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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
This 4 page paper discusses the philosophical positions of monism and pluralism, and argues that pluralism is, overall, a more rational and appealing viewpoint. Bibliography lists 4 sources.
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4 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVmonplu.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
question of monism and pluralism goes back even further than the ancient Greeks, to the presocratic philosophers. In very simple terms, monism sees things as a single unit while pluralism
admits of multiple possibilities. Monism "may be described as resulting from the tendency of the human mind to discover unitary concepts under which to subsume the manifold of experience" (Turner).
Accepting the doctrine of monism means that we "take and preserve the world of our experience as we find it" and reduce our observations of the many different effects to
the "unity of a causal concept" (Turner). This is sufficient at times, until we begin to consider things beyond experience, such as philosophy and science; then the single causal concept
is no longer sufficient as an explanation: "The history of philosophy, however, shows with unmistakable clearness that there is a limit to this unifying process in philosophy" (Turner). Turner
argues that if Hegelian philosophy-the concept that only the ration is real-were true, "then we should expect to be able to compass all reality with the mental powers which we
possess." Christian philosophy, however, argues for a reality that "extends beyond the domain of the ... rational," which cannot be "compressed" or explained by the theory of monism (Turner). The
greatest strength of monism appears to be its simplicity: it admits of only one underlying causal concept to explain all reality, which is fairly easy to grasp. However, once
we move away from experience into philosophy, since and other fields, monism can no longer explain the tremendous variety of experience (Turner). "Dualism [and by extension, pluralism] leaves room for
faith, and hands over to faith many of the problems which philosophy cannot solve" (Turner). The greatest weakness of monism may well be that it "leaves no room for faith"
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