Editing Pluralism (philosophy)

{{short description|Doctrine of multiplicity in contrast with monism}}
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'''Pluralism''' is a term used in [[philosophy]], referring to a [[worldview]] of multiplicity, often used in opposition to [[monism]] (the view that all is one) or [[Mind–body dualism|dualism]] (the view that all is two). The term has different meanings in [[metaphysics]], [[ontology]], [[epistemology]] and [[logic]]. In metaphysics, it is the view that there are in fact many different [[Substance theory|substances]] in nature that constitute [[reality]]. In ontology, pluralism refers to different ways, kinds, or modes of being. For example, a topic in [[ontological 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.<ref name=Spencer>{{cite journal |journal=Philosophy Compass |volume=7 |issue=12 |pages=910–918 |date= November 12, 2012 |doi=10.1111/j.1747-9991.2012.00527.x |author=Joshua Spencer |title=Ways of being}}</ref> 

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 with [[pragmatism]], or conceptual, [[factual relativism|contextual]], or [[cultural relativism]]. In the [[philosophy of science]] it may refer to the acceptance of co-existing scientific paradigms which though accurately describing their relevant domains are nonetheless [[Commensurability (philosophy of science)|incommensurable]].  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.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Beall |first1=JC|last2=Restall |first2=Greg |date=2000 |title=Logical Pluralism |journal=Australasian Journal of Philosophy |volume=78 |issue=4 |pages= 475–493|doi=10.1080/00048400012349751 |s2cid=218621064}}</ref> Such as using [[classical logic]] in most cases, but using [[paraconsistent logic]] to deal with certain [[Liar paradox|paradoxes]].

== Metaphysical pluralism ==
{{See also|Monism|Mind–body dualism}}
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,<ref name="dic">{{cite web |url=http://www.philosophypages.com/dy/p5.htm |work=Philosophy Pages |publisher=Encyclopædia Britannica|title=Pluralism |quote=Belief that reality ultimately includes many different kinds of things.}}</ref> as is exhibited by the four related models in Plato's ''Republic''<ref name=Plato>Plato, ''Republic'', Book 6 (509D–513E)</ref> and as developed in the  [[Irrealism (philosophy)#Nelson Goodman.27s irrealism|contrast]] between [[phenomenalism]] and [[physicalism]].  Pluralism is in contrast to the concept of monism in metaphysics, while [[dualism (philosophy of mind)|dualism]] is a limited form, a pluralism of exactly two models, structures, elements, or concepts.<ref name=Hamlyn>{{cite book |chapter=Simple substances: Monism and pluralism |title=Metaphysics |author=D. W. Hamlyn |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=R8v0tI9TT8cC&pg=PA109 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/metaphysics0000haml/page/109 109 ''ff''] |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0521286909 |year=1984 |url=https://archive.org/details/metaphysics0000haml/page/109 }}</ref>  A distinction is made between the metaphysical identification of realms of reality<ref name=James>{{cite encyclopedia |encyclopedia=Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=http://www.iep.utm.edu/james-o/#SH5a |author=Wayne P. Pomerleau |date=February 11, 2011|title=Subsection ''Realms of reality'' in article on William James}}</ref> and the more restricted sub-fields of ontological pluralism (that examines what exists in each of these realms) and [[epistemological pluralism]] (that deals with the methodology for establishing knowledge about these realms).

