pluralism

Noun

pluralism (countable and uncountable, plural pluralisms)

1. The quality or state of being plural, or in the plural number.
   • Polytheism was inherently tolerant of the worship of many gods, because no single god was thought to control all the phenomena that are vital for human life. The gods were believed to tolerate this pluralism, and several could be worshiped in the same sanctuary or addressed in the same prayer.2001, David L. Lieber, Jules Harlow, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, page 1017
2. The state of a pluralist; the holding of more than one ecclesiastical living at a time.
3. A social system that permits smaller groups within a society to maintain their individual cultural identities.
   • Instead, it is more probable that globalization is leading to a plurality of pluralisms.2007, Matthias Koenig with Paul F. A. Guchteneire, Unesco, Democracy and Human Rights in Multicultural Societies, page 251
4. The belief that there should be diverse and competing centers of power in society.
5. The acknowledgement of a diversity of political systems.
6. The existence of differing legal systems in a population or area.
7. The belief that values can be simultaneously antagonistic and incommensurable.
   • Due to pluralism and conflicts within the good itself, such perfection, for Berlin, is not possible. A compromise does not bring us closer to a higher telos in history.2006, Connie Aarsbergen-Ligtvoet, Isaiah Berlin: A Value Pluralist and Humanist View of Human Nature and the Meaning of Live, →ISBN
   • Pluralism is a creative force because it admits of multiple ways to see a thing, multiple valuable paths to choose from.2016, Stuart Firestein, Failure: Why Science is So Successful, page 217
8. The belief that a plural predicate refers to its individuals rather than to a collective.