THE UNITY OF PHILOSOPHY AND THE PLURALITY OF PHILOSOPHICAL CURRENTS: EXPRESSION OF THE CREATIVE POTENTIAL OF THOUGHT, PROOF OF AUTO-DISQUALIFICATION OF PHILOSOPHY OR SOLUBLE/INSOLUBLE PROBLEM?

Abstract

The topic of the plurality of philosophical currents has always occupied philosophy since its beginning. Today it has an extraordinary actuality due to the undeniable fact that philosophy is present in all countries endowed with a supra-regional culture and language. With the exception of a few great philoso­phers such as Hegel and Heidegger, the topic has generally been ignored and/or is only partially and inadequately addressed. The present essay proposes to elaborate the broad outlines of a systematic thematization of this complex and large phenomenon. In section 1, a brief characterization of the most important postures in philosophy today regarding the plurality of philosophical currents is presented. The three stances, to which all current stances can be reduced, are those indicated in the title of the essay. The result of a critical consideration of these positions is the thesis that only the third position, according to which the unity of philosophy amidst the plurality of philosophical currents represents a soluble or insoluble problem, can be considered a coherent and well-founded conception. This position, however, does not exclude the acceptance of certain elements of the first and second postures. In section 2 the foundations for a positive solution to the problem are outlined. These are centered on the concept of the theoretical referential framework with the subsequent thesis that there exists a plurality of theoretical referential frameworks. In section 3, the outline of a positive solution is presented, which results from the thematization of the relations between the different theoretical frameworks. Three theses are presen­ted and substantiated. The first one resorts to the concept of truth elaborated in structural systematic philosophy and, on this basis, acquires the following formulation: to each well-formed and constituted theoretical framework cor­responds a certain degree of truth. The second thesis states: well-formed and constituted theoretical referential frameworks form a hierarchy based on the criteria of theoreticity, intelligibility, coherence, unlimited thematic openness, and expository rigor. Finally, the third thesis articulates a far-reaching methodical and programmatic consequence: an essential and preliminary task of philosophy consists in elaborating the theoretical framework of greatest theoretical rigor, most intelligible, most coherent, and of greatest possible thematic openness. The result is not the naive pretension of elaborating a supreme or absolute theoretical framework, nor even of reaching a complete and definitive truth. This is not the ideal of philosophy. In the conclusion, the general corollary of the consi­derations made in the essay is briefly summarized: the unity of philosophy is not a fixed, static and abstract magnitude; it is, on the contrary, a dynamic and processual magnitude; moreover, the real character of philosophy is only given as a process of self-determination through its historical phases, concretized in the figures called philosophical currents.