The Unity and Duality of Burrus and Caseous

Abstract

Abstract Are there individual substances or is all being really one? The third chapter assesses the Wake’s answer to that question by examining a tale told by Professor Jones, the tale of Burrus and Caseous. Joyce there uses Roman representations of Shaun and Shem to engage with the philosophies of being of Aristotle, Nicholas of Cusa, and Giordano Bruno. The chapter shows that, while Jones favors the divisible world of Aristotle, the Wake privileges the monisms of Nicholas of Cusa and Bruno and so endorses their beliefs in the principle of the coincidence of contraries. At the same time, the chapter also demonstrates that the Wake frequently offers a version of that principle that belongs neither to Nicholas of Cusa nor to Bruno, but rather to Samuel Taylor Coleridge. This is important because the principle of the coincidence of contraries is central to the Wake.