The historical imagination: Toward an understanding of cultural pluralism

By exploring the contributions of Plato, Aristotle, Ibn-Sina and Giambattista Vico to the development of philosophy in our western tradition, this thesis hopes to better understand the issue of cultural pluralism. Sir Isaiah Berlin argues that the development of western philosophical thought is predicated upon a vast Platonic assumption. That is that first, all genuine questions must have an answer; second, that those answers must be 'reachable' by a methodology; and third, that the answer, when found, must be compatible with other answers if indeed there is the one grand 'truth'. Berlin tells us that in the work of Vico we see a straying away from that assumption and thus a straying away from a monistic conception of truth. Ultimately, this thesis asks: are the ends that different cultures pursue compatible? Is it possible that each culture, each civilization, pursues ends that are not necessarily compatible with the ends pursued by another culture or civilization?...