DDR-ARCV / 001Doordoorium

An idea · Early Modern · first attested 1677

Substance Monism

There is only one substance. Everything is a mode of it.

Spinoza's startling thesis. Descartes had two substances (mind and matter); Spinoza argues, with geometric rigor, that there can only be one. This one substance has infinite attributes, of which we know two: thought and extension. Mind and body are not different substances but the same substance under different aspects.