EN
Complexity and universal validity of knowing became a reason and aim of intellectual effort expressed in the notion philo-sophia. Advantages of universalism can be summarised into several elements: the concept of human nature, ontological fundament of human dignity and their ethical demands, regardless of individual differences. On the other hand, universalism hides within itself an ever-present germ of potential destructivity, when, in the name of the „universal truth,” a factual and inhumane exclusion of certain individuals and groups from the community of those who „deserve” dignitas humana occur. Slovak philosopher of culture Ladislav Hanus (1907-1994) in his work Principle of Pluralism (manus. 1967, publ. 1997) defines the “organic pluralism” – pluralism has two basic tasks: 1. toward multitude (to see, accept and assess all plurality elements of a community), 2. toward unity (to lead multitude to unity – to “integrate” it). Unity stated here is not a totalitarian, homogenising, centralistic unity (a unity of the “herd” or a “state of termites”), it is an organic unity. Hanusian “organic pluralism” connects and integrates multitude (a human as an individuum in plurality of those similar to them), which is its quantitative dimension, with organicness (a human as a person, a human-in-relationship-with-others), which is its qualitative dimension. Development of a person takes place by a gradual and purposeful interweaving of quantity with quality and this activity is called education, or con-versio from multitude.