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| a fool or simpleton; ninny. |
| an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle. |
| monism (ˈmɒnɪzəm) | |
| —n | |
| 1. | philosophy Compare dualism materialism See also idealism the doctrine that the person consists of only a single substance, or that there is no crucial difference between mental and physical events or properties |
| 2. | philosophy Compare pluralism the doctrine that reality consists of an unchanging whole in which change is mere illusion |
| 3. | the epistemological theory that the object and datum of consciousness are identical |
| 4. | the attempt to explain anything in terms of one principle only |
| [C19: from Greek monos single + | |
| 'monist | |
| —n, —adj | |
| mo'nistic | |
| —adj | |
| mo'nistically | |
| —adv | |
A position in metaphysics that sees only one kind of principle whereas dualism sees two. On the question of whether people's minds are distinct from their bodies, for example, a monist would hold either that mental conditions are essentially physical conditions (materialism), or that bodies depend on minds for their existence (idealism).