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Glite Dictionary
🧠 One-substance believer 🧠 Single-principle view
monist

monist

1 9.4
A person who believes everything is made of one basic thing
  • noun
  • /ˈmoʊnɪst/
  • Specialized
translation icon : monista
  • In discussions about the nature of reality, monists emphasize the unity of existence over its diversity.
  • monist material
  • monist material culture

Examples

  • Some of them were monists, as we call it, who thought everything is really one fundamental substance or one kind of stuff.

  • Many ancient philosophers were monists, arguing that everything in the universe comes from one fundamental principle.

  • I am a psychological monist and a hard atheist.

    Blog text (18)

  • Other approaches to the nature of the person—dualist and monist—will, of necessity, reach a different conclusion than the one arrived at in this paper: this conclusion calls for more studies in the philosophy of learning.

    Academic text (2015)

  • A monist believes that all things can be understood as manifestations of a single substance.

Synonyms

emanationist
vsmonist
  • Formal
9.9

A person who believes everything flows out from one source

focuses on a single underlying substance or principle rather than an originating process

Surface Forms

monist singular
monists plural

Morphology

monist = monism (transparent) = mon + ist

The noun is a regular derivation from 'monism' with the suffix '-ist', so the philosophical adherent meaning is recoverable from the base.

Etymology

Monist comes from the Greek part mono- meaning 'one' and the ending -ist meaning 'a person who believes or practices'. So a monist is someone who believes that everything is made of one single thing or follows one single principle.