ABSTRACT
Philosophy.—In metaphysics, the monist view holds that everything that exists can be reduced, derived, or explained in terms of a single thing or a single kind of thing (→REDUCTIONISM). The existence of the mind constitutes one of the major challenges to monism (→MIND): it must be conceded that mental phenomena do not “look like” any known physical entities or properties, and what is more, they are difficult to reduce or even explain in physical terms. For dualists, this dilemma is resolved precisely by relying on appearances: body and mind are fundamentally different things and each is equally fundamental. The strongest form of dualism, as with René Descartes’s substance dualism, states that mind and body have independent existences: there can be bodies without minds, but also minds without bodies.
