Introduction: John Lachs's Philosophical Pluralism (original) (raw)
Related papers
Configurations of Pluralisms. Navigating Polyphony and Diversity in Philosophy and Beyond
Rules, Regularities, Randomness. Festschrift for Michiel van Lambalgen, 2022
In western philosophy and beyond, a tension between pluralism and monism has sparked many developments and debates. Pluralism of norms, of forms of knowledge, of aesthetic and moral values, of interests etc. has often been pitted against monism. Monism usually implies a hierarchical order of such norms etc. After having traced the origin of this tension between pluralism and monism in ancient tragedy and philosophy, I’m asking in this article whether a rejection of monism and embrace of pluralism necessarily raises the specter of inconsistency and contradiction. The threat of inconsistency need not be associated with pluralism as even with regard to logic an argument can be made for a ‘multiplicity of logics’, as van Lambalgen and Stenning argue in several places. They refer to the varieties in reasoning that can be observed in humans and which are partly due to there being ‘dual systems’ of reasoning: System 1 processes information fast, automatized, and emotional, while System 2 is rather slow, more deliberative, and more rational. In contrast to a widely held view, the authors argue that System 1 processing is not without logic, even though it is a different form of logic from System 2. In addition, the multiplicity of logics they discuss is related to the multiple semantics required for distinct domains of reasoning. This perspective raises the subsequent question how this pluralism can be available while maintaining consistency, how should the available options be configured or related to each other? In the remainer of this chapter I’m addressing several such options for configurating pluralism like: non-foundational pluralism and foundational pluralism, moderate or temporary pluralism, antagonistic pluralism, incompatible pluralism, incommensurable pluralism, ‘Anything goes’ pluralism, complementary pluralism, integrative pluralism, and interactive pluralism. The discussion and examples of these options show that irrespective of its domain, the encounter with different configurations of pluralism shows how some forms of pluralism are likely to be productive, whereas others are less so - which is an important lesson given the prominent pluralism of pluralisms in philosophy and beyond.
The Eclipse and Rebirth of American Philosophical Pluralism: a History Lesson about His-tory
wisdom, 2016
The 1950s and `60s saw a struggle in American academic philosophy between a philosophical tradition that maintained a central role for the history of philosophy along with an openness to diverse philosophical methods and an ascendant analytic approach that marginalized its own history and restricted the scope of philosophy to self-generated philosophical problems. Columbia University in this period, while marked by these tensions, still provided a fertile ground for generating teacher-philosophers whose pedagogy reflected a deep and serious respect for history and philosophical pluralism. John Herman Randall Jr. and Justus Buchler were two of the central figures who fostered such an environment in Columbia’s Philosophy Department. Joseph P. Fell was a product of this environment and brought these traits to his classroom at Bucknell University. Playing off of Hegel’s insights into history, this essay will reflect upon the philosophies of Randall and Buchler with an eye toward pedagog...
One of the many ideas that will remain with the reader after reading this very thought-provoking book edited by Bell, Cutrofello and Livinston is how some themes can become outdated even in philosophy. The troublesome distinction between analytic and continental philosophy which animated many discussions in the last century is gradually fading away. Now it is more a matter of ideology and institutional division than a philosophical problem. Moreover, we should be suspicious of the very origin of this divide. The enthusiastic consensus that this divide provoked throughout the last decades is by no means a matter of geography; furthermore, the distinction between analytic and continental philosophy is neither an exhaustive nor exclusive criterion for what matters in philosophy or for what it means to seriously engage in philosophical discussions. Conant shares the following provocative observation: '[It is] no more promising a principle for classifying forms of philosophy into two fundamentally different kinds than would be the suggestion that we should go about classifying human beings into those that are vegetarian and those that are Romanian' (p. 17). As the editors point out, the arbitrariness of the distinction followed an increased specialization of philosophical work in many highly nuanced sub-areas of research and motivated much 'dissension, mutual distrust, and institutional barriers to the development of common concerns and problems among working philosophers and so has significantly limited, in many cases, the range and fruitfulness of philosophical discussions and debates'. (p. 2) It is not an exaggeration to say that it is a timely book with a political message. This book encourages a high-quality examination of a more pluralist, cosmopolitan and tolerant way of doing philosophy. It also encourages engaging in fruitful dialogue with influential philosophers of the past and with contemporary interlocutors from different traditions. The international community will profit significantly from this book.
