ABSTRACT
Every form of human endeavour seeks a way to deal successfully with the problem of the one and the many, the universal and the particular, the same and the different, the global and the local, which greets us in all of our encounters with the world. This problem has now been raised to an unprecedented level of importance and urgency by the globalization of one particular and highly exploitative way of life as the governing paradigm for human existence in the Anthropocene. The imperial dogma that we can sustain the trajectory of global expansion indefinitely and increase our quantitative levels of production, consumption, and population without regard for the basic human rights of those at the base of the sacrificial pyramid or for planetary biophysical limits is now driving the world toward collapse. The question of the one and the many must be addressed anew if we are to move beyond the impending collapse of the biosphere and our precarious planetary civilization.
