§ 64. It is clear, furthermore, that the doctrine of Anaxagoras not only
names a distinct kind of cause, but also ascribes to it an independence
and intrinsic importance that do not belong to motion. Whereas motion is
a property of matter, intelligence is an originative power working out
purposes of its own choosing. Hence we have here to do with a new
ontology. If we construe ultimate being in terms of mind, we have a
definite substitute for the physical theories outlined above. Such a
theory is scarcely to be attributed to any Greek philosopher of the
early period; it belongs to a more sophisticated stage in the
development of thought, after the rise of the problem of epistemology.
But Anaxagoras's sharp distinction between the material of the world on
the one hand, and the author of its order and evolution on the other, is
in itself worthy of notice. It contains the germ of a recurrent
philosophical _dualism_, which differs from pluralism in that it finds
two and only two fundamental divisions of being, the physical, material,
or potential on the one hand, and the mental, formal, or ideal on the
other.
[Sidenote: The New Meaning of Monism and Pluralism.]
§ 65. Finally, the alternative possibilities which these cosmological
considerations introduce, bear directly upon the general question of the
interdependence of the parts of the world, a question which has already
appeared as pertinent in ontology. Monism and pluralism now obtain a new
meaning. Where the world process is informed with some singleness of
plan, as teleology proposes, the parts are reciprocally necessary, and
inseparable from the unity. Where, on the other hand, the processes are
random and reciprocally fortuitous, as Leucippus proposes, the world as
a whole is an aggregate rather than a unity. In this way uniformity in
kind of being may prevail in a world the relations of whose parts are
due to chance, while diversity in kind of being may prevail in a world
knit together by some thorough-going plan of organization. Thus monism
and pluralism are conceptions as proper to cosmology as to ontology.
But enough has been said to demonstrate the interdependence of ontology
and cosmology, of the theory of being and the theory of differentiation
and process. Such problems can be only abstractly sundered, and the
distinctive character of any metaphysical system will usually consist in
some theory determining their relation. Philosophy returns to these
metaphysical problems with its thought enriched and its method
complicated, after becoming thoroughly alive to the problems of
epistemology, logic, and ethics.
[Sidenote: Epistemology Seeks to Understand the Possibility of
Knowledge.]
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