Some heterodox economists, most notably Tony Lawson, have come under suspicion of not being true pluralists, but ‘strategic pluralists’: their advocacy of pluralism is thought to be merely instrumental to a hidden monist agenda. This paper does not aim to judge the accused but rather to assess the accusations; the focus is on clarifying the notion of pluralism itself. First a paradox is found t...

In this paper I first point out the pluralist constitution of science in general and of chemistry in particular and then argue that it is inevitable for epistemological reasons. Once methodological pluralism is accepted, many mainstream philosophical debates that are based on methodological monism become futile, of which I discuss “laws of nature”, “reductionism”, and “scientific realism”. That...

the absolute hegemony of international code of (academic) communication has resulted in the development and spread of the discoursal voice of the culture form which historical english has emerged, and, as a consequence, any violation from the generic conventions and thinking patterns born out of such a discourse has resulted in the deprivation of non-native thinkers form active participation in...

Abstract I examine situations in which we say that different subjects have ‘different’, ‘competing’, or ‘conflicting understandings’ of a phenomenon. In order to make sense such situations, should turn our attention an often neglected ambiguity the word ‘understanding’. Whereas notion understanding is typically discussed philosophy is, use Elgin’s terms, tethered facts, there another not same w...

Our best sciences are frequently held to be one way, perhaps the optimal way, to learn about the world’s higher-level ontology and structure. I first argue that which scientific theory is “best” depends in part on our goals or purposes. As a result, it is theoretically possible to have two scientific theories of the same domain, where each theory is best for some (scientifically plausible) goal...

Scientific (disunity) pluralism is the view according to which there is a plurality of scientific domains and of scientific theories, and these theories are empirically adequate relative to their own respective domains. Scientific monism is the view according to which there is a single domain to which all scientific theories apply. How are these views impacted by the presence of inconsistent sc...

The so-called Exclusion argument (Kim 2000; Papineau 2004) about mental causation applies one premise that is typically accepted without much discussion: the thesis of causal completeness of the physical domain (CCP). In part one I evaluate Papineau’s (2001) argument for the CCP. I argue that this argument is not satisfying and that it is incomplete. The rest of the thesis is dedicated to an al...

The popularity of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) raises a range of ethical issues for practicing clinicians. Principles of biomedical ethics define obligations of health care professionals, but applying principles in particular cases at the interface of CAM and biomedicine may be particularly challenging. "Recognition of medical pluralism" can help clinicians' ethical deliberation...

For many years American science in the late 19th century was regarded as an intellectual backwater. This view derived from the assumption that the health of American science at the time was equivalent to the condition of pure science, especially pure physics. However, a closer look reveals that there was considerable vitality in American scientific research, especially in the earth and life sci...

The purpose of this article is to describe pluralistic perspectives in knowledge management. The knowledge management literature provides frameworks from various discrete perspectives. It is argued that the simultaneous application of multiple perspectives, or pluralism, is required to manage the richness of knowledge phenomena. Pluralism is defined as support for all three of the systems persp...