A comprehensive model adding dimensions of time and necessity. Axis 1: Materialism-Idealism. Axis 2: Monism-Pluralism. Axis 3: Realism-Antirealism. Axis 4: Atomism-Holism. Axis 5: Eternal-Temporal (reality is timeless vs. fundamentally temporal/process). Axis 6: Necessary-Contingent (reality must be this way vs. could have been otherwise). These six axes generate sixty-four metaphysical positions. Process philosophy is often idealist or neutral, pluralist (many processes), realist, holist (processes are wholes), temporal, contingent. Classical theism is idealist, monist (one God), realist, holist, eternal, necessary (God couldn't not exist). The 6 Axes reveal that debates about time and necessity are inseparable from debates about substance and structure.
The 6 Axes of the Spectrum of Metaphysics "You want to know if the universe had to exist. The 6 Axes ask: necessary in what framework? A necessary material universe is very different from a necessary ideal universe. And is necessity eternal (outside time) or temporal (always was)? The axes don't give one answer—they show that 'necessary' means different things in different metaphysical systems."
by Dumu The Void February 25, 2026
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