Pluralism is a term used in philosophy, meaning "doctrine of multiplicity", often used in opposition to monism ("doctrine of unity") and dualism ("doctrine of duality"). The term has different connotations in metaphysics and epistemology. Pluralism in metaphysics is a doctrine that many basic substances make up reality, while monism holds existence to be a single substance, often either matter (materialism) or mind (idealism), and dualism believes two substances, such as matter and mind, to be necessary. Pluralism in epistemology is the position where there is not one consistent set of truths about the world, but rather many. Often this is associated with pragmatism and conceptual and cultural relativism.
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The concept of pluralism in philosophy indicates the belief that reality consists of many different substances.[1] It sits in contrast with the concepts of monism and dualism in metaphysics.
Ontological pluralism is directly related with the belief in classical elements, and exists in many ancient world views. The concept of elements in the Western tradition originates from Babylonian mythology. The Enûma Eliš, a text written between the 18th and 16th centuries BC, describes four cosmic elements: the sea, earth, sky, and wind.[2] In Egypt, these elements were fire, water, air, and earth, and in Greece, Empedocles wrote that they were fire, air, water and earth.[3] He called such four elements of physical reality "roots". Actually, Empedocles did not use the word "element" (στοιχεῖον = stoicheion), which seems to appear afterwards in Plato,[4] with different proportions or the root elements indestructible and unchangeable elementary things was born the numerous types of bodies in the world. Empedocles, said that association and disassociation of the elements was creating the reality. Aristotle incorporated these elements, but his substance pluralism was not material in essence. His hylomorphic theory allowed him to maintain a reduced set of basic material elements as per the Milesians, while answering for the ever-changing flux of Heraclitus and the unchanging unity of Parmenides. In his 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 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.[5]
Pluralistic conceptual relativism asserts that since there is no right way to carve up the world into concepts (e.g. what counts as an element), there will be several mutually exclusive complete and true descriptions of the world. In the case of cultural relativism, the argument claims that since truth is relative to culture, there will be several descriptions of parts of the world, possibly complete and true on their own sub domains but conflicting when extended to overlap. In the case of pragmatism, the argument claims that since truth is connected to successful action, and success is connected to the goals set by our interests, the correct set of truths will be relative to our interests. Hilary Putnam (a harsh critic of cultural relativism) is fond of the example, "how many objects are there in the world?" Putnam argues that what counts as an object cannot be determined objectively but rather only relative to someone's interests, therefore the true number of objects in the world will change relative to whose interests we have in sight.
In epistemology (how we conceive the structure of "truth"), pluralism is the opposite extreme to pragmatism. Pluralism employs conceptual relativism, while pragmatism employs the radical empiricism's radical translation of the world by way of radical interpretation. Pluralism handles new information by structuring it relationally to other information, while pragmatism handles it by assigning existential meaning to a personal immediacy. Pluralism is metaphysical and meta-ethical, and espouses a cultural relativism with strong social constructivism, while Pragmatism is physical, ethical in their opinion and of weak social constructivism. In epistemology Pluralism is relativistic in the way it deals with concepts. For example, taking the concept of human culture, pluralism takes the way of cultural relativism. Here it considers how local natural geography and local history gave rise to cultural truths. Then it considers the set of cultural descriptions of each part of the world, and how they possibly contain mutually exclusive truths. Each can be complete and true in their own yet cause falsities when extended to overlap.
Robert Sapolsky reports, after decades of scientific field work, that his chimps had "27 different variants of regional behavioral differences", unique cultures based largely on tool making. Franz Boas performed his anthropology in a similar same way, empirically, while developing his theory of cultural relativism.