Concept in Definition ABC

The term monism acquires its true meaning in the realm of philosophy, specifically in the metaphysics. A philosopher is monistic when he affirms that the essence of reality is based on a single original principle. On the contrary, a philosopher will be dualistic if he affirms that there is more than one explanatory principle to refer to reality.

In any of the versions of him, in all monism it is said that behind the appearance from plurality in the whole of the universe there is a common substance. This common substance is what allows us to explain what all things that exist are made of.

Monism is a vision of reality that presents some variants

Ontological monism is that approach metaphysical in which it is stated that everything there is (reality as a whole) is made up of a single original element. This element, of course, can acquire all kinds of forms and ways of being structured.

The materialist maintains that any reality is reducible to a concrete thing. A scientist can be monistic if he claims that everything boils down to atoms. Atoms are organized in different ways, but everything is made up of atoms.

The spiritualist is a fairly common approach in some philosophical doctrines. According to him, everything that exists in reality is a product of the human mind. Consequently, there is only one reality, but it is of a spiritual nature.

The anthropological refers to those philosophical doctrines that affirm that human beings can be explained from a single entity or substance, whether material or spiritual.

Platonic philosophy is dualistic and is opposed to the monistic doctrines of the philosophers pre-Socratics who defended the thesis of a single original substance to explain nature as a whole

To refer to the human being, Plato argued that man is a combination of soul and body. The body is mortal matter and the soul is an immaterial and immortal principle. According to Plato, true knowledge should focus on the spiritual part of the human being and not on its dimension bodily. This dualistic conception had a great influence on medieval Christian philosophers, who also defended the separation between soul and body to explain man.

The debate between monism and dualism has traversed the entire history of Western philosophy and has been projected onto theology, the right and the psychology.

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