The One and the Many: Asymmetrical Interdependence, Relational Ontology, and Anarchy

The problem of the One and the Many is the central problem of philosophy and epistemology. Throughout history, it has been the single most important issue for philosophers. It relates to just about everything. The problem of the One and the Many relates not only to epistemology, but also to ethics, politics, economics, and other practical realms. William James wrote: “I wish to turn [pragmatisms] light upon the ancient problem of ‘the one and the many.’ I suspect that in but few of you has this problem occasioned sleepless nights, and I should not be astonished if some of you told me it had never vexed you. I myself have come, by long brooding over it, to consider it the most central of all philosophic problems, central because so pregnant. I mean by this that if you know whether a man is a decided monist or a decided pluralist, you perhaps know more about the rest of his opinions than if you give him any other name ending in ISM. To believe in the one or in the many, that is the classification with the maximum number of consequences.” The problem of the One and the Many asks us what the relation of unity is to diversity and vice versa. What is the relation of the general to the particular? How does an individual tree relate to the category of trees? What is the “ideal form” of treeness? What characteristics are essential to trees? Is the category of trees something that pre-exists, so that we classify trees as “trees” because there really is such a thing as trees? Do we classify trees as “trees” because there is really a category of trees in which they fit? Do we call them “trees” because they happen to resemble some “ideal form” of treeness? Or, do we just see the various particular trees and generalize them, creating a category in our own minds in order to classifying them. Which is more essential: the one category of trees or the many particular trees that fit into that category? The answer to this question does have practical importance. It has practical consequences in basically every area imaginable. How you answer this question affects what your views on ethics, politics, economics, and even practical epistemological method will be. The strict monist will tend towards statism and mysticism, while the strict pluralist will tend towards libertine anarchy and scientism.