139 http://www.univie.ac.at/constructivism/journal/8/2/139.riegler Editorial Non-dualism: A New Understanding of Language Alexander Riegler • Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Belgium • ariegler/at/vub.ac.be Stefan Weber • University of Vienna, Austria • weber.mediaresearch/at/t-online.de > Context • Non-dualism suggests a new way of utilizing language without the assumption of categorically extralin- guistic objects denoted by language. > Problem • What is the innovative potential, what is the special value of non- dualism for science? Is non-dualism a fruitful conceptual revision or just a philosophical thought experiment with no or little significance for science? > Method • We provide a concise introduction to non-dualism’s central new proposals and an overview of the papers. > Results • Fourteen contributors show how this way of thinking and speaking can be operationalized creatively, but also address some of its boundaries. > Implications • Since not all of the aspects and problems highlighted for discussion in the original Call for Papers were answered satisfactorily, further research is nec- essary. For example, research is needed on the relationship between dualism’s distinction between object language and metalanguage on the one hand and non-dualism’s distinction between descriptions so far and descriptions from now on on the other; or on the ininite regress allegations by non-dualism against dualism. > Constructivist content • Some authors show that non-dualist thinking is anti-essentialist, in a similar way as constructivist thinking. Some also show that comparable questions arise; for example, the question of whether non-dualism denies the material world (contain- ing extralinguistic objects). > Key words • Dualism, non-dualism, constructivism, descriptions, Josef Mitterer. Introduction Non-dualism, as developed by philoso- pher Josef Mitterer, is an attempt to use and understand language in a novel way. In 2008, Mitterer’s central ideas were for the irst time internationally and interdis- ciplinarily discussed in the special issue of Constructivist Foundations entitled “he Non-dualizing Philosophy of Josef Mitter- er” (Riegler & Weber 2008). With this sec- ond special issue on non-dualist thinking, we give a further voice to scientists experi- menting with Mitterer’s ideas in areas rang- ing from historiography to PR theory, from feminism to economics. For Mitterer, dualism – our traditional way of thinking – is just an argumentation technique based on the use of dichotomic distinctions such as language and (extralin- guistic) reality or descriptions and objects (categorically diferent from their descrip- tions). hese dichotomies are introduced into our discourse whenever conlicts arise; they lead to the perennial problems of phi- losophy such as the problems of truth, refer- ence, and reality. Mitterer’s non-dualism tries to operate without these distinctions. He criticizes the dualistic “paradogma” of philosophy from within a non-dualistic argumentation that neither presupposes nor creates a beyond for regulating and directing discourse (see Mit- terer 1992). At the core of Mitterer’s philosophy, we ind his proposal: An object relates to a description of the object like a description so far to a description from now on. Every description changes the object into a new object for further descriptions. In traditional thinking, the description of an object is, for example, the indication of at least one property the object has. If phi- losophers relect on the table (what else!), the proposition “he table is wooden” is a description of the table. Dualist traditional thinking usually does not relect on the question of whether “table” itself has already been a description, and, if so, a description of what? Does an ininite regress arise here (see Weber’s paper in this issue), in analogy to the ininite regress of deinitions? Or is it rather a circle, and if so, maybe a vicious circle? We cannot get out of language when indicating the “other side” of language (or descriptions) – for example, the real thing or the not-yet described object. his is where Mitterer’s philosophy starts. And it introduces a new notation, leaving the cat- egorical distinction of object language and metalanguage behind. In non-dualism, any object is nothing other than the already executed description. his description is marked with execution marks (/…/, Mitter- er’s invention) instead of classical quotation marks (“…”). he next-to-last sentence, for example, is in Mitterer’s sense a continua- tion, a description from now on, of the al- ready given or executed description /any object/. Some of our authors experiment with this notation proposal and show some diiculties in utilizing it and in maintaining it in a consistent way. Can such seemingly counterintuitive ideas expose the culprit behind philoso- phy’s hard problems? Is Mitterer’s view – meticulously formulated in two books so far (Mitterer 1992, 2001) – the culmination of a development that saw assertions such as Nelson Goodman’s “We are conined to ways of describing whatever is described. Our universe, so to speak, consists of these ways rather than of a world or of worlds” (Goodman 1978: 3) and Humberto Mat- urana’s “Objects do not pre-exist language” (Maturana 1988: 8.ii.b)?