Editing Neutral monism (section)

==Relations to other theories==
[[File:Dualism-vs-Monism.png|thumb|right|A diagram showing the relationship between neutral monism and three other philosophical theories. Elements within the solid lines are fundamental, whereas elements within the dotted lines are non-fundamental.|292x292px]]
Since neutral monism provides a potential solution to theoretical problems in the philosophy of mind, it helps to situate neutral monism against its competitors (that is, alternative solutions offered to the same problems). These competing frameworks can be identified by the relationship they draw between mind and matter, and which of the two they take to be more fundamental.

Note that their 'fundamental' is here being used as a technical term. An entity is fundamental if and only if it is irreducible to any other entities. For example, a birthday cake is not fundamental because it can be reduced to its ingredients; a lego-house is not fundamental because it can be reduced to its constituent lego pieces; and a corporation is not fundamental because it can be reduced to its various buildings, employees, and so forth. In contrast, the [[fundamental interaction]]s of physics are fundamental because they cannot be reduced to any lower-level physical interactions.

Similarly, what is at stake within the philosophy of mind is whether reality has mental properties (such as conscious experience) as fundamental properties. Physicalists would deny this, and insist that consciousness and all mental properties are derivable from some lower-level physical properties (similar to how the properties of water are derivable from H<sub>2</sub>O). Idealists, in contrast, believe reality is fundamentally mental, and that physical things are nothing more than mind-dependant perceptions. Dualists play both side of the aisle as they believe that reality consists of both fundamentally mental and fundamentally physical elements, each irreducible to the other. Then there are panpsychists, who believe that everything is both mental and physical (consciousness is what reality looks like 'from the inside' and the physical world is what reality looks like 'from the outside'). Neutral monists break this mold by claiming that the fundamental elements of reality are neither physical nor mental.<ref>{{Citation|last=Stubenberg|first=Leopold|title=Neutral Monism|date=2018|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/neutral-monism/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Fall 2018|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-12-19}}</ref>

===Dualism===
{{Main|Dualism (philosophy of mind)}}
Neutral monism is similar to [[Mind–body dualism|dualism]] in that both take reality to have both mental and physical properties irreducible to one another. Unlike dualism however, neutral monism does not take these properties to be fundamental or separate from one another from any meaningful sense.<ref name=":1">{{Citation|last=Irvine|first=Andrew David|title=Bertrand Russell|date=2020|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2020/entries/russell/|encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|editor-last=Zalta|editor-first=Edward N.|edition=Summer 2020|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University|access-date=2020-08-30}}</ref> Dualism is the view that reality is, broadly speaking, made up of two distinct substances or properties: physical substances/properties and mental substances/properties. Neutral monism, in contrast, takes both mind and matter to supervene on a neutral third substance, which is neither mental nor physical. According to [[Baruch Spinoza]], the mind and the body are dual aspects of Nature or God, which he identified as the only real substance.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Vacariu|first=Gabriel|title=Illusions of Human Thinking: On Concepts of Mind, Reality, and Universe in Psychology, Neuroscience, and Physics|publisher=Springer|year=2015|isbn=978-3-658-10443-6|location=Wiesbaden|pages=626}}</ref>

While schematic differences and neutral monism are quite stark, contemporary conceptions of the theories overlap in certain key areas. For instance, Chalmers (1996) maintains that the difference between neutral monism and his preferred [[property dualism]] can, at times, be mostly semantic.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Chalmers, David John, 1966-|url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/33101543|title=The conscious mind : in search of a fundamental theory|date=1996|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=0-19-510553-2|location=New York|oclc=33101543}}</ref>

=== Panpsychism ===
{{Main|Panpsychism}}
Panpsychism is a class of theories that believe that all physical things are conscious. [[John Searle]] distinguished it from neutral monism as well as property dualism, which he identified as a form of dualism.<ref>{{Cite book|last1=Lavazza|first1=Andrea|title=Contemporary Dualism: A Defense|last2=Robinson|first2=Howard|publisher=Routledge|year=2014|isbn=978-0-415-81882-7|location=Oxon|pages=226}}</ref> However, some neutral monist theories are panpsychist and some panpsychist theories are neutral monist. However, the two do not always overlap. For instance, Russellian monism is not panpsychism in response to the [[combination problem]]. Conversely, some versions of [[property dualism]] are panpsychist, but not neutral monistic.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Turner |first1=Cody |title=Russellian Monism: First Blog Post |url=http://upperclassmonroe.blogs.wm.edu/2015/06/25/russellian-monism-first-blog-post/ |website=upperclassmonroeblogs |date=25 June 2015 |access-date=June 25, 2015}}</ref>