p Let us briefly mention a few of the major representatives of pluralism’in bourgeois philosophy in the imperialist phase of the development of capitalism.
p Philosophical pluralism in its two basic aspects— ontological and gnoseological—sprang up at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century in the form of American pragmatic philosophy. In its essence pragmatism is a subjective idealistic philosophical trend. William James (1842-1910), one of the founders of pragmatism, attempted, through his pluralistic conceptions, as far as possible to round off the rough edges of subjective idealism, and formally to rise ‘above’ materialism and idealism.
p The pluralistic conceptions of James are most thoroughly developed in his book A Pluralistic Universe. Although James claims to be an adherent of empiricism, which he counterposes to ’speculative metaphysics’ his method of investigation is mechanistic and metaphysical. It is this limited method that faces James with the dilemma: he must choose between the general, totality, ’the absolute’, the integrated, i.e. monism, and the single, the diverse, the individual, i.e. ‘pluralism’. James is unable to understand the dialectical link between the general and the individual, between unity and diversity, etc. That is why tie finds himself compelled to reject the totality, i.e. monism in the world, in order to accept and uphold the unitary and individual things and processes, i.e. ‘pluralism’.
p The style and terminology of James are not very familiar to the contemporary reader, but nevertheless, let us take a quotation: ’While the philosophy of the 27 absolute agrees that substance attains its complete divinity only in the form of totality, . . . the pluralistic view, to which I give precedence, is inclined to accept. . . that the substance of reality can never be perceived as a complete unity. . . and that a distributive form of reality—the unitary form, is also logically admissible and empirically acceptable’. (126, S. 17-18).
p If we set aside the question of divinity, which James recognizes, the author here seems to be warring only against the extreme philosophy of the absolute, against the concept of the substance of reality as ’complete, absolute unity’. And the pluralistic view is represented only as a view for which James displays an ’ inclination’. This, however, only seems to be so.
p A strict logical analysis of the views of James leads to the following conclusions. Firstly, that the monistic view of the world is presented and stigmatized as a ’philosophy of the absolute’. Materialistic monism is placed here in the same boat as absolute idealism. Secondly, the objective existence of real things and processes is denied and is reduced to the level of the ’logically permissible’ and the ’empirically admissible’, i.e. it is questioned.
p On this basis James carries on his further pluralistic operations in the following way: Everything which is polarized in the process of cognition and in the practical activity as object and subject is proclaimed by James to be a ’neutral substance’, which is neither material nor ideal. This ’neutral substance’, the object of experience and practice, which is in fact the sum total of things, phenomena and processes in the entire objective reality and the subjective experiences of every man, constitutes for James ‘plurality’ and diversity. By their ‘neutrality’, according to the author, both idealism and materialism are rejected. It is on this anti-scientific, subjective basis that James proposes a purely practical deal: in view of the advantages offered, we should look for reality where it promises most favourable results: among the individual things of what is directly given to us. (126, S. 82). Thus, James in a peculiar way gives support to subjectivist arbitrariness.
28p Dialectical materialism, being completely opposed to pluralism, is a monistic philosophical teaching which maintains that the unity of the world consists’ in its material character (F. Engels). But at the same time dialectical materialism recognizes the tremendous variety of things and phenomena in objective reality, as well as in subjective, spiritual human experiences. Dialectical materialism moreover shows that a lawgoverned reciprocal link exists between qualitatively differing things, that all of them are different structural forms of the single moving matter, that qualitative transitions take place between them and that mental phenomena are secondary to material phenomena. In James’ pluralistic structure things and phenomena, including all material and mental processes, are arranged side by side, and are not related in a reciprocally dependent whole.
p In pragmatism (mainly in James) ontological pluralism develops, though in a not very clearly expressed, ‘atomistic’ form. ‘Atoms’ are ‘neutral’, i.e. they’ are neither material nor ideal individual things and phenomena.
p Methodologically, the most important and most thoroughly elaborated aspect of pluralism among pragmatists is its gnoseological aspect—the conception of the ‘plurality’ of truths, on the basis of reducing truth to utility. We shall return to this a little later.
