ABSTRACT
Assumptions about the mind and its place in nature are concealed in every act of human perception. As Lovejoy observed in The Revolt Against Dualism, man is by nature an epistemological animal, whose irrepressible knowledge-claim, far from being an invention of philosophers, is a manifestation of his own primary and most universal faith, his inexpugnable realism. The human being cherishes the two-fold belief that he is on the one hand in the midst of realities which are not himself nor mere obsequious shadows of himself, a world which transcends the narrow confines of his own transient being. In other words, however rational the systems of the professional philosophers may or may not be, and however free from contradiction, it is implied in the perceptual experience of the ordinary, unreflective observer that the place of mind in the natural world is equivocal, or a paradox.
