Tadeusz Klimski’s realistic interpretation of the problem of unity

Tadeusz Klimski devoted to the problem of unity dissertation, entitled “One and being. Analysis of the realistic concepts (Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, modern Thomists)”, published in 1992. The paper characterises idealist philosophy in exposures and explanations of representatives of realism. It indicates the field of further considerations: Aristotle’s account which is determined by views of the pre–Socratics, and above all Plato, philosophical views of Thomas Aquinas, alluding to discussion with the Arabic philosophers, especially Avicenna, and often relating to the horizon designated by revelation and needs of interpreting it by theology, recognition of contemporary Thomists of various trends, the only realistic trend in contemporary philosophy. Even more interesting is placing the issues of unity in the problematic context. Tadeusz Klimski believed that the problematic field is twofold, and its starting point is epistemology: 1) platonic idealism, which leads (even if it is against Plato himself) to monism, where unity is seen as the first and fundamental philosophical problem — here unity is associated with the entire cosmos, today as well as in the in the materialistic or spiritualistic version. 2) Aristotelian realism leads to pluralism in the theory of being, in which philosophers–realists try to interpret the unity — unity here is associated with individual being. While formulating his standpoint, Tadeusz Klimski refers to Mieczyslaw Gogacz’s account, that unity is called the power of the act of existence to actualizing the real essence of being. Unity, therefore, is manifested in the whole being, but the act of existence is its source. This view is consistent Thomistic, specifying the relationship of unity with the existence of individual being. This view can be a good basis to consider the role of unity in cognition, the role of unity in action or various forms of social unity