# IV explained — A Pluralistic Universe

> Chapter companion for A Pluralistic Universe by William James.

## What happens

James defends radical empiricism against the monistic critique that relations are unreal, arguing that conjunctive relations are as real as the terms they unite and that the world is a concatenated union rather than a through-and-through unity.

## Themes in this chapter

### Pluralism vs. Monism

James contrasts the monistic 'through-and-through' union with his own pluralistic 'concatenated union,' defending the reality of partial conflux and diverse relations.

### The Primacy of Experience

Radical empiricism takes conjunctive relations at face-value as experienced, rejecting the rationalist claim that they are logically impossible.

## Character check-ins

### F. H. Bradley

James identifies Bradley as the most recent and elaborate proponent of the dialectical argument that relations are logically impossible, and sets out to rescue radical empiricism from his critique.

### Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Mentioned alongside Herbart and Spir as earlier thinkers who argued that a term can only be a punctiform unit, contributing to the denial of relations.

## Key lines

> Radical empiricism takes conjunctive relations at their face-value, holding them to be as real as the terms united by them.

Radical empiricism accepts relations as directly experienced and equally real with the things they connect.

_James states the core principle of his empiricism against idealist skepticism about relations._

> Such determinately various hanging-together may be called concatenated union, to distinguish it from the 'through-and-through' type of union, 'each in all and all in each' (union of total conflux, as one might call it), which monistic systems hold to obtain when things are taken in their absolute reality.

James introduces 'concatenated union' as his term for the partial, varied connections found in experience, as opposed to the absolute, all-encompassing unity claimed by monism.

_This distinction is central to James's pluralistic metaphysics._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_pluralistic_universe_se/chapters/iv
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_pluralistic_universe_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_pluralistic_universe_se/chapters