Any resolving of things into two irreducibly contrastive classes in any domain of thought or reality is a form of dualism. Western philosophy is full of dualisms, though internal “revolts” against some of them are not unknown. Among the most important dualisms are those that diametrically oppose the material to the spiritual and the natural to the supernatural. These, moreover, are the dualisms of especial interest to African philosophy, for they have hitherto been freely attributed in expositions of traditional philosophical thought in Africa.
Yet, in each case, there are good reasons for doubting their applicability. Take the material/spiritual dichotomy. This is a distinction of substances and its most influential exposition is in Descartes. There are supposed to be two types of substances irreducibly antithetic in character. Material substance is, by definition, that which is extended and spiritual substance is that which is not extended. Being purely negative, the informative...
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Wiredu, K. (2021). Dualism. In: Mudimbe, V.Y., Kavwahirehi, K. (eds) Encyclopedia of African Religions and Philosophy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-024-2068-5_111
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