Universalism Poverty

Universalism is not only a distinct gene of western cultural tradition, but also an elementary constituent of liberalism. With the historical materialism, this dissertation explores the social andhistorical root of western liberal universalism, analyses three primary patterns of argumentation------natural law, utilitarianism, value pluralism, and some of their mutation, opens out the difficulty every pattern faces and its failure of argumentation. At last, this dissertation points out the dangers of the liberal universalism, cognitive origins and errors of the way of the universalistic thought, and the historicity of development of the human universal relation.This dissertation includes five chapters. In the fist chapter, the author discusses the universalism tradition in the western culture and the historical origin of its forming. Ancient Greek nature philosophy exploring the origin and perpetuity, Plato discussing the universal conception of the good, Stoic thoughts of cosmopolitan reason and cosmopolitan nation, and the conception of Christian monotheism and perpetual law are all specific representation. Except for the nature philosophy, the others emphasize the universality and absoluteness of the good (value) , which come into being the extreme in the Christian, at last, the bankrupt of value universalism were pronounced by the religious persecution and war.In the second chapter, the author discusses the first form of liberal universalism------natural lawthoughts and universalistic principle of constitution that it insists on; analyses its universalistic opinion of the humanity, human rights and norm; opens out its significance and fundamental limitation.In the third, the author discusses the rising of historicism in 19th century and its attack on liberalism, including liberal response for the attack. On the one hand, the response was represented by Constant and de Tocqueville's historical explanation of liberalism; on the other hand, it was more weightily represented by Bentham and Miller's explanation of utilitarianism. As the main form of argumentation of the liberal universalism, utilitarianism not only infuses some energy into the liberalism, but also brings more greatly crisis for the liberal universalism.In the forth, the author emphatically analyses the third form of argumentation------Berlin'svalue pluralism, points out its great attack on the universalism. At the same time, the author analyses the form of Hayek and Nozich's synthetic argumentations and Rawls's argumentation in new natural law form, opens out their failures of argumentation for the liberal universalism.In the fifth, the author analyses the social and historical roots of the liberal universalism, and the particularity of the bourgeoisie interests it represents; at the same time, the author discloses the inherent relations between liberal universalism and colonialism, imperialism and hegemony. On the basis of analyzing cognitive origins and mistakes of the universalism, the author points out that the historism and practice philosophy are the antidote of the universalism. Lastly, the author clarifies the historicity of universality in the human society according to the historism.