p The atomistic form of pluralism is also a feature of the theories of the champions of personalism. Contrary to Hegel’s idealistic monism, according to which the essence of the world is the ’absolute idea’.thepersonalists consider the person—the active, will-powered person —as the basic manifestation of existence and the main ontological category. The person and his experience is the only reality, according to personalism. Subjective idealism is avoided by proclaiming the world and all persons as a manifestation of the creative activity of God. I. Balakina and K. Dolgov rightly point out the influence of Leibniz’s philosophy on the pluralism of the personalists. The person as a basic ontological category 29 in the latter in many respects recalls Leibniz’s monads. (17, c. 243).
p T. A. Sakharova and I.I. Kravchenko single out Edgar Brightman and Ralph Flewelling (1871-1960) as representatives of ‘pluralistic’ personalism. Physical reality, according to Flewelling, is something derivative from the person, and ’the atom, insofar as we may know it, is a construction of the mind’. (73, c. 77). The pluralistic trend in an atomistic form is also manifested in existentialism, and most clearly in the conception of the person as an ontological reality. Society and subsequently all objective reality are examined only as conditions for the realization of the person.
p The structural form of ontological pluralism also has its representatives among the bourgeois philosophers of the 20th century.
p The structural approach in the pluralistic conception of the German philosopher Nicolai Hartmann (1882- 1950) is particularly pronounced. Hartmann stands up against the strong influence of subjectivism and irrationalism in modern bourgeois philosophy, a fact, which in itself is a positive phenomenon. However, his struggle is not effective, because it is waged from unscientific and ultimately idealistic standpoints—from standpoints at first akin to neo-Kantian rationalism, and later to critical realism.
p Proceeding from such a basis, Hartmann wrongly thinks that not only idealism, but also materialism, is one-sided. As A. Myslivchenko points out, according to Hartmann, philosophical monism leads to an oversimplified picture of the world (58, c. 326).
p The main features in N. Hartmann’s ontological teaching, which characterize his pluralism, are the conceptions concerning the basic spheres of existence and the schistous structure of actual reality. According to Hartmann, being includes in the first place two primary ‘spheres’ or fields, independent of man’s consciousness—the spheres of ideal being and of real being or actual reality (27, c. 35). Although Hartmann changed his views on ideal being—considering it at 30 first as having ’equal independence’ with actual reality, then maintaining towards the end of his life that ideal being was ’incomplete, and its independence very limited’, this dualism weighs heavily upon all his philosophy (27. c. 53).
p The explanation given by Hartmann of the relation between ideal and real being, reveals the objective and idealistic,! Platonistic and Hegelian tendency of his dualism. Ideal being functions, according to Hartmann, as a kind of basic structure in actual reality: those are the most general laws and forms of objective reality and of society, hypostatized as ideal essences existing outside them.
p The dualism between ideal and real being is supplemented with a more developed pluralism in the teaching about the schistous structure of actual reality. Under the influence of the achievements of the natural sciences and dialectical materialism, Hartmann considers inorganic nature, living matter, the psyche (in animals and man) and man’s consciousness as four main ‘layers’ or ‘strata’ of actual reality. He justly points out that there exists on the one hand a dependence of the higher stratum upon the lower and, on the other hand, irreducibility of the higher stratum to the lower (for example, irreducibility of life to physicochemical processes, etc.). However, Hartmann proclaims the transitions between layers or strata to be ’incognizable, irrational’. Moreover, in pointing out that the higher stratum cannot be reduced to the lower, he does not show that the higher stratum arises from the lower in the process of its development (27, c. 49).
p The organic world, however, arises and develops from the inorganic world. The psyche, i.e. the soul, also comes into being as a specific property of a certain part of living matter—the nervous system, and at a certain stage in the development of living organisms. Man’s consciousness also comes into being in the process of the gradual evolution of one species in the animal kingdom, the anthropoid ape, into a social being, into man. Yet Hartmann, as we have pointed out, says nothing on the question of the emergence of 31 the higher from the lower, and considers the transitions between them as incognizable and irrational.
