Abstract

The post-modern pleading for radical pluralism has an anti-totalitarian intention: it is directed against the idea of a unitary science as well as against the idea of a progress in history and demands the acception of the otherness of the other. Because the postmodern concept of pluralism shares with the totalitarian concept of unity (oppposed by it) the same presupposition – the anti-thesis of singularity and pluraility – the concept of pluralism is itself totalitarian. Whereas participative unity does not exclude diversity, but includes it. The practical relevance of the concept of participation is that it is not subject to the dialectic of diversity negating unity and unity negating diversity, because wherein everything comes together is exactly wherin everything is distinguished. A true pleading for plurality includes concern about community.