Relaciones y pluralismo

Abstract

The second half of this work offers a "Brief Discourse on Pluralism." Its purpose is to highlight the categories of relation and multiplicity against the opposite concepts of term and unity. Such emphasis merely acknowledges what has been taking place in various disciplines for some time, an attempt that today has a special urgency, given the many striking developments in the sciences that we cannot comprehend adequately -- or even accept -- without changes in our basic categories. The first half provides appropriate background. It looks at intersubjectivity, showing how Edmund Husserl struggled between two conflicting viewpoints: the reality of human relations and the strictly subjective stance. We quote a few fragments from his posthumous drafts to let the illustrious author speak for himself and to demonstrate how uncertain his thoughts were on the subject. Husserl repeatedly used the term "monad." A few quotations from Leibniz's Monadology should make clear why.