Mind: A Brief Introduction (John R. Searle) / quote 95 of 138
The true and false parts of materialism and dualism
Materialism tries to say truly that the universe is entirely made up of physical particles that exist in fields of force and are often organized into systems. But it ends up saying falsely that there are no ontologically irreducible mental phenomena. Dualism tries to say truly that there are irreducible mental phenomena. But it ends up saying falsely that these are something apart from the ordinary physical world we all live in, that they are something over and above their physical substrate. The challenge is to state the true part of each view and deny the false part. If you stick with the traditional vocabulary it seems impossible to do that, because you end up saying that the irreducible (subjective, qualitative) mental is just an ordinary part of the physical world, and that sounds self-contradictory. So in the end I have tried to challenge the traditional vocabulary.