The Most Pregnant Question of Philosophy

Parmenides, Heraclitus, and the central questions in philosophy.

William James notes in his lectures on pragmatism that the question of the one and the many is “the most central of all philosophic problems, central because it is so pregnant,” because so many of our subsequent philosophical positions are rooted in our response to this question.[1] As is usually the case, this question, and the process of answering it, leads us to other questions implied within it. In my view, the question of the one and the many implies the question of genesis (change) and the question of contradiction, that is, the question of the existence of opposing forces operative in all things and processes. For me, most failures in analysis can be traced back to positions relating to how an analyst understands the question of the one and the many (or – as it is later formulated in the history of philosophy – the question of totality), the question of movement and change, and the question of contradiction.