Sticky: Monism Overview

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Monism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



Monism is the metaphysical and theological view that all is of one essential essence, principle, substance or energy.
Monism is to be distinguished from dualism, which holds that ultimately there are two kinds of substance, and from pluralism, which holds that ultimately there are many kinds of substance.
Monism is often seen in relation to pantheism, panentheism, and an immanent God. The concepts of absolutism, the monad, and the "Universal substrate" are closely related as well.
Theological growth and breadth

Hinduism (including Vedanta and Yoga), Taoism, Buddhism, Pantheism, Zen, and similar systems of thought explore the mystical and spiritual elements of a monistic philosophy. With increasing awareness of these systems of thought, western spiritual and philosophical climate has seen a growing understanding of monism. Moreover, the New Thought Movement has embraced many monistic concepts for over 100 years.

Philosophical monism

Monism is often seen as partitioned into three basic types:

1. Substantial Monism, (One thing) which holds that there is one substance.
2. Attributive Monism, (One category) which holds that while there is only one kind of thing, there are many different individual things or beings in this category.
3. Absolute Monism, which holds that there is only one substance and only one being. Absolute Monism, therefore can only be of the idealistic type. (see below)

Monism is further defined according to three kinds:

1. Idealism or phenomenalism, which holds that only mind is real.
2. Neutral monism, which holds that both the mental and the physical can be reduced to some sort of third substance, or energy.
3. Physicalism or materialism, which holds that only the physical is real, and that the mental can be reduced to the physical.

 

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Certain other positions are hard to pigeonhole into the above categories, including:

1. Functionalism, like materialism, holds that the mental can ultimately be reduced to the physical, but also holds that all critical aspects of the mind are also reducible to some substrate-neutral "functional" level. Thus something need not be made out of neurons to have mental states. This is a popular stance in cognitive science and artificial intelligence.
2. Eliminativism, which holds that talk of the mental will eventually be proved as unscientific and completely discarded. Just as we no longer follow the ancient Greeks in saying that all matter is composed of earth, air, water, and fire, people of the future will no longer speak of "beliefs", "desires", and other mental states. A subcategory of eliminativism is radical behaviourism, a view held by B. F. Skinner.
3. anomalous monism, a position proposed by Donald Davidson in the 1970s as a way to resolve the mind-body problem. It could be considered (by the above definitions) either physicalism or neutral monism. Davidson holds that there is only physical matter, but that all mental objects and events are perfectly real and are identical with (some) physical matter. But physicalism retains a certain priority, inasmuch as (1) All mental things are physical, but not all physical things are mental, and (2) (As John Haugeland puts it) Once you take away all the atoms, there's nothing left. This monism was widely considered an advance over previous identity theories of mind and body, because it does not entail that one must be able to provide an actual method for redescribing any particular kind of mental entity in purely physical terms. Indeed there may be no such method. This is a case of nonreductive physicalism, or perhaps emergent physicalism/materialism.
4. Reflexive monism, a position developed by Max Velmans in 2000, as a method of resolving the difficulties associated with both dualist and reductionist agendas concerning consciousness, by viewing physical phenomena-as-perceived as being part of the contents of consciousness.

Monism in religion

Hinduism

Hinduism is monistic, as far back as the Rig Veda, in which hymnists speak of one being-non-being that 'breathed without breath,' and which singular force self-projected into the cosmic existence. Nevertheless, the first system in Hinduism that clearly, unequivocably explicated absolute monism was that of Advaita (or nondualist) Vedanta (see Advaita Vedanta) as expounded by Adi Shankaracharya. It is part of the six Hindu systems of philosophy, based on the Upanishads, and posits that the ultimate monad is a formless, ineffable Divine Ground called Brahman. Such monistic thought also extends to other Hindu systems like Yoga and non-dualist Tantra.
Another type of monism, qualified monism, from the school of Ramanuja or Vishishtadvaita, admits that the universe is part of God, or Narayana, a type of either pantheism or panentheism, but sees a plurality of souls and substances within this supreme Being. This type of monism, monistic theism, which includes the concept of a personal God as a universal, omnipotent Supreme Being who is both Immanent and Transcendent, is prevalent in Hinduism. (Monistic theism is not to be confused with absolute monotheism where God is viewed as transcendent only. In absolute monotheism, the notion of Immanence divinity (essence of God) present in all things is absent.)