Wannamaker Summary - Monism

Chapter Summary Of The Philosophy Of Freedom
Olin D. Wannamaker

The Finding Of Monism
1. For the unitary world view --the form of Monism presented in The Philosophy Of Freedom-- all the principles needed for an explanation of the world are to be found within the realm accessible to human observation and experience. In this same realm are to be found also the springs of human behavior. The unification which experiential thinking observation brings to the manifoldness of the realm of percepts provides satisfaction for man's need for knowledge, and gives him access to both physical and spiritual regions.

2. The single human individual seems isolated from the cosmos only because of our twofold mode of cognition; in reality, he is united with the cosmos. To intuitive thinking, our seemingly isolated personality is known to be a part of the universe.

3. The goal of human thinking has always been knowledge of reality in contrast with the mere appearance of the perceptual world. But this knowledge of reality is sought in various ways. Science seeks for reality in the law-conforming connections among percepts themselves. Those who consider such apparent connections --and also all human thinking-- as merely subjective have sought for the real ground of unity in a realm beyond the reach of human experience: in a theoretically inferred God, or Absolute Spirit, and the like. Such thinkers assume that the Creative Being has created the world according to logical principles, and that we can trace this logical development. They find the spring of human behavior also in this Primordial Being.

Both endeavors are misleading. The concepts which science thinks out as connecting many percepts are mere abstractions. But the concept which intuitive thinking reveals as supplementing the percept is not merely abstract; it is that part of reality which perception alone cannot discover. Man experiences in the perceptual world of the senses; he experiences also in the world of intuitive concepts. Both forms of experience are needed to place him within reality, neither forms of experience alone can suffice. Through intuitive thinking, the percept is merged as a member within the universe.

4. Even the most orthodox Idealist denies, not that man's real being is rooted in reality, but only that we are capable of of grasping the truth in ideas. But Monism shows that human thinking itself is an occurrence within reality, uniting the human subjective and the cosmic objective. In the experience of true thinking --not theoretical, abstract thinking-- man is living within reality while living within his own experience. He is experiencing reality in knowledge.

For Monism, the conceptual content of the world is the same for all men. All men consider one another as identical in nature for the reason that all express in themselves the same world-content. Each individual attains to a part of the same universal world of ideas. As soon as the individual sees this universal realm of ideas within himself, he knows himself to be merged within the universal reality. "Life within reality, filled with the content of ideas, is life within God." The human spirit neither reaches beyond the world in which we live nor needs to do so.

5. This truth applies to human behavior as well as human knowledge. The spring of human conduct is to be found in human intuition. Man releases an idea from the world of ideas, choosing this as the ground for his action. He acts out of his own free will in thus following in conduct his intuitive thinking.

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