Pluralism (philosophy) - Epistemology

Epistemology

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 way, empirically, while developing his theory of cultural relativism.