p The transitions from one kind of structure to a different, higher kind of structure of matter, from one form of motion to a different, higher form of motion of matter, are very complicated. These transitions are accompanied by the coming into being of entirely new properties of matter: life, psyche, consciousness. All details, all ‘secrets’ of these profound qualitative leaps in nature have not yet been discovered by science. But that such qualitative transitions do take place, that in this case it is a question of the emergence of new properties of matter which is organized in a new way, and that there is nothing irrational and incognizable in these transitions, has long ago been established by science. For its proper philosophical interpretation, however, dialectical-materialistic thinking is necessary, and this is seen to be lacking in Hartmann.
p The conception of being of George Santayana (1863- 1952) must also be categorized as structural pluralism.
p A Spaniard by birth, Santayana spent the first half of his creative life in the USA, as a result of which he is considered one of the classical figures in modern American philosophy. Santayana elaborated his pluralistic ontological conception during the second half of his creative life, after he left the USA. In a four-volume work entitledRealms of Being, published between 1927 and 1940 he developed the thought that existence contained four fields, which he calls ‘realms’: the realms of essence, matter, truth and the mind. It is these four ‘fields’ or ‘realms’ of being that Santayana proclaimed as primary, ontological realities (21, c. 115, 116). Two of the basic realms of being in Santayana’s philosophy—essence and truth—are logical abstractions. In their definition as individual realities the influence of Platonism and Hegelianism makes itself felt.
p According to Santayana, matter alone is substance and gives rise to the whole diversity of the outer world. As a consequence of this formulation, Santayana is considered a materialist. But the fundamental, highest 32 reality, in his opinion is the ’realm of essence’ which realm is ideal and immaterial. That is why, although Santayana calls one of the ’realms of being’ matter, substance, in the structure of his ontological system it is only one of the four foundations of being or ‘realities’. Moreover, matter is such a ‘reality’ whose qualitative features are in the final count determined by the remaining three, the ‘non-substantial’ realities.
p Among the representatives of structural pluralism we must also include the modern English philosopher Karl Raymond Popper (born 1902), one of the most prominent champions of logical positivism.
p In his paper ’On the Theory of the Objective Mind’, read at the 14th International Congress of Philosophy in Vienna in 1968, Popper switched from subjective idealism towards objective idealism of a Platonic type. From these new, objective-idealistic positions Popper stood up against the different ’variations on the theme of body-mind dualism’ in Western philosophy and against the ’main deviations’ from this dualism, which were expressed in efforts to have it replaced by ’some kind of monism’ (151, p. 25) and passed on to pluralist positions.
p Popper in this instance turns the actual relations between the various trends in philosophy upside down. He presents dualism as the basic content of Western philosophy, and monism, i.e. materialism and idealism, is considered by him as ‘deviations’ from dualism. One essential fact makes itself felt in these reasonings of Popper—the former neo-positivist has arrived at the conclusion that the fundamental question which philosophy has to decide is the question of ‘substance’, of the relation between ’body and mind’, i.e. between matter and consciousness. Thereby he in fact gives up the general positiyist thesis that the fundamental question of philosophy, the question of the reciprocal relation between matter and consciousness is a ’ pseudoproblem’ .
p Indeed, how is Popper’s switch towards pluralism expressed?
33p Popper proceeds from a peculiar pluralistic interpretation of Platonic objective idealism. He majces a preliminary reservation that for him there is no difference whether Plato is correctly interpreted in this case—he takes the idea itself as a starting point for his conception. According to this interpretation, three ontological principles are recognized as existing independently, which Popper also calls ’three worlds’: the physical world or the world of physical things; the mental world, i.e. the world of people’s personal mental experiences; and the world of ideas, considered as, ’the objective content of thinking’; i.e. the mathematical and scientific theories, the logical content of assertions, of language. (151, p. 25-27).
p Popper proclaims the ’third world’ which according to Plato and others is supernatural and divine, to be a ’human affair’, i.e. the result of thought. But this world of ideas according to Popper is also objectively real and autonomous. The peculiar character of the relation between the ’three worlds’ is expressed in the fact that the first (the physical world) and the third (the world of ideas) interact with each other only through the second world—through subjective human experience, through what occurs in man’s consciousness.
