can we speak of mind in terms of relations?
I mean drop - or perhaps better - suspend - the issue of
substance - mind as matter - mind as spirit
the idea would be to develop an account of mind - that could
apply to whatever - metaphysics - a theory of mind - that
would fit the materialist metaphysics - or the idealist
just a thought here -
Spinoza's account -
substance (God or nature) expresses itself as extension
and mind
on this view - mind and matter are attributes of substance
is it too big a step to go from this to - relations of
substance?
in Spinoza's term these relations would be internal
different from my proposal - where mind is the internal relation
- matter - external
but it's an externality - relative to mind
and we could still speak of a totality
being or existence - that contains mind and matter
(I would think of such - not as substance - but as the
unknown - and frankly I would argue Spinoza's substance -
is just this - the unknown)
anyway
I think the real question here is - can we avoid
ontological commitment - suspend it -
and still have something interesting to say?
and move the issue on -
it's quite a bizarre notion - to speak of mind -
and leave the question of its substantial
nature - open
but you only see it is as odd if you assume -
that mind is substantial -
perhaps 'it' is not
perhaps mind is not thing - or indeed process -
but rather - relation
a relation that holds regardless of ontological commitment
when I speak of mind as internal
and the physical as external
my focus is not on the stuff - of internality -
of externality -
rather that such ontological categories exist -
in fact are necessary
the outer and the inner - and relations - between and within
