Pluralism, from its origins, has always gone beyond a recognition of
plurality, to a central concern with how such diVerence is to be communi-
cated and engaged. Values and identities can be comparable, even if incom-
mensurable; incommensurability does not mean that values cannot be
shared, or at least understood, across diVerences. Bohman ( 2001 , 89 – 90 )
argues that the engagement of pluralist perspectives is the central issue for
contemporary critical social theory. As pluralism indicates that no one
perspective may lay claim to epistemic, moral, or rational authority, the
task for theory is to examine what each perspective provides, how to adjudi-
cate among them, and how to reconcile conXicting perspectives in demo-
cratic practice. The job for the pluralist critic is ‘‘to relate various perspectives
to each other in acts of criticism within reXective practices that articulate and
adjudicate such conXicts’’ (Bohman 2001 , 90 ). Importantly, conXicts are not
to be resolved by the critic, ‘‘but practically in ongoing and reXective prac-
tices.’’ Simply put, pluralism demands engagement.
Both Berlin and Raz note the importance of what we learn from others
across diVerence. Berlin calls on us to try to understand ‘‘the standards of
others... to grasp what we are told’’ by them. Their diVerence does not
preclude us from ‘‘sharing common assumptions, suYcient for some com-
munication with them, for some degree of understanding and being under-
stood’’ (Berlin 1969 , 103 ). Galston ( 2002 , 90 – 1 ) argues that, ideally, pluralist
participants see others not as ignorant, short-sighted, or blinded by passion,
but rather as fellow citizens who happen to see things diVerently, and whose
positions might be right, add to the larger picture, or at least have some value.
Tully ( 1995 , 25 ) notes that the ‘‘ability to change perspectives—to see and
understand aspectivally—is acquired through participation in the intercul-
tural dialogue itself.’’ This focus on active pluralist engagement and inter-
subjectivity is especially necessary as cultures mix and individuals Wnd
themselves in more than one cultural world simultaneously—Muslim youth
in Western schools, Anglo university students learning about indigenous
cosmologies, urban dwellers coming to know and interact with new immi-
grants (and vice versa).
as Fred Dallmayr, Carol Gould, Will Kymlicka, Anne Phillips, and Iris Young, for example,
revisited pluralist questions—and imagined new responses—within discourses of diVerence,
multiculturalism, and constitutionalism. Others, such as William Connolly, John Gray, and Chantal
MouVe, have attempted an explicit resurrection of the term along with the key concerns of plura-
lization.
the pluralist imagination 149