p If we compare the ’three worlds’ of Popper with the four ‘strata’ of Hartmann and the four ‘realms’ of Santayana, we shall see that in fact Popper’s construction is a combination of the two. Like Santayana, Popper hypostatizes the general in objective reality as a separate ideal world. On the other hand, like Hartmann, he separates nature (living and non-living) and subjective human experiences into different ‘worlds’.
p In Popper again, pluralism proves to be an attempt at overcoming the impasse of subjective idealism. But the single correct solution to this impasse has already been found . It is dialectical materialism. Popper, however, is far removed from both materialism and dialectics. His attempt to combine objective idealism with a recognition of the reality of the material world _and man’s psyche in the form of pluralism collapses. 34 His efforts to resurrect in a peculiar way the Platonic and scholastic conceptions of an independent real existence of the general in things and phenomena, apart from them, outside of them and parallel with them, are futile and reactionary, because they repeat old deceptions, which have long since been refuted by scientific philosophical thought.
p Theneo-Thomistic teaching of a plurality of substances is also akin to structural pluralism. For the neoThomists the conception of a multitude of substances is directed both against the monism of materialism and against pantheism (the latter recognizes a single, essentially spiritual substance), and against dualism. In fact, the neo-Thomists accept the existence of a single absolute substance, which is God. However, according to them, there also exist other substances, created by God, which only God can destroy. On this basis the neoThomist natural philosophy examines nature as a hierarchy of many existences, which have their substance: water, bread, man, etc. Relations between kinds are, therefore, raised to the position of substantiality (61, c. 50-51).
p Our brief analysis of the two basic forms—atomistic and structural—in which ontological pluralism manifests itself, has shown its main weaknesses as an attempt to create such a picture of the world as would avoid the monistic and above all the materialistic solution of the question concerning the primary relation of priority between matter and consciousness. To a greater or lesser extent all ontological pluralistic conceptions prove to be artificial constructions, revealing a non-scientific, eclectic and subjectivistic character. They are all in outright contradiction with reality. Indeed, the basic position of pluralism, postulating many essences, substances or ‘structures’, independent of one another and not found in hierarchical subordination is untenable.
p The relative independence of the second, gnoseological aspect, of the fundamental question in philosophy, that of the cognizability of the world and the essence of knowledge, is also manifested in 35 pluralism. Let us stress, moreover, that ontological pluralism is not always combined with gnoseological pluralism, and vice versa.
p A starting point in pragmatism for formulating a pluralistic conception with respect to knowledge is the mixing up and in essence the identification of truth with usefulness, which was maintained already by its founder, Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914). The same thesis is also defended by John Dewey (1859-1952) one of the most prominent representatives of pragmatic philosophy, who also gave it a new name—that of instrumentalism, mainly through his subjectivistic interpretation of knowledge. In a most pronounced form, however, gnoseological pluralism manifests itself in James and Schiller, and that is why we shall restrict ourselves to examining them.
p Proceeding from the identification of truth with usefulness, which is characteristic of pragmatism, and failing to understand the dialectical relation between absolute and relative truth, as well as between truth and deception, James draws a crude subjective conclusion on the existence of many truths for one and the same question, depending upon the viewpoint, and more precisely upon usefulness and advantage.
p This is how Thomas Hill summarizes, with quotations from James, his subjectivistic and on this basis ‘pluralistic’ view of identifying truth with usefulness: ’The pragmatist recognizes thaF"our duty to look for the truth is part of our general duty to do what is advantageous”, that "the aspiration for truth does not impose any other obligations except those imposed by the aspiration for good health and prosperity" and that this duty is fulfilled in ’concrete advantages obtained by us’. (81, c. 294).
p James explains this above-mentioned anti-scientific view of truth in the following statement pn theology: ’If theological ideas prove to be of value for real life, for pragmatism they are truths’ (82, c. 47). Of course, theological ideas are of value, and of great value, for the domination and ‘business’ of the exploiter classes 36 in all class societies. But the fact that they are useful for a given class does not turn these ideas into truths.