===Ancient pluralism ===
{{main|Ancient pluralism}}
In ancient Greece, [[Empedocles]] wrote that they were fire, air, water and earth,<ref name=DielsKranz>Diels –Kranz, Simplicius ''Physics'', frag. B-17</ref> although he used the word "root" rather than "element" (στοιχεῖον; ''stoicheion''), which appeared later in Plato.<ref name=Plato2>Plato, ''Timaeus'', 48 b - c</ref> 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 necessitated ''[[nous]]'' which governs, combines and diffuses the various "roots" of reality (known as ''homoioneroi''<ref>{{cite encyclopedia|last1=Curd |first1=Patricia |encyclopedia=[[Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]]|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anaxagoras/#MetPri |title=Anaxagoras |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |year=2015 }}</ref>). Unlike Empedocles' four "root elements" and similar to [[Democritus]]' multitude of [[Democritus#Atomic hypothesis|atom]]s (yet not physical in nature), these ''homoioneroi'' are used by Anaxagoras to explain the multiplicity in reality and becoming.<ref>{{cite book |author=Anaxagoras |title=Fragments of Anaxagoras |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Fragments_of_Anaxagoras }}</ref> This pluralist theory of being influenced later thinkers such as [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]]'s theory of ''[[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz#Monads|monad]]s'' and [[Julius Bahnsen]]'s idea of [[Julius Bahnsen#Philosophy|will ''henades'']]. The notion of a governing ''nous'' would also be used by [[Socrates]] and [[Plato]], but they will assign it a more active and rational role in their philosophical systems.

[[Aristotle]] incorporated these elements, but his [[substance theory|substance pluralism]] was not material in essence. His [[hylomorphism|hylomorphic theory]] allowed him to maintain a [[Reduction (philosophy)|reduced set]] of basic material elements as per the [[Ionian School (philosophy)|Milesians]], while answering for the ever-changing flux of [[Heraclitus]] and the unchanging unity of [[Parmenides]]. In his ''[[Physics (Aristotle)|Physics]],'' due to the continuum of [[Zeno's paradoxes]], as well as both logical and empirical considerations for natural science, he presented numerous arguments against the [[atomism]] of [[Leucippus]] and [[Democritus]], who posited a basic duality of ''[[Vacuum|void]]'' and ''atoms''. The atoms were an infinite variety of ''irreducibles'', 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.<ref name=Aristotle>Aristotle, ''Metaphysics'', I, 4, 985</ref>

== Ontological pluralism<!--'Ontological pluralism' redirects here--> ==
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 multiple [[existential quantifier|quantifiers]] which cannot be thought of as ranging over a single [[domain of discourse|domain]]."<ref name=Turner>{{cite journal |title= Logic and ontological pluralism |author=Jason Turner |journal=Journal of Philosophical Logic |doi=10.1007/s10992-010-9167-x |date=April 2012 |pages=419–448 |volume=41 |issue=2 |citeseerx=10.1.1.725.287 |s2cid=10257001 }}</ref> "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."<ref name=Spencer/>

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 has ''some'' kind of reality.<ref name=Prentice>{{cite book |pages=529–546 |chapter=Chapter 26: Exploring the boundary between fiction and reality |author1= Deborah A Prentice |author2=Richard J Gerrig |editor1= Shelly Chaiken |editor2= Yaacov Trope |year=1999 |title= Dual-process theories in social psychology |publisher=Guilford Press |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5X_auIBx99EC&pg=PA529 |isbn=978-1572304215 }}</ref><ref name=Castaneda>{{cite journal |title=Fiction and reality: Their fundamental connections: An essay on the ontology of total experience |author=Hector-Neri Castañeda |journal=Poetics |volume=8 |issue=1–2 |date=April 1979 |pages=31–62 |doi=10.1016/0304-422x(79)90014-7}}</ref>

One reading of [[Ludwig Wittgenstein]]'s notion of [[language-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:
{{blockquote|""All right: the concept of 'number' is defined for you as the logical sum of these individual interrelated concepts: cardinal numbers, rational numbers, real numbers ''etc.'';" ... — it need not be so. For I ''can'' 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 is ''not'' closed by a frontier. ...Can you give the boundary? No. You can ''draw'' one..."|Ludwig Wittgenstein|excerpt from §68 in ''Philosophical 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'' or [[internal–external distinction|''linguistic frameworks'']] of [[Rudolf Carnap|Carnap]] and Carnapian ontological pluralism. He places Carnap's ontological pluralism in the context of other philosophers, such as [[Eli Hirsch]] and [[Hilary Putnam]].<ref name=Eklund>{{cite book |title=Metametaphysics: New Essays on the Foundations of Ontology |author=Matti Eklund |chapter=Chapter 4: Carnap and ontological pluralism |year=2009 |pages=130–156 |isbn=978-0199546008 |editor1=David J Chalmers |editor2=David Manley |editor3=Ryan Wasserman |publisher=Clarendon Press}}  On-line text found at [https://courses.cit.cornell.edu/me72/carnap.pdf Cornell]</ref>

