Monism

Monism
Author: T. Weir
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2012-07-26
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781349295487

The first survey in the English language of the history of naturalistic monism in the works of Haeckel, Spinoza, and others. Contributors demonstrate that, to a greater extent than previously shown, monism provided an essential epistemological framework for numerous religious, political and cultural movements between the 1840s and 1940s.

Spinoza on Monism

Spinoza on Monism
Author: P. Goff
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2011-12-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 9780230279483

Spinoza believed that there was only one substance in reality, which he called 'God or nature'. A number of leading contemporary philosophers have defended monism, this strange and beautiful idea that the cosmos is the source of all being. This book explores both the historical roots of the monism in Spinoza, and its flowering in the 21st century.

Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect

Aristotle and Plotinus on the Intellect
Author: Mark J. Nyvlt
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 279
Release: 2012
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0739167758

This book emphasizes that Aristotle was aware of the philosophical attempt to subordinate divine Intellect to a prior and absolute principle. Nyvlt argues that Aristotle transforms the Platonic doctrine of Ideal Numbers into an astronomical account of the unmoved movers, which function as the multiple intelligible content of divine Intellect. Thus, within Aristotle we have in germ the Plotinian doctrine that the intelligibles are within the Intellect. While the content of divine Intellect is multiple, it does not imply that divine Intellect possesses a degree of potentiality, given that potentiality entails otherness and contraries. Rather, the very content of divine Intellect is itself; it is Thought Thinking Itself. The pure activity of divine Intellect, moreover, allows for divine Intellect to know the world, and the acquisition of this knowledge does not infect divine Intellect with potentiality. The status of the intelligible object(s) within divine Intellect is pure activity that is identical with divine Intellect itself, as T. De Koninck and H. Seidl have argued. Therefore, the intelligible objects within divine Intellect are not separate entities that determine divine Intellect, as is the case in Plotinus.-- Book Description from Website.

The Realistic Empiricism of Mach, James, and Russell

The Realistic Empiricism of Mach, James, and Russell
Author: Erik C. Banks
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2016-09-15
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9781107423763

In the early twentieth century, Ernst Mach, William James, and Bertrand Russell founded a philosophical and scientific movement known as 'neutral monism', based on the view that minds and physical objects are constructed out of elements or events which are neither mental nor physical, but neutral between the two. This movement offers a unified scientific outlook which includes sensations in human experience and events in the world of physics under one roof. In this book Erik C. Banks discusses this important movement as a whole for the first time. He explores the ways in which the three philosophers can be connected, and applies their ideas to contemporary problems in the philosophy of mind and the philosophy of science - in particular the relation of sensations to brain processes, and the problem of constructing extended bodies in space and time from particular events and causal relations.

Consciousness in the Physical World

Consciousness in the Physical World
Author: Torin Andrew Alter
Publisher: Philosophy of Mind
Total Pages: 473
Release: 2015
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0199927359

According to Russellian monism, an alternative to the familiar theories in the philosophy of mind that combines attractive components of physicalism and dualism, matter has intrinsic properties that both constitute consciousness and serve as categorical bases for the dispositional properties described in physics. Consciousness in the Physical World collects various works on Russellian monism, including historical selections, recent classics, and new pieces. Most chapters are sympathetic with the view, but some are skeptical. Together, they constitute the first book-length treatment of the view itself, its relationship to other theories, its motivations, and its problems.

Legal Monism

Legal Monism
Author: Paul Gragl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 441
Release: 2018-03-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0192516078

In response to a climate in which respect for international law and the law of the European Union is rapidly losing ground, Paul Gragl advocates for the revival of legal monism as a solution to potentially irresolvable normative conflicts between different bodies of law. In this first comprehensive monograph on the theory as envisaged by the Pure Theory of Law of the Vienna School of Jurisprudence, the author defends legal monism against the competing theories of dualism and pluralism. Drawing on philosophical, epistemological, legal, moral, and political arguments, this book argues that only monism under the primacy of international law takes the law and the concept of legal validity seriously. On a practical level, it offers policy-makers and decision-makers methods of dealing with current problems and a means to restore respect for international law and peaceful international relations. While having the potential to revive and elicit further interest and research in monism and the Pure Theory of Law, the comprehensiveness and scope of the book also make it a choice text for inter-disciplinary scholars.

