Dualism

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Dualism \Du"al*ism\, n. [Cf. F. dualisme.]
     State of being dual or twofold; a twofold division; any
     system which is founded on a double principle, or a twofold
     distinction; as:
     (a) (Philos.) A view of man as constituted of two original
         and independent elements, as matter and spirit. (Theol.)


     (b) A system which accepts two gods, or two original
         principles, one good and the other evil.
     (c) The doctrine that all mankind are divided by the
         arbitrary decree of God, and in his eternal
         foreknowledge, into two classes, the elect and the
         reprobate.
     (d) (Physiol.) The theory that each cerebral hemisphere acts
         independently of the other.
         [1913 Webster]
  
               An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that each
               thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make
               it whole.                            --Emerson.
         [1913 Webster]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  dualism
       n : the doctrine that reality consists of two basic opposing
           elements, often taken to be mind and matter (or mind and
           body), or good and evil

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  50 Moby Thesaurus words for "dualism":
     Janus, acosmism, allotheism, ambiguity, ambivalence, anthropolatry,
     anthropomorphism, anthropotheism, autotheism, biformity,
     bifurcation, conjugation, cosmotheism, deism, dichotomy, ditheism,
     doubleness, doublethink, doubling, duality, duplexity, duplication,
     duplicity, dyotheism, equivocality, halving, henotheism,
     hylotheism, irony, monolatry, monotheism, multitheism, myriotheism,
     pairing, pantheism, physicomorphism, physitheism, pluralism,
     polarity, polytheism, psychotheism, tetratheism, theism,
     theopantism, theriotheism, tritheism, twinning, two-facedness,
     twoness, zootheism