Monism, Naturalism and Nominalism

“Realism and Nominalism”

For much of the High Middle Ages, the conflict between Plato and Aristotle took the form of lengthy debates over the nature of universals. Philosophers of a Platonic bent came to be known as “Realists” because they argued that universals had a real existence apart from the specific objects in which they dwelled. For example, we observe birds of many different shapes, sizes, and colors, but stil...

heidegger.ontological attitude and naturalism

Tathāgatagarbha, Emptiness, and Monism

The tathāgatagarbha doctrine is one of the most significant Buddhist doctrines to have come under the scrutiny of scholars in recent times. One of the more interesting aspects of this doctrine is that it focuses attention on the nature of the Buddhist “absolute” or highest truth in such a way as to make clear many of the problems and concerns of the Buddhist community after the advent of the do...

Monism and Material Constitution

Are the sculpture and the mass of gold which permanently makes it up one object or two? In this paper, we argue that the monist, who answers ‘one object’, cannot accommodate the asymmetry of material constitution. To say ‘the mass of gold materially constitutes the sculpture, whereas the sculpture does not materially constitute the mass of gold’, the monist must treat ‘materially constitutes’ a...

Justifying and Exploring Realistic Monism

The foundations of mathematics and physics no longer start with fundamental entities and their properties like spatial extension, points, lines or the billiard ball like particles of Newtonian physics. Mathematics has abolished these from its foundations in set theory by making all assumptions explicit and structural. Particle physics has become completely mathematical, connecting to physical r...