Abstract
In our increasingly multicultural society there is an urgent need for a theory that is capable of making sense of the various philosophical difficulties presented by ethical and religious diversity—difficulties that, at first sight, seem to be remarkably similar. Given this similarity, a theory that successfully accounted for the difficulties raised by one form of plurality might also be of help in addressing those raised by the other, especially as ethical belief systems are often inextricably linked with religious belief systems. This article adumbrates a theory that is suitably sensitive to the challenge posed by cultural diversity, and that is respectful of ethical and religious differences. The theory, called “internalist pluralism,” provides a philosophical account of the widely differing claims made by religious believers resulting from the tremendous diversity of belief systems, while simultaneously yielding a novel perspective on ethical plurality. Internalist pluralism is based on Hilary Putnam’s theory of internal realism. This article is not concerned to defend internal realism against its critics, although such defense is clearly required if the theory is to be adopted. Its more modest aim is to show that internal realism has a distinctive voice to add to the current debate about how best to understand religious and ethical diversity.
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Notes
To be more precise, internalist pluralism is a development of the internal realism advocated in the middle period of his philosophical career. See, for example, Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
William Alston has been one of internal realism’s most influential critics. See, for example, William P. Alston, A Sensible Metaphysical Realism (Milwaukee, Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 2002). For my defense of internal realism in response to Alston’s key criticisms, see Victoria S. Harrison, ‘Internal Realism, Religious Pluralism and Ontology’, Philosophia 36 (2008): 97–110.
See Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, op. cit., Chapter 3.
See ibid., p. 49.
See ibid., p. xi. Also see Hilary Putnam, ‘Realism and Reason,’ American Philosophical Association Proceedings 50 (1976–77): 483–498, and Hilary Putnam, ‘The Question of Realism’ in James Conant (ed.), Words and Life (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1994), pp. 304f.
See Hilary Putnam, Renewing Philosophy (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), p. 120. Moreover, according to internal realism, facts are to be analyzed in the same way as objects. Thus, what ‘facts’ are thought to obtain will depend upon which conceptual scheme is employed.
See Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, op. cit., p. 49.
It also explains why internal realism does not collapse into solipsism.
Although linguistic practice alone, according to internal realism, is not enough to secure the truth of particular statements but only the possibility that certain statements might turn out to be true. I have explained this issue in more detail in ‘Internal Realism, Religious Pluralism and Ontology,’ op., cit. There I introduced the terminology of ‘conceptual-scheme targetability’ and ‘successful conceptual-scheme targeting’ to elucidate the difference between the claim that a conceptual scheme makes it the case that a statement is true and the more complex claim that a conceptual scheme makes it possible that a statement is true.
See Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, op. cit., pp. 54f.
See ibid., p. 52.
See ibid., pp. 49f, passim.
See, ibid., p. 55.
Putnam has defended his idealization theory of truth against criticisms by Crispin Wright. See Hilary Putnam, ‘When “Evidence Transcendence” is not Malign: A Reply to Crispin Wright’, The Journal of Philosophy XCVIII, 11 (2001): 594–600. For Wright’s criticisms, see Crispin Wright, ‘Truth as Sort of Epistemic: Putnam’s Peregrinations’, The Journal of Philosophy XCVII, 6 (2000): 335–364.
In so arguing, Putnam is distancing internal realism from the anti-realism of Michael Dummett. Dummett reduces truth to what one is warranted in asserting. But if ‘truth’ is equated with ‘warranted assertibility’, then because there are some claims that one is neither warranted in asserting nor warranted in denying, they are neither true nor false. This constitutes the basis of semantic anti-realism. See, for example, Michael Dummett, ‘The Reality of the Past’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (1968–1969): 239–258.
For an analysis of the three principal forms of non-realism, see Crispin Wright, Truth and Objectivity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1992), Chap. 1.
Adoption of internal realism in these contexts does not commit one to applying the theory in all contexts. One might accept an internal realist account of truth, objectivity, and so on in the ethical and religious domains, while subscribing to an alternative theory in another domain. Such a pluralist account has been elaborated by Wright; see ibid.
Despite this recognition of diversity, I would not go so far as to say that every individual might have their own version of a conceptual scheme. As explained above, according to internal realism, a conceptual scheme is produced and maintained by a community sharing a linguistic practice; this rules out the possibility that a solitary individual might create and maintain a conceptual scheme.
Following Carnap, I have argued elsewhere that the key criterion for individuating conceptual schemes will be a pragmatic one. See Victoria S. Harrison, ‘Internal Realism and the Problem of Religious Diversity’: Philosophia 34, 3(2006): 287-301 and Rudolf Carnap, ‘Empiricism, Semantics, and Ontology’ (1950), reprinted in P. Benacerraf and H. Putnam (eds), Philosophy of Mathematics, 2nd edition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983); pp. 241–257.
Of course, one does not have to adopt the same strategy to account for both ethical and religious pluralism. Nevertheless, the same strategies are available for each domain. Failure to adopt the same strategy in each case would at least seem to require some explanation.
This strategy has been employed in ethics by, for example, the emotivist A. J. Ayer and the value-subjectivist J. L. Mackie. It has been applied in the philosophy of religion by, for example, D. Z. Phillips and Don Cupitt.