p James realized to a great extent the untenability of his position, and that is why in his lectures he declared: ’I realize how strange some of you may find it when I say that an idea is “true”insofar as it is believed to’be useful for our life. Is this not an abuse of the word ‘truth’? (82, c. 49). The whole development of science, together with the social practice of mankind reaffirms the fact that when truth is identified with usefulness and advantage, there is an abuse of the concept of “truth”.
p The progressive forces in society, and especially the working class are interested in a thorough discovery of the laws of all natural and social phenomena and processes. That is why it can be said that truth—in the sense of correct knowledge—is always useful to them, without treating the two concepts as identical. However this is not so in the case of the reactionary forces. For them in many instances, especially in social life, flagrant untruths are advantageous, and that is why they stubbornly support them. It is this aspect of the question that James and pragmatists in general fail to take into consideration when they identify truth with usefulness.
p As we have already mentioned, the pluralistic view of truth is also championed by another prominent representative of pragmatism, F.C.S. Schiller (1864-1937). U. Melville has made a very brief and exact analysis of the views of Schiller on this question and that is why we permit ourselves to reproduce it almost word for word. According to Schiller, as Melville explains it, truth is an answer to a question concerning a concrete, cognizing man and, namely, ’the best answer for the time being’. That is why, according to F.C.S. Schiller, truth cannot be one. It must be referred to one or another time and place, to people and their intentions (158, p. 51, 52). Every man, according to Schiller, has a truth of his own, which is such as long as it satisfies him (49, c. 353- 354).
37p As can be seen, Schiller has failed to understand the concreteness of truth, as a reflection of the correctness of the same objectively real things and processes which are reflected in knowledge. But as soon as these things and processes change (depending upon a change in the conditions determining them), our knowledge ( = the truth) about them must also of necessity change. But the truth about a concrete thing under certain conditions is and can be only one. It can be attained in a more profound or else in a one-sided, partial way. This is a different question. Our knowledge of one and the same thing deepens incessantly, but it does not follow from this that as a result ’many truths’ are obtained. Truth, being the true knowledge of a given thing, is one, although it may be incessantly developing, expanding, becoming richer and more exact.
p The study of the forms and manifestations of pluralism in the gnoseological teachings of the different trends in modern bourgeois philosophy is an important task, deserving of special attention. Every philosophical trend which denies objective truth, i.e. the cognizability of the world in principle, unless it stands on the positions of complete agnosticism, stands to a greater or lesser extent close to the pluralistic interpretation of truth.
p As the Soviet philosopher M.B. Mitin points out, the teaching of the conventional or conditional character of the prerequisites (postulates, axioms, etc.) of the different scientific theories, which is upheld by most of the trends in modern neo-positivism, is a starting point for a pluralistic interpretation of knowledge, in the spirit of the well-known conclusion of James: ’As many as are the starting points, so many are also the truths’. (52, c. 337). Conventionalism, for instance, leads to pluralistic conclusions in the philosophy of its founder Henri Poincare (1860-1934) and to linguistic conventionalism in that of Rudolf Carnap (1891-1971), the last outstanding representative of neo-positivism from the Vienna circle.
p Both the pragmatic identification of truth with usefulness and positivistic conventionalism—and in 38 general all forms of gnoseological pluralism—are above all directed against the theory of reflection, which lies at the basis of the dialectical and materialistic teaching of the cognizability of the world and objective truth.
p The pluralistic conception of truth among the pragmatists, based on identifying truth with usefulness, and advantage, can be called gnoseological utilitarianism. Proceeding from this term and from our analysis of gnoseological pluralism among the pragmatists and certain neopositivists, -we may conclude that gnoseological utilitarianism (James) and gnoseological conventionalism (Carnap) represent two varieties or forms of gnoseological pluralism.
It can be seen from the above that philosophical pluralism in its two main varieties—ontological and gnoseological—is in the final count above all directed against materialism. In all pluralistic conceptions examined by us we have found that their stand against monism does not in fact mean a rejection of idealism and is usually connected with open or disguised support for it.
Notes