Q&A: On Monism and Pluralism
On Monism and Pluralism
Question
Rabbi Michi, hello,
I’ll begin with words of thanks for the site and the trilogy. I have several issues that came up while reading the third book that I’d be happy to expand on, depending on your time and availability. For convenience, I’ll divide them into several questions and send them separately.
In the third part, in the discussion of the “these and those” issues, you distinguish between a pluralist and a monist position. Later in the chapter you note that there is extreme monism and extreme pluralism, with intermediate positions in between. However, in the analysis, the treatment of pluralism is actually only of its extreme version (there is no truth), while all the other positions, including the “harmonistic” one, are classified as a kind of monism. You challenge the pluralist interpretation of the “these and those” passage and show that it leads to an internal contradiction (which characterizes extreme pluralism and extreme postmodernism in general). Your claim is that even the positions in the Sages and later scholars from which voices emerge that seem like pluralism are in fact “tolerant monism.”
The question is: what is the philosophical consideration for drawing the map of positions דווקא in this way? Once one is willing to accept, as you note in the book, that a problem in Jewish law has more than one correct solution, and that sometimes these solutions contradict one another, we have already gone beyond monism into a kind of pluralist approach. One could draw the map of positions in the opposite way: the position that holds that there is only one halakhic truth is a monist position, whereas all the other positions can be classified as soft or moderate pluralism to varying degrees, all sharing one common denominator—the recognition of the possibility of multiple truths, from among which one may choose based on judgment and in accordance with halakhic tools. This does not mean that every possibility in the world has truth-value, or that one cannot classify positions as mistaken (monism, for example…). In my humble opinion, this fits some of the voices emerging from the tradition better, whereas interpreting them as tolerant monism seems to me strained. In the same way, the logical contradiction also disappears in the pluralist interpretation of the “these and those” passage.
Thank you
Answer
Any theoretical discussion focuses on simplified models. Usually it’s impossible to discuss reality itself, because it is very complex. Therefore it makes sense to discuss the extreme cases and learn from them the main contours of the picture. We see that extreme pluralism is not consistent and does not fit the sources. From this it is clear that you must be a monist in the sense that there is truth and there is falsehood. There can still be cases of several correct answers, but in principle that is no longer essential pluralism. Also, people who advocate an intermediate model are usually not aware of this and speak in the language of extreme pluralism, so it is important to discuss it. From now on, when people accuse me of not being a pluralist, I can answer that neither are you… The whole question is one of dosage.
The important point here is that the debate between monism and pluralism is located specifically around the pluralist pole. An essential pluralist thinks this not because he happened to encounter a few problems that have several answers, but because of a principled conception that there is no single truth. By contrast, the monist holds that a single truth is possible, even if not always and not in every question. In this debate there are no intermediate states. Anyone who is not an extreme pluralist is, in principle, a monist.
Discussion on Answer
By the way, there are also people who would agree to an intermediate model and, without realizing it, speak the language of extreme monism; that too is important to bring to the surface. And when they claim that I’m not a monist (as the correct religion/Jewish law/worldview supposedly requires), I can argue that they aren’t either…
You can define the two poles differently, and then of course the results of the analysis will be different. That’s semantics. I dealt with what I called pluralism.
Thank you for the answer.
I still don’t understand why the discussion is centered around the pluralist pole, and why there is a push to define a moderate pluralist position as a shade of monism. This position does indeed recognize that there is truth and falsehood, but it also rejects the possibility of a monist explanation of truth. The moderate pluralist also thinks this because he sees that monism cannot adequately account for the complexity of normative problems, and that there are voices in the tradition that do not align with a monist approach. Again, since we are talking about degrees, I do not understand the decision to draw the line specifically at the question of whether or not there is truth, rather than at the question of whether truth appears as multiplicity or unity.
In addition, since the Sages did not conceptualize their positions in terms of monism and pluralism, this is really an interpretive debate. What is important in your analysis to me (and also in that of Avi Sagi and other scholars) is the pointing out of a voice in the tradition that is opposed to essential monism and accepts that there is more than one true solution to normative problems. The attempt to bring that voice under the wings of monism, in my understanding, blurs a real disagreement that exists in the sources and empties it of an essential part of its content.