ABSTRACT
Warren Samuels’ contribution to our thinking about pluralism has been recognized by his selection as the author of the article on methodological pluralism in the Handbook of Economic Methodology (Samuels 1998). This chapter supplements his treatment by presenting a version of epistemic pluralism that is not grounded in postmodernism, and is not subject to the objection that in its strong version it amounts to an “anything goes” relativism, while in its weak version it amounts to no more than the platitudinous mandate: “be open to ideas that differ from yours.” I try to counter the above objection to the weak version of pluralism by presenting a version of epistemic pluralism that focuses on our limited knowledge and our uncertainty about many important aspects of the economy, while accepting the tradition in economics of offering answers to most practical questions that come up, even if such answers have to be based on evidence that is far from compelling. As recent discussions of global warming illustrate, natural scientists sometimes do the same.
