MONISM (from Gr. 6vos, alone)

This article appears in Volume V18, Page 722 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: MOL-MOS

MONISM (from Gr. 6vos, alone) , the philosophic view of the world which holds that there is but one form of reality, whether that be material or spiritual. The aim of knowledge is explanation, and the dualism or pluralism which acquiesces in recognizing two or more wholly disparate forms of reality has in so far renounced explanation (see DUALISM). To this extent

monism

MONISM (from Gr. µ6vos, alone)

is justified; but it becomes mischievous if it prompts us to ignore important differences in facts as they present them-selves to our intelligence. All forms of

monism

MONISM (from Gr. µ6vos, alone)

from Plotinus downwards tend to ignore personal individuality and volition, and merge all finite existence in the featureless unity of the Absolute; this, indeed, is what inspires the passion of the protest against monism. Turning to the historical forms of the theory we may class Plotinus as a mystical monist: he attains to the One which is the All by an act of mystic

union

raising him above the phenomenal sphere. Spinoza is a materialistic monist with an inconsistent

touch

TOUCH (derived through Fr. toucher from a common Teutonic and Indo-Germanic root, cf. " tug," " tuck," O. H. Ger. zucchen, to twitch or draw)

mysticism

MYSTICISM (from Or. µuety, to shut the eyes; µuorrts, one initiated into the mysteries)

and a certain concession, more apparent than real, to the spiritual side of experience.

Hegel

HEGEL, GEORG WILHELM
FRIEDRICH
- FRIEDRICH, JOHANN (1836— )
(1770-1831)

's is an intellectualist monism, explaining matter, sensation, personal individuality and will as forms of thought. The

doctrine

DOCTRINE

of Schopenhauer and von Hartmann is a monism of

cosmic

COSMIC (from Gr. Kovµos, order or universe)

will which submerges the individual no less completely than Hegelianism, though in a different manner. Haeckel's monism is mere materialism dignified by a higher title. Those who maintain that all these forms of

synthesis

SYNTHESIS (Gr. a6vOeacs, from avvrcBivac, to put together)

are hasty and superficial stand by the conviction that the right philosophic attitude is to accept provisionally the main distinctions of common sense, above all the distinction of personal and impersonal; but to

press

PRESS (through Fr. presse from Lat. pressare, frequentative of premere, to crush, squeeze, press)

forward to the under-lying unity so far as experience and reflection justify.
SeeABSOLUTE; DUALISM; METAPHYSICS; MATERIALISM; IDEALISM.

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