Monism

Monism
Author: Andreas Bächli
Publisher: Virago Press
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2003
Genre: Monism
ISBN:

As the editors are quick to point out, monism is not a particular theory or even a unique school of thought. However, monistic intuitions or doctrines are grounded in many different ways of philosophizing. For instance, one may argue that there is ultimately only one thing, or one kind of thing, or that there is only one set of true beliefs, one truth, one type of action, one sort of meaning, one way of analyzing, explaining and understanding; or, alternatively, one may pursue the project of the unity of knowledge or even that of the unity of science. Taken in this broad sense, monism is often opposed to varieties of pluralism or numerous versions of dualism, since so much philosophical debate has focused on the question whether there are two different kinds of thing, mind, and malter, or only one. This volume aims to discuss some of these aspects historically and systematically. In doing so, it sheds light on larger issues of unity and diversity, integration and polarity, fusion and separation. Since pluralism and multiculturalism are clearly on the intellectual agenda, this is a welcome, much-needed contribution to concept clarification. The editors have wisely chosen to present issues related to monism as an ongoing aspect in the history of philosophy. There are sprightly contributions that arc noteworthy for literary grace as well as epistemological insight. Included are essays on monism in pre-Socratic philosophy. Democritus on the distinction between universals and particulars. Parmenides and Hegel on monism, monism and dualism in Nietzsche's "Birth of Tragedy, the unity of truth, mindless monism, minimalist monism, and a deft essay on why it is hard to be a monist, if one wantsto be a phenomenlogist.

Legal Monism

Legal Monism
Author: Paul Gragl
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 417
Release: 2018
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198796269

In this first full-length study of legal monism, Paul Gragl advocates for the revival of legal monism as a solution to normative conflicts between different bodies of law. Using comprehensive and inter-disciplinary arguments, this book defends the theory against dualism and pluralism.

Consciousness and Fundamental Reality

Consciousness and Fundamental Reality
Author: Philip Goff
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2017-07-21
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0190677023

A core philosophical project is the attempt to uncover the fundamental nature of reality, the limited set of facts upon which all other facts depend. Perhaps the most popular theory of fundamental reality in contemporary analytic philosophy is physicalism, the view that the world is fundamentally physical in nature. The first half of this book argues that physicalist views cannot account for the evident reality of conscious experience, and hence that physicalism cannot be true. Unusually for an opponent of physicalism, Goff argues that there are big problems with the most well-known arguments against physicalismChalmers' zombie conceivability argument and Jackson's knowledge argumentand proposes significant modifications. The second half of the book explores and defends a recently rediscovered theory of fundamental realityor perhaps rather a grouping of such theoriesknown as 'Russellian monism.' Russellian monists draw inspiration from a couple of theses defended by Bertrand Russell in The Analysis of Matter in 1927. Russell argued that physics, for all its virtues, gives us a radically incomplete picture of the world. It tells us only about the extrinsic, mathematical features of material entities, and leaves us in the dark about their intrinsic nature, about how they are in and of themselves. Following Russell, Russellian monists suppose that it is this 'hidden' intrinsic nature of matter that explains human and animal consciousness. Some Russellian monists adopt panpsychism, the view that the intrinsic natures of basic material entities involve consciousness; others hold that basic material entities are proto-conscious rather than conscious. Throughout the second half of the book various forms of Russellian monism are surveyed, and the key challenges facing it are discussed. The penultimate chapter defends a cosmopsychist form of Russellian monism, according to which all facts are grounded in facts about the conscious universe.