Pluralism Pluralism is a surprisingly tricky word in modern discussion. Empirical Pluralism Empirical pluralism sums up the growing diversity in our culture. Observable and largely measurable, it is what David Tracy prefers to call plurality. Plurality, he writes, is a fact.
Pluralism is one of the many possible evaluations of that fact.
But although a few scholars have followed him in this usage, most still use pluralism, in one of its uses, to refer to the sheer diversity of race, value systems, heritage, language, culture, and religion in many Western and some other nations. Consider, for example, the remarkable ethnic diversity in America. Moreover, these large proportions reveal nothing about the enormous diversity generated by countless smaller ethnic and racial communities. Compiling equally remarkable statistics in almost every other plane of American culture is an easy matter. It is possible to overstate the novelty of this diversity.