Eleanor Metheny Dualism

There were many similarities and differences between the articles, The Third Dimension in Physical Education by Eleanor Metheny and How About Some Muscles by Charles McCloy. They are similar in that both authors take a dualistic approach in the philosophy of physical activity. Both authors also agree on the fact that physical education in a school’s curriculum can have a large impact on students overall quality of life. They both argue that physical education has been widely viewed as inferior to intellectual studies and that it should be given more perspective. In The Third Dimension in Physical Education, Metheny explains how educators play the role in providing opportunities to students where they could increase their involvement in physical

The reason why I believe they are dualists is because both articles agree that mind and body work collectively but they are not one whole thing, which is monism. Metaphysical, in that, it provides the answer to the question, “what is the relationship between the mind and body”, and I believe that both authors are arguing mind and body complement one another but they are not one single thing. They are two separate entities. In McCloy’s article, he lists some arguments to answer if more muscles are desirable from a book called Growth and Education by J.M. Tyler and he mentions, “Our organism is more body than mind, and it is only through the adequate functioning of all of it that the most desirable functioning of even the brain occurs.” This quote tells me that he views bodies having more influence over what a person does or says than the mind and only through joint effort, one can attain the anticipated purpose. Hence, to answer if he is a monist or dualist, he is arguably a dualist because he sees the mind and body as two individual things. Along with that, in Metheny’s article, she describes the person’s experience as he learns how to move appropriately through the guidance of physical education. She states, “He learns to discipline his body so that it will obey the biding of his mind and his emotions, and through the body movement he finds outlet for the working of his busy mind . . .”, which tells me that she also believes mind and body are two different things that work together to perform successful tasks. She assesses the position with the mind having a superior influence over the body and only through the mind, the directions of how a body should move is gained. If she was a monist, she would have claimed that mind and body are one single thing that does a task without having one thing having a greater influence over the other. Contrary to a monist view of the whole