A Relational Axiom: The Doctrine of Universal Internality

Abstract

Any metaphysical system can be characterized by the answer which it gives to the question, what is real? Idealism, e.g., assigns fundamentality to mind; realism, to an objective world. These two options are chosen not only to illustrate a point; they have in fact dominated the history of Western philosophy as its principal poles. It has seemed to most philosophers that subjectivism and objectivism are logical opposites, there being no tertium quid. There have been many contemporary philosophies that have sought to “overcome the subject-object scheme of consciousness,” but closer scrutiny will show that in the final analysis most give evidence of allegiance to one of the historical poles.