Monism - Religious Systems, Philosophical Systems, Bibliography
principle multiplicity appearance doctrines
Monism is the doctrine that there is only one principle in terms of which all reality is to be explained. Doctrines differ as to the nature and activity of this principle and its relations to the appearance and experience of multiplicity. Monists explain multiplicity or plurality in the world either as derivative from the one principle or as an illusion. Monism is found in philosophical, religious, and cosmological doctrines. The concept itself is ancient, though the first appearance of the term monism in Western philosophy is in Christian von Wolff's Logic (1728).
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Religious monism has two forms: atheism and pantheism. Both deny that there is a transcendent deity. Pantheism posits a deity that is immanent to the world and on which the world completely depends. Atheism states that there is no deity at all. Critics of pantheism sometimes conflate it with atheism, on the grounds that a true God must be transcendent. Among the most ancient forms of pantheism is …
In philosophical systems, three forms of metaphysical monism can be identified: materialism, idealism, and neutral monism (in which the first principle is neither matter nor mind). Another famous monist was Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677). In his Ethics (1677), Spinoza argues that there is at most and at least only one substance, God. His study of René Descartes (1596–1650) and the n…
Bakar, Osman. The History and Philosophy of Islamic Science. Cambridge, U.K.: Islamic Texts Society, 1999. Block, Ned, Güven Güzeldere, and Owen Flanagan, eds. The Nature of Consciousness: Philosophical Debates. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997. Chittick, William C. The Self-Disclosure of God: Principles of Ibn al-'Arabi's Cosmology. Albany: State University of New York Pr…
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