Two Concepts of Pluralism: A Comparative Analysis of Gandhi and Isaiah Berlin

Speaker: Dr. Ramin Jahanbegloo, Iranian philosopher and academic based in Canada
 
Chair: Dr. Shail Mayaram, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies
 
 As history goes, Gandhi and Sir Isaiah never met and the latter never wrote any piece on the former. While Isaiah Berlin considered himself principally as a value pluralist, Mahatma Gandhi was described by some as an “integral pluralist”.  Unlike many liberals, Berlin wrestled all through his intellectual life with the tension between pluralism and monism, and also between universalism and particularism. He rejected all monistic approaches to the question of truth, but criticized as well the moral relativism inscribed in the modern tradition of thought. As for Gandhi, his astute understanding of religion, culture and politics was envisaged at each level with an argumentation against monistic views and in favour of value pluralism