that.

To say that X is "fundamental" to Y, is to say that Y logically presupposes X, but not conversely. I don't think that is true is this case. If you think it is, argue it.

It's more of a hunch than anything else at this point. Can you point to a counter-example?

A counterexample to what? For there to be a counterexample, there has to be a generalization of the form, All X is Y, or No X is Y. What is the generalization?

All forms of idealism and all forms of materialism are offered as solutions to the mind/body problem. Such schools of thought have no purpose wholly independent of their respective claims to be solutions to the mind/body problem.

Well that's certainly not true. People discuss idealism quite independently of mind/body. See, for example, David Stove's sustained attack on Idealism. He does not mention (as I recall) mind/body. Of course, it may have such implications, but, it is not Stove's goal to deal with it.

It seems that no one would bother to propose materialism or idealism unless they were first confronted with the mind/body problem or some variation thereof.

But he is attacking the ideas of people like Berkeley and Berkeley offered up his idealism as a solution to the mind/body problem.

It seems to me we are still dealing with flawed metaphysical assumptions or philosophical speculations from a few hundred years ago.

One is Cartesian dualism; that mind and body or the ideal and the material are separate substances and that some explanation for their interaction is needed. God was the explantion Descartes gave. Some form of neutral monism seems more appropriate in the modern age.

The second is the notion that "being" material existence is the primary reality as opposed to "becoming" change or process. It is better to think of reality in terms of events (all events have mental and material aspects) than to split the world into the ideal/material, mind/body.

Cartesian dualism and Newtonian mechanics still dominant worldviews in the 21st century even though modern science does not support the metaphysical conclusions commonly drawn from either.

I don't think that science supports metaphysical conclusions.

I never knew that. Where did you find that out? I always thought that B. motive was to prove that God exists.

How do you know that?

He says so several times.

Where? Is he responding to some argument against the existence of God?

Sorry. Don't remember. But the point is that he holds that the belief in the existence of matter is what creates atheism, for if it was realized that there was only spirit, we would recognized that God exists, for only He could created our ideas. Spirit can cause only spirit. So, the belief in matter is the work of the Devil, for it separates Man from God. So, B. is not responding to any argument against God. He is arguing only that materialism is the enemy of God.

Spirit creates ideas as opposed to matter creating ideas...and the question of whether or not and how matter can generate ideas is essentially the mind-body problem.

Berkeley thinks there is no matter, and he argues that it would be impossible for matter to create ideas. Only like can create like. But, that is not what we are discussing. B's motive is to destroy atheism, and to show that the world (namely ideas) could come only from Spirit. B. has no mind/body problem. For the body, for him is the Devil's illusion. Matter does not merely not exist. It is impossible for it to exist. And there is no good reason to believe in matter. The mind/body problem is the problem of how mind and body interact. There is no such problem for Berkeley.