The Nature of Political Theory

210 The Nature of Political Theory

conceptual ties between pluralism and relativism, or difference and multiculturalism.
In my own usage, pluralism is taken as the key background, if multi-dimensional,
concept. In this sense, there can be liberal pluralism, multicultural pluralism, and
difference-based pluralism. Before moving to the central discussion it is important,
however, to say a few initial words about this generic concept of pluralism.
One difficulty here is that each of the above concepts—pluralism, liberalism, mul-
ticulturalism, and difference—carry their own idiosyncratic baggage. In the case of
pluralism, for example, when mentioned in political settings, it still conjures up
visions of massed ranks of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, usually North American,
political scientists ready to do battle over interest groups. If one mentioned plural-
ism to most political theorists, before the 1980s, they would probably have looked
slightly blank, or mentioned, tentatively, Isaiah Berlin, or more sophisticated North
American pluralists, such as Robert Dahl, or, if they were longer in the tooth, English
pluralists such as John Neville Figgis or G. D. H. Cole. To philosophers of ethics and
epistemology, pluralism conjures up debates over moral or conceptual relativism, or
again, if they were longer in the tooth, it would raise the spectre of philosophical
pragmatism.
This present discussion distinguishes briefly philosophical, socio-cultural, political,
and ethical dimensions of pluralism. In the final analysis, there are overlaps between
all of these categories. The distinctions drawn here are simply pedagogical devices
to focus discussion. Philosophical pluralism refers to long-standing philosophical
traditions concerned with multiple worlds, realities, and truths. This implies that
both our ‘being in the world’ and our ‘knowledge of it’ are irretrievably fragmented.
This, implicitly or explicitly, underpins most serious pluralist arguments of any form.
As mentioned, one earlier articulation of philosophical pluralism can be found in the
twentieth century pragmatist school of William James, John Dewey, C. S. Peirce and
later Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam. In this scenario, pluralism was not equivalent
to relativism. For pragmatists, the focus was on the application of ideas, deliberation
being a concern with ways of acting. Ideas were plans of action. Pragmatists argued
that knowledge was not fixed, but open to continuous critical change. This implied
that there were no absolute or monistic solutions to human problems. All beliefs
were open to experiential test and criticism. We could therefore be said not to live
in a universe, but a multiverse. This was the thesis developed by William James in
his bookThe Pluralistic Universe(1909). It was not a relativist standpoint. It rather
postulated the idea of a pragmatic community of rational enquiry.
Socio-cultural pluralism implies that humans are subject to diverse social and cul-
tural conditions. Plural societies are those that contain a number of ethnic, cultural, or
sub-national groups. Socio-cultural pluralism can mean, either, the empirical recog-
nition of diverse social practices, or, the normative claim that such separate cultures
are in some way intrinsically or consequentially valuable. The empirical assertion of
anthropological difference is not a normative claim. It also has no necessary logical
bearing on the question as to whether different communities or cultures ought or
ought not to abide by certain universal moral imperatives. Socio-cultural pluralism
is therefore still potentially compatible with an objectivist ethics. A cognate area is