“Pluralism” signifies any metaphysical theory which affirms that reality consists of a great number of distinct, fundamental essences. Pluralism differs from both monism, the opinion that one kind of thing exists, and dualism, the opinion that two kinds of things exist.
The history of pluralism starts from “common sense”. The common sense of people impartial to philosophical prejudice is pluralistic. That means that a disinterested notion of nature and society assimilates the world as an agglomeration of diversity and uniqueness of individual essences. The mental activity does not end at this fundamental cognition and looks for methods to make sure the acquisition of main needs from chance adversities. Preventing undesirable events requires ability for predicting the future course of various processes. This ability is developed by distinguishing regularities in the world’s diversity of things.
Leibniz was one of the first philosophers who while being a rationalist strongly favored pluralism. The model of Leibniz’s world is monadology. The world is made of an endless family of mind like essences called monads. The monads are individually determined and have free will, but the basic state of each monad draw in everything that may some day happen to it. Leibniz strongly adhered to rationalism and used ’contradictions’ and ‘sufficient cause’ as the fundamental principles of his logic. His pluralism finished up with his own kind of determinism spreading to all the changes of monads, which is completed in his doctrine of pre-established harmony.
The growth of pluralism has been seen in the 20th century. The analytic philosophy which was pluralistic in the method of approach has become less and less a philosophy and it is more like linguistic theory. In contrast, scientists and philosophers of Science as David Bohm or Ilya Prigogine have been more related to philosophical thought and pluralism.
But the philosophy of the 20th century has not been pluralism at all. One of the main trends of the philosophy of the 20th century is existentialism that is monistic in its essence. Existentialism is a lot referred to monism than pluralism. Kirkegaard and Jaspers, Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, the existentialists, with their stress on “being”, more look like Parminedes looking for a plenum and Aristotle looking for a single world than illustrating a pluralistic point of view. But their monism is more filled with a pantheistic pluralism than with a Platonic hierarchical monism.
Bertrand Russell described the search of a pluralistic system when he wrote: “To frame a philosophy capable of coping with men intoxicated with the prospect of most unlimited power and also with the apathy of the powerless is the most pressing task of our time” (Bertrand Russell, “The History of Western Philosophy”, 1945, p. 729.).
Nevertheless none of depicted attempts were completely “successful” in defining a pluralistic system. Whether we name it cybernetic or old system, it looks like the search for a pluralistic system is unavailing. It is possible that a “pluralistic system” is a contradiction in its essence and pluralism can be called to be in a loose way.
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