Within ethics, certain forms of intuitionism seem committed to this strategy, while within philosophy of religion it is embraced by religious exclusivists.
Within philosophy of religion, John Hick has adopted this strategy in his attempt to provide a theory of religious pluralism. In the ethical domain, Michelle Moody Adams has resorted to this type of strategy to explain moral disagreements.
See John Hick, ‘The Epistemological Challenge of Religious Pluralism’, Faith and Philosophy 14, 3 (1997): 281.
To employ Eli Hirsch’s terminology, words such as ‘object’ and ‘existence’ exhibit quantifier variation—what they quantify varies over the contexts (conceptual schemes) in which they are used.
See Victoria S. Harrison, The Apologetic Value of Human Holiness (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000).
A further implication of this analysis, which I cannot elaborate here, is that the ‘common-core thesis’ of religious experience, which many philosophers of religion subscribe to, is erroneous. For a critical discussion of the ‘common-core thesis’, see Peter Moore, ‘Mystical Experience, Mystical Doctrine, Mystical Technique’ in Steven T. Katz (ed.), Mysticism and Philosophical Analysis (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), pp. 101–131.
It might be objected that many religious believers make claims about what was the case prior to the existence of humans—God creating the universe, for example—and therefore before there were any human minds to generate conceptual schemes. Such an objection, however, misses a crucial point: past events are, of course, conceived as having taken place prior to there being any human minds or conceptual schemes, and hence any conception of divine creation is always lodged within a particular faith stance. Put another way, not only is it the case that whatever ‘existing’ is taken to mean is dependent upon one’s current conceptual scheme, but it is also the case that whatever ‘existed’ means is equally conceptual-scheme dependent.
Two possible objections to this account immediately come to mind: First, what if someone were to object that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, and merely make conflicting assertions about that God? This view presupposes that there is an object—God—that exists independently of either the Christian or the Muslim conceptual scheme, and that both conceptual schemes offer rival ways of conceiving this God. Clearly, this objection is premised upon the sort of metaphysical realism that an internal realist rejects. Internal realism claims that what is recognized as an object is determined by the conceptual scheme in question. Hence, only if Christians and Muslims turn out to share the same conceptual scheme could one say that they worship the same God. Second, it might be objected that many religions share certain factual, or historical, claims. Both Christians and Muslims might, for example, both assert that ‘Jesus was born in Palestine.’ Such apparently shared claims might seem to compromise the view that each conceptual scheme provides its own unique world. However, as we shall see later, according to internalist pluralism, such common ground between religious traditions may well be merely an appearance generated by the fact that people who employ different conceptual schemes can, nevertheless, use the same natural language to express themselves. Hence, when a Christian asserts ‘Jesus was born in Palestine,’ that statement can, in fact, possess a different meaning from the statement ‘Jesus was born in Palestine’ uttered by a Muslim—there may well be two statements here, not one. Whatever meaning the statement has will crucially depend upon the significance attached to the name ‘Jesus’ and that significance is clearly not independent of the particular conceptual scheme employed. We might, analogously, think of a natural language as a tool. And when the same tool is employed in different contexts, it creates different products.
Consider, for example, the following statement made by Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama: ‘The aim of spiritual and, therefore, ethical practice is thus to transform and perfect the individual’s kun long. This is how we become better human beings.’ His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Ethics for the New Millennium (New York: Riverhead Books, 1999), p. 32. ‘Kun long’ is one of the most fundamental concepts within the Tibetan Buddhist ethico-religious conceptual scheme. It cannot be accurately translated into English, and its meaning is embedded within a complex system of ethical, religious, and metaphysical concepts. Would, for example, any Western religious leader be able to enter into debate that might issue in disagreement with the Dalai Lama about the concept of ‘kun long’? It seems likely that one could only do so after having first been inaugurated into the conceptual scheme of Tibetan Buddhism.
For a discussion of meta-conceptual schemes, see Harrison, ‘Internal Realism, Pluralism and Ontology; op. cit’.
A fictionalist stance towards religious and ethical claims might be an advantage to our would-be debater.
D. Z. Phillips illustrates the idea that there can be no translation of meaning from one conceptual scheme into another thus: ‘If I hear that one of my neighbours has killed another neighbour’s child, given that he is sane, my condemnation is immediate…But if I hear that some remote tribe practices child sacrifice, what then? I do not know what sacrifice means for the tribe in question. What would it mean to say that I condemned it when the ‘it’ refers to something I know nothing about? If I did condemn it, I would be condemning murder. But murder is not child sacrifice.’ D. Z. Phillips, Faith and Philosophical Inquiry (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970), p. 237.
In this way, a vicious, infinite regress that would otherwise seem to follow from containing conceptual schemes within conceptual schemes can be avoided. I lack the space to deal with this matter in detail here. For a less cursory discussion of this apparent difficulty, see Harrison, ‘Internal Realism, Pluralism and Ontology’; op. cit.
Harold Netland offers such a criticism of Hick in Dissonant Voices: Religious Pluralism and the Quest for Truth (Leicester: Apollos, 1991).
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Harrison, V.S. An Internalist Pluralist Solution to the Problem of Religious and Ethical Diversity. SOPHIA 51, 71–86 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0245-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11841-011-0245-5