Lynch's Metaphysical Pluralism

Abstract

Pluralism, according to Michael P. Lynch, is the thesis that there are or can be more than one true story of the world; there can be incompatible but equally acceptable accounts of some subject matter.' The opposite view, absolutism, states that there can be only one true story about how the world is. In our ordinary lives both theses have intuitive pull. Most of us are ready to say that there is more than one right way to teach a class or more than one good way to raise children. Few would deny that there is no one uniquely best flavor of ice cream or best way to write a poem. When it comes to these issues we are all ready to be pluralists. On the other hand, most of us think that there is only one true scientific picture of the world. There is one true physics, and one correct understanding of the human body towards which medicine approaches, even if asymptotically. Some topics, like morality, seem to fall between the cracks, with our intuitions pulling towards both pluralism and absolutism. When dealing with topics that turn crucially on individual preferences or behaviors, pluralist intuitions follow hard behind. When dealing with descriptive facts or truths, absolutist intuitions rise up. How can there be inconsistent truths about some one topic? If there are different but equally true perspectives on the world then truth is not objective; contrapositively, if truth is objective, then there are not different but equally true perspectives on the world. The purpose of Lynch's Truth in Context is to argue against this conditional. He maintains that metaphysical pluralism-true propositions and facts concerning the nature of reality are relative to conceptual schemes or worldviews-is compatible with realism about truth. There are four kinds of pluralism that Lynch distinguishes (pp. 6-8). One is a vertical pluralism according to which there is more than one type of fact in the world and that different levels of fact-stating discourse are not reducible to a more basic discourse. For example, aesthetic or moral facts may not be reducible to physical facts, and so truths about ethics and truths about chem-