== Epistemological pluralism==
{{main article|Epistemological pluralism}}

Epistemological pluralism is a term used in philosophy and in other fields of study to refer to different ways of knowing things, different epistemological [[methodology|methodologies]] for attaining a full description of a particular field.<ref name=Kellert>{{cite book |chapter=Introduction: The pluralist stance |author1=Stephen H Kellert |author2=Helen E Longino |author3=C Kenneth Waters |chapter-url=http://www.mcps.umn.edu/assets/pdf/19intro_scipluralism.pdf |page=vii |title=Scientific pluralism; volume XIX in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science |isbn=978-0-8166-4763-7 |year=2006 |publisher=The University of Minnesota Press |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100609220945/http://mcps.umn.edu/assets/pdf/19Intro_SciPluralism.pdf |archive-date=2010-06-09 }}</ref> In the [[philosophy of science]] epistemological pluralism arose in opposition to [[reductionism]] 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.<ref name=Kellert/><ref name=Davies>{{cite web |url=http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/3083/1/EP3single.doc |title=Epistemological pluralism |author=E Brian Davies |year=2006}} Available through [http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/ PhilSci Archive].</ref>

== Logical pluralism==
{{main article|Logical pluralism}}

''Logical pluralism'' can be defined a number of ways: the position that there is more than one correct account of [[logical consequence]] (or no single, 'correct' account at all), that there is more than one correct set of [[logical constants]] or even that the 'correct' logic depends on the relevant logical questions under consideration (a sort of logical instrumentalism).<ref name=Russell>{{cite web|last1=Russell|first1=Gillian|title=Logical Pluralism|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logical-pluralism/|website=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|access-date=28 July 2016|ref=Russell}}</ref> 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 the [[principle of explosion|argument from explosion]] is a valid argument, but in [[Graham Priest]]'s paraconsistent logic—'''LP''', the 'Logic of Paradox'—it is an invalid argument.<ref name=Priest>{{cite journal|last1=Priest|first1=Graham|title=The Logic of Paradox|jstor=30227165|journal=Journal of Philosophical Logic|volume=8|issue=1|pages=219–241|ref=Priest|year=1979|doi=10.1007/BF00258428|s2cid=35042223}}</ref> 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 a [[many-valued logic]]. Or if one wants to know what the truth-value of the Liar Paradox is, a [[dialetheism|dialetheic]] paraconsistent logic may be required. [[Rudolf Carnap]] held to a version of logical pluralism:
{{blockquote|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 in ''The Logical Syntax of Language''}}

==See also==
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[Anekantavada]]
* [[Legal pluralism]]
* [[Nelson Goodman]]
* [[Panarchy (political philosophy)|Panarchism]]
* [[Pantheism]]
* [[Pluralism (political philosophy)|Pluralism in political philosophy]]
* [[Pluralism (political theory)|Pluralism in political theory]]
* [[Postmodernism]]
* [[Quantifier variance]]
* [[Religious pluralism]]
* [[Value pluralism]] 
{{div col end}}

==Notes==
{{reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{EB1911 poster|Pluralism}}
* [[Nelson Goodman|Goodman, Nelson]], 1978, ''Ways of Worldmaking'', Hackett, {{ISBN|0915144522}}, paperback {{ISBN|0915144514}}

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[[Category:Pluralism (philosophy)| ]]
[[Category:Epistemological theories]]
[[Category:Metaphysical theories]]
[[Category:Metaphysics of mind]]