The New Student's Reference Work/Monism

Mon′ism. The philosophic view that regards all substances as derived from one fundamental substance is known as monism. Materialism holds that substance to be physical, mind being regarded as a special sort of matter. Idealism considers all existence, material as well as psychical, as ultimately reducible to mind. The natural assumption that mind and matter are independent substances is dualism. Monism, however, is more satisfactory as a logical system, since dualism usually involves the contradictory assumption that independent realities may yet influence or be dependent upon each other. Pluralism holds that existence consists of a number of independent substances. It, too, is compelled to face the contradiction between the independence of these substances and the fact of experience that interaction seems universal. Analysis in revealing the law of interaction among things seems to have discovered a monistic principle or law superior to the things that it governs or connects. This would make monism inevitable. Even the agnostics, who declare that the supreme reality is unknowable, usually assume that it is unitary, thus becoming monists by implication. Consult Paulsen's Introduction to Philosophy.