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According to S??khya Philosophy prak?ti and puru?a are two ultimate realities. They have their own independent existence. This is the reason why this philosophy is known as dualistic realism. Prak?ti stands for matter and puru?a stands for self. S??khya is pluralistic because of its teaching that puru?a is not one but many. The S??khya distinction between puru?a and prak?ti is fundamentally that between the subject and the object. The subject can never be the object, and the object can never be the subject. The self and the non-self are radically different from each other. Thus, the dualistic metaphysics of S??khya is founded on the undeniably bipolar character of our everyday experience as made up of the experience and the experienced. The S??khya recognizes twenty-five principles of reality. Of these an individual soul is neither a cause nor an effect. Causation is transformation of the gunas sattva, rajas, and tamas. The soul is not composed of them, and is therefore neither a cause nor an effect. Prak?ti is the First Cause of the aggregate of all effects in the world. It is their ultimate cause, which is not the effect of any other cause. If it had any other cause, it would lead to infinite regress. Prak?ti is a cause but not an effect. It is not a modification of any other ultimate cause.