Pluralism: Against the Demand for Consensus

Every time I get done reading one of the 80+ books by pragmatic philosohper Nicholas Rescher, I always have to pause and ask why he is not more well known. This book is everything one could want. The topic is relevant, the text is economical, terse and well layed out, and the thought is penetrating and insightful. Reschers subject, of course, is pluralism - epistemic, ethical, and political. Rescher has two 'enemies' from which to defend his version of pluralism. One is the consensus theorists or (epistemic, moral, or political) absolutists who hold that rational minds will inevitably come to consensus on thought-out issues. The second are the 'relativists' who have given up thorougly on the possibility and have hence concluded that differences in these areas are a matter of 'taste' or at very least, can not be picked between using reason. Reshcer defends his views well, but I fear that these two adversaries have been 'radicalized' by Rescher. As a shining example of relativism, for instance, he picks Paul Feyerabend (who even most relativists look at as radical). In short, though, Rescher's view is between these two extremes. With the 'absolutist' he shares the view that reason is capable of making justified decisions between options and that we are justified in making evaluative judgments that some options are better or worse than others. With the relativist, he shares an acknowledgment that reason is not an absolute and that there may not always be 'one right answer'. In short, he is a pragmatist who says: "While we can and should use reason to decide the best course of action, epistemic and axiological differences between people make pluralism between views inevitable." As mentioned, the text is well laid out. First, Rescher defends his pragmatic pluralism on epistemic grounds (different people know different things), then on ethics (different people rationally value different things) and then political pluralism is explored (it is often rational just to agree to disagree). While I share the below reviewers skepticism about some of Rescher's political conclusion (particularly that 'agreeing to disagree' is not a kind of consensus) but overall, I found his arguments persuasive. Trust me, you will enjoy this book!