Monism could be countered by Nonism if we hardly embrace any of the different possible (seemingly incompatible) methods for interpretation, or giving any serious reason for employing them. (..) The pluralist will examine each critic's questions, language and reasoning, doscovering that 'more than one mode emerges intact, irrefutable, viable and not reducible to [or] totally translatable into some other, superior mode.' (..) But are the different modes to be taken as giving different answers to the same question or as answering different questions? (..) Principle such as: criticism is essentially talk about text that relies on the texts themselves for evidence; or, criticism is essentially understanding and judging texts in relation to the social and historical conditions of their inditing. If we think of methods in some such way, we have an intelligible version of pluralism. Buth then who is a pluralist? (..) Booth cannot demonstrate either that the methods are directed solely to logically distinct questions or that they give ultimately reconcilable answers to the same questions. (..) Booth advocates provisional pluralism / open-mindedness and a reasonable eclecticism. (..) but gives it a rhetorical turn. (..) By refusing to pursue a philosophical inquiry into his problem, he abandons the serious search for critical knowledge. |