Monad (Greek philosophy)

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Monad (from Greek μονάς monas, "unit"; monos, "alone"), according to the Pythagoreans, was a term for God or the first being, or the totality of all beings. Monad being the source or the One meaning without division.

For the Pythagoreans, the generation of number series was related to objects of geometry as well as cosmogony. According to Diogenes Laertius, from the monad evolved the dyad; from it numbers; from numbers, points; then lines, two-dimensional entities, three-dimensional entities, bodies, culminating in the four elements earth, water, fire and air, from which the rest of our world is built up.

The term monad was later adopted from Greek philosophy by Giordano Bruno, Leibniz, and others.

See also

• Monism
• Dyad
• Triad
• Tetrad
• Pentad
• Decad
• Solar symbol
• Monad
• Circle with a point at its centre
• Tao

References

Sources

• Hemenway, Priya. Divine Proportion: Phi In Art, Nature, and Science. Sterling Publishing Company Inc., 2005, p. 56. ISBN 1-4027-3522-7
• Sandywell, Barry. Presocratic Reflexivity: The Construction of Philosophical Discourse C. 600-450 BC. Routledge, 1996.

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