"Editor: H. G. Callaway Date Of Publication: Nov 2008 Isbn13: 9781847188687 Isbn: 1-84718-868-0 This new edition of William James’s 1909 classic, A Pluralistic Universe reproduces the original text, only modernizing the spelling. The books has been annotated throughout to clarify James’s points of reference and discussion. There is a new, fuller index, a brief chronology of James’s life, and a new bibliography—chiefly based on James’s own references. The editor, H.G. Callaway, has included a new Introduction which elucidates the legacy of Jamesian pluralism to survey some related questions of contemporary American society. A Pluralistic Universe was the last major book James published during his life time. It is a substantial philosophical work, devoted to a thorough-going criticism of Hegelian monism and Absolutism—and the exploration of philosophical and social-theological alternatives. Our world of some one hundred years on is much the better for James’s contributions; and understanding James’s pluralism deeply contributes even now to America’s self-understanding. At present, we are more certain that American is, and is best, a pluralistic society, than we are of what particular forms our pluralism should take. Keeping an eye out for social interpretations of Jamesian pluralism, this new philosophical reading casts light on our twenty-first century alternatives by reference to prior American experience and developments."
John Hick's Pluralism: a Reconsideration of its Philosophical Framework
Philosophy & Theology, 2011
Hick's religious pluralism has been a matter of philosophical debate for more than two decades. Until recently, the philosophical framework of Hick's pluralism has elicited a wide range of philosophical criticism. In this paper, I specify three core claims of Hick's concept pertaining to the philosophical framework of his pluralism that have been under intensive discussion so far: Firstly, the epistemological claim that all exclusive religious truth claims have to be de-emphasised. Secondly, the methodological claim that Hick's pluralism must be understood as a meta-theory and not as a first-order theory such as, for example, exclusivism. Thirdly, the metaphysical claim that no substantial properties can be ascribed to the noumenal and therefore transcategorial divine reality. I examine these three claims and reconsider Hick's responses to philosophical objections to these claims. I argue that Hick is not successful in his defense. A reconsideration of these problems shows that all three pluralist claims remain neither compelling nor consistent.
Philosophy in review, 2015
(hereafter C.D. Wright). The edited volume contains an introduction and sixteen essays dealing with alethic pluralism. The book has three thematically organized parts. I will discuss some issues raised in part one of the volume in more detail below. However, first I provide a very brief statement of the topics covered in each of the sixteen essays in the anthology. Part one contains essays by Michael Lynch, Pedersen and C.D. Wright, Douglas Edwards and Crispin Wright (hereafter Wright). Most of the discussions in part one deal with a tradition of work on alethic pluralism that originates with Wright's pioneering Truth and Objectivity and Michael Lynch's influential functionalist variant of alethic pluralism discussed primarily in his Truth as One and Many. In an earlier helpful review of this anthology Matti Eklund calls this tradition Wright-Lynch pluralism. Part one also contains two papers by Marian David and Pascal Engel that raise critical challenges for Wright-Lynch pluralism.
A Pluralist Interpretation of Thomas Kuhn’s Philosophical Position
2020
It is commonplace in philosophical literature to attribute to Thomas Kuhn a philosophical view at odds with (scientific) realism, especially an idealist position rooted in the Kantian distinction between “world-in-itself” and “world of appearances”. In this paper I will argue that Kuhn’s philosophical view is amenable to a pluralist interpretation that fits better into his general philosophy of science. In addition, this pluralist approach to Kuhn’s philosophical position also provides an alternative view on incommensurability, whose central feature is represented by the taxonomical and ontological disparity that exists between rival or successive scientific specialties.
BAD IDEAS [A critical Review/Essay of “A PLURALISTIC UNIVERSE ” by WILLIAM JAMES (1909)]
I am not recommending others to read this book, not because William James is almost a forgotten ‘dead white professor’ but because the ideas expressed in this book are obsolete and were first delivered as verbal lectures at Manchester College, Oxford University in 1906 and transcribe into a turgid literary style. In spite of these caveats, I will attempt to discuss these ideas herein as they have historical interest for the evolution of philosophy and hope to show why the ideas of that generation no longer have much value to modernists. James in these lectures was confronting the major defenders of the orthodox philosophy (Hegelian Idealism) that dominated most universities at that time. James was an early critic of these orthodox ideas based on his own work in psychology that he called Pluralistic Empiricism in contrast to the unitary (monistic) philosophical view of the world that had been accepted by academics since Plato. It would not be an exaggeration to say that James helped remove these bad obsolete ideas that we no longer find useful in the modern world. Many of these ideas centered on the concept of the Absolute, that still fascinates many contemporary philosophers, who still define it as: “That which has an unconditioned existence, independent of everything else. Often considered (by its admirers) as the whole of things, conceived as a unitary, as spiritual, as self-knowing (at least, in part, by the human mind) so it is rationally intelligible while finite things are not when considered individually.” It was introduced by the German Idealists (Schelling and Hegel) and was the philosophical central idea for most of the 19th Century in academic circles because it provided a rational basis for a belief in God. These intellectual absolutists saw all reality grounded in The Will, that creates Reason in its own self-image. The devastating history of 20th Century Europe saw the deadly consequence of these ideas on millions. One final confession: it was this book by James that introduced me to the great French-Jewish philosopher Henri Bergson, so I must be forever after grateful.