Double-aspect theory

For the Canadian constitutional theory, see Double aspect

In the philosophy of mind, double-aspect theory is the view that the mental and the physical are two aspects of, or perspectives on, the same substance. The theory's relationship to neutral monism is ill-defined, but one proffered distinction says that whereas neutral monism allows the context of a given group of neutral elements to determine whether the group is mental, physical, both, or neither, double-aspect theory requires the mental and the physical to be inseparable and mutually irreducible (though distinct).

Dual-aspect theory is akin to neutral monism. This diagram contrast it with physicalism and idealism, as well as Cartesian dualism.

Double-aspect theorists include:-

• Baruch Spinoza, who believed that the Existence had two aspects, God and Nature, whereas most subsequent dual aspect theorists accept a duality of Mind and Matter.
• There is a dual-aspect interpretation of Immanuel Kant's noumenon.
• Arthur Schopenhauer, who considered the fundamental aspects of reality to be Will and Representation.
• Gustav Fechner
• George Henry Lewes
• Carl Gustav Jung
• Wolfgang Pauli
• John Polkinghorne
• Thomas Nagel.
• David Chalmers who explores a double-aspect view of information, with similarities to Kenneth Sayres' information-based neutral monism.