# Appendix C: On the Notion of Reality as Changing explained — A Pluralistic Universe

> Chapter companion for A Pluralistic Universe by William James.

## What happens

James explores the limitations of logical axioms like the 'axiom of skipped intermediaries' when applied to concrete, changing reality. He argues that in a world of genuine novelty and continuous change, relations of sameness and causation break down over time, supporting a pluralistic, synechistic view aligned with Peirce and Bergson.

## Themes in this chapter

### Pluralism vs. Monism

James advocates for a 'synechistic pluralism' where reality is a network of changing relations, opposing monistic views that demand strict logical continuity.

### The Limits of Conceptual Thought

James argues that logical axioms like the dictum de omni et nullo fail when applied to concrete, changing reality, as concepts cannot capture the fluidity of experience.

### Temporal Reality and History

James critiques a 'scientific' view of history that projects linear trends into the future, arguing that real development is rebellious to such static conceptualization.

## Character check-ins

### Charles Sanders Peirce

James discusses Peirce's tychism, synechism, and agapasticism as congruent with Bergson's philosophy of creative evolution.

### Henri Bergson

James aligns Bergson's 'devenir réel' with Peirce's views, and suggests Bergson would deny logical axioms hold without qualification in the actual world.

### David Hume

Mentioned alongside Kant for their 'eviscerated schematism' of causation.

### Immanuel Kant

Mentioned alongside Hume for their 'eviscerated schematism' of causation.

## Key lines

> Mr. Peirce’s views, though reached so differently, are altogether congruous with Bergson’s. Both philosophers believe that the appearance of novelty in things is genuine.

Peirce and Bergson, despite different methods, both affirm that genuine novelty occurs in reality.

_James highlights the convergence of Peirce's tychism and Bergson's creative evolution._

> Novelty, as empirically found, doesn’t arrive by jumps and jolts, it leaks in insensibly, for adjacents in experience are always interfused, the smallest real datum being both a coming and a going, and even numerical distinctness being realized effectively only after a concrete interval has passed.

Novelty enters experience gradually and continuously, not abruptly, because all elements of experience are interconnected.

_James describes the synechistic nature of change, where continuity and novelty coexist._

> Sames of the same, in such a world, will not always (or rather, in a strict sense will never) be the same as one another, for in such a world there is no literal or ideal sameness among numerical differents.

In a world of real change, identical relations do not hold across different instances; strict sameness is an abstraction.

_James argues that logical identity fails in concrete reality._

## Links

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