MONISM • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Monism

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

Listen

noun

Monism n.

(Metaph.) That doctrine which refers all phenomena to a single ultimate constituent or agent; the opposite of dualism. Note: The doctrine has been held in three generic forms: matter and its phenomena have been explained as a modification of mind, involving an idealistic monism; or mind has been explained by and resolved into matter, giving a materialistic monism; or, thirdly, matter, mind, and their phenomena have been held to be manifestations or modifications of some one substance, like the substance of Spinoza, or a supposed unknown something of some evolutionists, which is capable of an objective and subjective aspect.

(Biol.) See Monogenesis, 1.

The doctrine that the universe is an organized unitary being or total self-inclusive structure. "Monism means that the whole of reality, i.e., everything that is, constitutes one inseparable and indivisible entirety. Monism accordingly is a unitary conception of the world. It always bears in mind that our words are abstracts representing parts or features of the One and All, and not separate existences. Not only are matter and mind, soul and body, abstracts, but also such scientific terms as atoms and molecules, and also religious terms such as God and world."

See images of 'Monism'

Etymology of 'Monism'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Monism" Quotes from Famous Books

... ruinous to religion and making impossible anything like perfection in politics; it has thoroughly rooted in people's minds that fatal distinction between Man as a responsible soul and Man as a member of society. Our work is to restore the old monism. Very, very slowly, mankind is working towards it. A revolution greater than any of those commonly spoken of—so wide and deep that it isn't easily taken in even by students of history—a revolution which is the only hope of civilisation, has been going on since the close ...

— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing

... biological principles. In the chapter[2] devoted to Ethics in his work, The Riddle of the Universe, his pronouncements upon morality are not scientifically derived, but simply dogmatically assumed. The underlying principle of monism is that the universe is a unity in which no distinction exists between the material and the spiritual. In this world as we know it there reigns only one kind of law, the invariable law of nature. The so-called spiritual life ...

— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... mine—that is, if I am not eternal. No, my longing is not to be submerged in the vast All, in an infinite and eternal Matter or Energy, or in God; not to be possessed by God, but to possess Him, to become myself God, yet without ceasing to be I myself, I who am now speaking to you. Tricks of monism avail us nothing; we crave the substance and ...

— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno

... and Mithra there was growing up a powerful priesthood; Franz Cumont (1) speaks of "the learned priests of the Asiatic cults" as building up, on the foundations of old fetichism and superstition, a complete religious philosophy—just as the Brahmins had built the monism of the Vedanta on the "monstrous idolatries of Hinduism." And it was likely that a similar process would evolve the new religion expected. Toutain again calls attention to the patronage accorded to all these cults by the Roman Emperors, as favoring a ...

— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter

Words linked to "Monism" : doctrine, philosophical system, philosophy, pluralism, monistic, school of thought