Pragmatism, Education and the Problem of Pluralism

Abstract

The concept of pluralism is of central importance in contemporary moral and political education, where a crucial aim is to promote acceptance of the life choices of others and to teach tolerance towards diversity of values. However, this promotion of pluralism suffers from two immediate difficulties. Firstly, the concept of pluralism has proved somewhat elusive, and it is far from clear that its various uses are congruent. Secondly, there is a long-standing criticism against ethical and political pluralism which maintains that pluralist views are difficult if not impossible to defend without succumbing to dreaded relativism. In this article, I will firstly distinguish an educationally interesting form of pluralism and then, drawing from thinkers in the tradition of philosophical pragmatism, attempt to meet the criticism that such pluralism has no interesting philosophical defense.