21 levels of Self-Deception: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

T W E N T Y - O N E L E V E L S

noumenon and phenomenon for this split. The split between something and nothing will form the basis of Chapter 3, whilst the noumenon phenomenon division of reality is the subject of Chapter 4. I have of course deliberately introduced another major split — that between ascendancy and descendancy. The manner in which these terms are employed in this work is discussed in the Introduction. The reader is reminded that I do not regard any of these splits as real. I am employing them with the deliberate intent of drawing out an understanding of the issues raised within the text. I am also looking to challenge those splits which explicitly or implicitly are embedded in our culture and to see how this has often been a cause of harm.

To some extent, these kinds of dualisms have been forced upon us simply in order to survive in the world. A distinction is made, first of all, about ourselves as subjects, distinct from the world around us. In other words, we ‘objectify’ the world, including, to some extent, other people. Science merely formalises this notion of the ‘detached observer’, which is implicit in so much of our language and thinking — whilst philosophy describes this as ‘the view from nowhere’ (Thomas Nagel). It is a remarkably successful strategy for surviving in the world, but we have come to believe of course that this split is real — that consciousness and matter really are separate substances. Much of Western philosophy has been about trying to reconcile the two apparently distinct substances and has tied itself in knots in the process. This is the so-called ‘mind body problem’ — res cogita, res extensa — most usually associated

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