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Pluralism is a term used inphilosophy, referring to aworldview of multiplicity, often used in opposition tomonism (the view that all is one) ordualism (the view that all is two). The term has different meanings inmetaphysics,ontology,epistemology andlogic. In metaphysics, it is the view that there are in fact many differentsubstances in nature that constitutereality. In ontology, pluralism refers to different ways, kinds, or modes of being. For example, a topic inontological pluralism is the comparison of the modes of existence of things like 'humans' and 'cars' with things like 'numbers' and some other concepts as they are used in science.[1]
In epistemology, pluralism is the position that there is not one consistent means of approaching truths about the world, but rather many. Often this is associated withpragmatism, or conceptual,contextual, orcultural relativism. In thephilosophy of science it may refer to the acceptance of co-existing scientific paradigms which though accurately describing their relevant domains are nonethelessincommensurable. In logic, pluralism is the relatively novel view that there is no one correct logic, or alternatively, that there is more than one correct logic.[2] Such as usingclassical logic in most cases, but usingparaconsistent logic to deal with certainparadoxes.
Metaphysical pluralism in philosophy is the multiplicity of metaphysical models of the structure and content of reality, both as it appears and as logic dictates that it might be,[3] as is exhibited by the four related models in Plato'sRepublic[4] and as developed in thecontrast betweenphenomenalism andphysicalism. Pluralism is in contrast to the concept of monism in metaphysics, whiledualism is a limited form, a pluralism of exactly two models, structures, elements, or concepts.[5] A distinction is made between the metaphysical identification of realms of reality[6] and the more restricted sub-fields of ontological pluralism (that examines what exists in each of these realms) andepistemological pluralism (that deals with the methodology for establishing knowledge about these realms).
In ancient Greece,Empedocles wrote that they were fire, air, water and earth,[7] although he used the word "root" rather than "element" (στοιχεῖον;stoicheion), which appeared later in Plato.[8] From the association (φιλία;philia) and separation (νεῖκος;neikos) of these indestructible and unchangeable root elements, all things came to be in a fullness (πλήρωμα;pleroma) of ratio (λόγος;logos) and proportion (ἀνάλογος;analogos).
Similar to Empedocles,Anaxagoras was another Classical Greek philosopher with links to pluralism. His metaphysical system is centered around mechanically necessitatednous which governs, combines and diffuses the various "roots" of reality (known ashomoioneroi[9]). Unlike Empedocles' four "root elements" and similar toDemocritus' multitude ofatoms (yet not physical in nature), thesehomoioneroi are used by Anaxagoras to explain the multiplicity in reality and becoming.[10] This pluralist theory of being influenced later thinkers such asGottfried Wilhelm Leibniz's theory ofmonads andJulius Bahnsen's idea ofwillhenades. The notion of a governingnous would also be used bySocrates andPlato, but they will assign it a more active and rational role in their philosophical systems.
Aristotle incorporated these elements, but hissubstance pluralism was not material in essence. Hishylomorphic theory allowed him to maintain areduced set of basic material elements as per theMilesians, while answering for the ever-changing flux ofHeraclitus and the unchanging unity ofParmenides. In hisPhysics, due to the continuum ofZeno's paradoxes, as well as both logical and empirical considerations for natural science, he presented numerous arguments against theatomism ofLeucippus andDemocritus, who posited a basic duality ofvoid andatoms. The atoms were an infinite variety ofirreducibles, of all shapes and sizes, which randomly collide and mechanically hook together in the void, thus providing a reductive account of changeable figure, order and position as aggregates of the unchangeable atoms.[11]
The topic of ontological pluralism discusses different ways, kinds, or modes of being. Recent attention in ontological pluralism is due to the work of Kris McDaniel, who defends ontological pluralism in a number of papers. The name for the doctrine is due to Jason Turner, who, following McDaniel, suggests that "In contemporary guise, it is the doctrine that a logically perspicuous description of reality will use multiplequantifiers which cannot be thought of as ranging over a singledomain."[12] "There are numbers, fictional characters, impossible things, and holes. But, we don't think these things all exist in the same sense as cars and human beings."[1]
It is common to refer to a film, novel or otherwise fictitious or virtual narrative as not being 'real'. Thus, the characters in the film or novel are not real, where the 'real world' is the everyday world in which we live. However, some authors may argue that fiction informs our concept of reality, and so hassome kind of reality.[13][14]
One reading ofLudwig Wittgenstein's notion oflanguage-games argues that there is no overarching, single, fundamental ontology, but only a patchwork of overlapping interconnected ontologies ineluctably leading from one to another. For example, Wittgenstein discusses 'number' as technical vocabulary and in more general usage:
""All right: the concept of 'number' is defined for you as the logical sum of these individual interrelated concepts: cardinal numbers, rational numbers, real numbersetc.;" ... — it need not be so. For Ican give the concept 'number' rigid limits in this way, that is, use the word 'number' for a rigidly limited concept, but I can also use it so that the extension of the concept isnot closed by a frontier. ...Can you give the boundary? No. You candraw one..."
— Ludwig Wittgenstein, excerpt from §68 inPhilosophical Investigations
Wittgenstein suggests that it is not possible to identify a single concept underlying all versions of 'number', but that there are many interconnected meanings that transition one to another; vocabulary need not be restricted to technical meanings to be useful, and indeed technical meanings are 'exact' only within some proscribed context.
Eklund has argued that Wittgenstein's conception includes as a special case the technically constructed, largely autonomous,forms of language orlinguistic frameworks ofCarnap and Carnapian ontological pluralism. He places Carnap's ontological pluralism in the context of other philosophers, such asEli Hirsch andHilary Putnam.[15]
Epistemological pluralism is a term used in philosophy and in other fields of study to refer to different ways of knowing things, different epistemologicalmethodologies for attaining a full description of a particular field.[16] In thephilosophy of science epistemological pluralism arose in opposition toreductionism to express the contrary view that at least some natural phenomena cannot be fully explained by a single theory or fully investigated using a single approach.[16][17]
Logical pluralism can be defined a number of ways: the position that there is more than one correct account oflogical consequence (or no single, 'correct' account at all), that there is more than one correct set oflogical constants or even that the 'correct' logic depends on the relevant logical questions under consideration (a sort of logical instrumentalism).[18] Pluralism about logical consequence says that because different logical systems have different logical consequence relations, there is therefore more than one correct logic. For example, classical logic holds that theargument from explosion is a valid argument, but inGraham Priest's paraconsistent logic—LP, the 'Logic of Paradox'—it is an invalid argument.[19] However, logical monists may respond that a plurality of logical theories does not mean that no single one of the theories is the correct one. After all, there are and have been a multitude of theories in physics, but that hasn't been taken to mean that all of them are correct.
Pluralists of the instrumentalist sort hold if a logic can be correct at all, it based on its ability to answer the logical questions under consideration. If one wants to understand vague propositions, one may need amany-valued logic. Or if one wants to know what the truth-value of the Liar Paradox is, adialetheic paraconsistent logic may be required.Rudolf Carnap held to a version of logical pluralism:
In logic there are no morals. Everyone is at liberty to build his own logic, i.e. his own language, as he wishes. All that is required of him is that, if he wishes to discuss it, he must state his methods clearly, and give syntactical rules instead of philosophical arguments.
— Rudolph Carnap, excerpt from §17 inThe Logical Syntax of Language
Belief that reality ultimately includes many different kinds of things.
