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I have often heard the two terms, "monism" and "dualism", used; indeed I have used the terms myself, and have always assumed I understood pretty well what they mean. But lately I'm not so sure...

My understanding of it is, A monist believes in the underlying unity of reality; and A dualist believes in two separate components of reality, to wit "physical" reality and "spiritual" reality. I think that's fairly close to the meanings of the terms as I have heard them used; and I reflexively favor "monism" when it is presented to me thus. My instinct is that "monism" is the ideal counterargument to "solipsism", a pernicious idea I have been battling against ever since adolescence.

I am interested, however, to get a more detailed, nuanced understanding of these ideas -- to discover how people have argued for and against them, and what contexts the arguments have occurred within.