Vols. 2 and 5 include appendices.

The first survey in the English language of the history of naturalistic monism in the works of Haeckel, Spinoza, and others. Contributors demonstrate that, to a greater extent than previously shown, monism provided an essential epistemological framework for numerous religious, political and cultural movements between the 1840s and 1940s.

Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914), bekannt als Logiker, Philosoph, Mathematiker und Physiker, zählt zu den wichtigsten Denkern der modernen Wissenschaftsgeschichte. In der späten und wichtigsten Phase seines Schaffens (1891-1909) hat er programmatische Aufsätze sowie ausgewählte Vorlesungen explizit als eine Reihe für die Zeitschrift "The Monist" konzipiert, Beiträge, von denen bislang nur Ausschnitte und stark revidierte Fassungen veröffentlicht worden sind. Die erstmalige und vollständige Veröffentlichung der "Monist"-Texte in diesem Band beabsichtigt eine zeitgemäße Annäherung an das höchst heterogene Werk von Peirce. Sie ist der Versuch, Peirces Gedanken der internationalen wissenschaftlichen Öffentlichkeit originalgetreu zu präsentieren. Zentrales Ziel der "Monist"-Reihe bildet die Begründung einer Methode der Semiotik. Die Abhandlungen präsentieren Erklärungen zu Universalgesetzmäßigkeiten wie Gefühle, Wille und Kognition, zu Differenzen zwischen auf Erfahrung basiertem und imaginiertem Wissen, aber auch zur Definition der Aufmerksamkeit als einer symbolischen Tätigkeit. Neben ihrer wissenschaftlichen Relevanz in der philosophischen, bildwissenschaftlichen und kulturwissenschaftlichen Forschung, in der Kognitionswissenschaft und Logik besitzen die von Peirce diskutierten Themen auch eine hohe Aktualität für die zeitgenössischen Naturwissenschaften.

The "father of Russian Marxism", George Plekhanov (1857-1918) directed most of his writings against the Russian "populist" movement to which he once belonged. He insisted that although, in principle, in semi-feudal societies such as the Russian, the first revolution would of necessity have to be a "capitalist" one. However, he noted that bourgeoisie was too weak to bring it about and thus it fell upon the proletariat to conduct "both" revolutions. However, he condemned the methods of Lenin and the Bolsheviks soon after 1917. In books such as Socialism and the Political Struggle (1883), Our Differences (1884) and On the Development of the Monist View of History (1895), Plekhanov argued that a successful Marxist revolution could only take place after the development of capitalism. According to Plekhanov, it was the industrial proletariat who would bring about a socialist revolution. Plekhanov was strongly opposed to the political views of people who argued that it would be possible for a small group of dedicated revolutionaries to seize power from the Tsar. Plekhanov warned that if this happened, you would replace one authoritarian regime with another and that a "socialist caste" would take control who would impose a system of "patriarchal authoritarian communism.

"The central aim of The Parmenidean Ascent is to reveal the power of an extreme monism of a Parmenidean variety in a more uncompromising manner than has been attempted for many a year. For the Parmenidean monist, there are no distinctions whatsoever, and indeed distinctions are unintelligible. The book not only defends-against the tide of much recent scholarship-the attribution of such a sweeping monism to Parmenides, it also embraces this monism in its own right and expands these monistic results to many of the most crucial areas of philosophy. The topics that come in for this rationalistic, monistic, treatment include being, action, knowledge, meaning, truth, and metaphysical explanation. There is thus no differentiated being, no differentiated action, knowledge, etc. Rather all is being, just as all is action, knowledge, etc. The motive force behind this argument is a combination of a detailed survey of the failures of leading positions (both historical and contemporary) to meet a demand for the explanation of a given phenomenon, and a powerful rationalist, Bradleyan argument against the reality of relations. The result is a rationalist rejection of all distinctions and a skeptical denial of the intelligibility of ordinary, relational notions of being, action, knowledge, etc. A further significant upshot is the rejection of any distinction between philosophy itself and the study of its history. Throughout the book, attention is paid to philosophical methods systems, including especially the method, so popular today, of relying on intuitions and common sense. The historically-minded and rationalist approach throughout this book goes a long way toward demonstrating the ultimate bankruptcy of this prevalent methodology"--