A wonderful term invented by Richard J. Bernstein, in his Beyond Objectivism and Relativism: Science, Hermeneutics, and Praxis (1983).

René Descartes forever changed Western civilization by inventing Cartesian duality, a philosophical construct based on ancient Greek and medieval Christian thinking, but also heavily influenced by the politics of his day. (He was allowed to perform dissections and write about his discoveries so long as he did not talk about the soul.)

Descartes held that the mind is a nonphysical substance consisting of consciousness and self-awareness. It is not the brain, which he believed was the seat of intelligence.

Thanks to Descartes, Westerners study the world as a thing separate from ourselves.

There is another way of thinking, the “embodied” philosophy of Western science that is more Spinoza (and Maturana, Varela, and their colleagues) and definitely not Descartes. It is a different mindset for most westerners, because it is science that is holistic. (That may explain why so many scientists in the “embodied” fields quote Daoists.)

The Santiago Theory of cognition starts with the idea that any biological entity has a mind — brains are not required.

Autopoietic Theory begins with assuming the biological basis of the observer, as in the oft-quoted “Anything said is said by an observer.” In other words, mind and body are one. There is no separation.

If there is no other, there will be no I. If there is no I, there will be none to make distinctions.

— Zhuangzi