DYNAMISM. — From δυνάμεις (force, energy), dynamism (d.) is the name given to any philosophical system that, by denying the dualistic antithesis of matter-force, reduces material reality to a complex of unextended entities, essentially active, conceived either as substantial realities or as simple points of force, elements of energy. Historically, dynamism stands in opposition to mechanism, according to which the material world is a mere aggregate of extended atoms.
Apart from the hints that can be found in Pythagorean and Stoic doctrines, the principal representative of dynamism in modern philosophy is Leibniz. Leibnizian dynamism is substantialistic: the world would consist of an infinite number of force-substances, simple units, "metaphysical points" (Syst. nou., 11), monads (from Gr. μονάς, unity). Bodies are aggregates of monads; their extension is phenomenal, so that the monads composing them are not truly distant from one another. In the monads, though in different ways and degrees, the nature of the entire cosmos is repeated. Monads do not admit of extrinsic relations of action and reaction or of mutual influence; they are autonomous, closed systems, "impenetrable" (Monadol., 7); yet, by reason of the radical spirituality immanent in them, each is endowed, in its own way, with a force of appetition and a power of representation, more or less conscious, of the entire universe (Monadol., 15, 19). It is by this power of representation that in every unit of which the world is constituted, the nature of the whole is found again. The degrees of difference in the clarity and distinctness of the monadic representations are innumerable: from the lower monads, which stand almost at the base of the universe, endowed with an obscure and unconscious representation, whence matter results, one ascends gradually to the supreme monad, God, pure spirituality that represents the universe perfectly and is therefore infinitely active. Pre-established harmony, i.e., the intrinsic conformity of each monad, dependent on the supreme monad, explains the appearance of their coordination and mutual influence. The principles of Leibnizian dynamism were accepted by C. Wolff and H. Lotze.
Kant, before his critical period, accepted a realistic dynamism: bodies are constituted of monads, which are simple but fill real space with a sphere of activity, "sphaera actionis, qua externa utrimque sibi praesentes arcet ab ulteriori ad se invicem appropinquatione" (Monadologia physica, prop. VI). After the Critique of Pure Reason, having posited the unknowability of the thing-in-itself, Kant explains the phenomenal appearance of corporeal substance in time and space, without recourse to monads, as the result of a double force mutually balancing: attraction and repulsion (Metaphysische Aufgangsgründe der Naturwissenschaft).
Realistic is the dynamism of R. Boscovich: bodies result from being composed of simple, unextended elements, individuated and separated in space; attractive and repulsive forces, mutually coordinated according to special relations, explain all the specific activities of nature.
P. Carbonelle and D. Palmieri essentially followed Boscovich’s dynamism.
The ultimate and current form of dynamism, arising in modern physics as a reaction against classical mechanism, is energism, defended by W. Ostwald, E. Mach, and numerous physicists. In its absolute form, energism suppresses matter as a positive reality beyond the energies and forces manifested in the world. Indeed, Ostwald asserts, those attributes commonly called essential to matter—extension, weight, mass—are but factors of energy (L’énergie, Paris 1910, p. 163), and physics finds nothing else in matter than forces and relations of forces; it is therefore at least superfluous to posit, beyond the coordinated system of energies, matter as substance. Energism has found support in contemporary electronic theories of matter. These, however, as purely physical interpretive hypotheses, do not in any way authorize the extreme philosophical claims sometimes advanced by energism, which at times degenerates into a universal metaphysical phenomenism.
It is evident that dynamism, as a philosophical system of interpretation of matter (not to be confused with dynamism as a scientific theory: V. for this MATTER), in its various historical formulations, stands in contrast to the Aristotelian-Thomistic conception of the idemorphic composition of bodies (v. HYLEMORPHISM). Yet, as such, dynamism is merely an unproven metaphysical hypothesis, neither demonstrated by theoretical principles nor demanded by the facts. The denial of the objectivity of extension and space, which dynamism entails, represents its most serious negative aspect in opposition to the demands of realism. Moreover, inconsistent is the essential presupposition from which dynamism proceeds, namely, the insolubility of the difficulties inherent in the notion of real continuity: V. CONTINUUM.