Editing Ontology:Q10,000 (section)

== Usage notes ==

Plurality is the non-fictional motif of something that appears to be one entity actually being multiple separate entities — generally in the context of populations. When all the individuals in a country combine into a single homogeneous population without issue, they are not in plurality. When all the individuals in a country combine into two or more distinct populations which do not neatly behave as a single entity as much as multiple interacting entities, those smaller entities are <i>in plurality</i>.

The prospect of plurality raises problems for a lot of theories of society, including Trotskyism, anarchism, and generic Liberal-republicanism. If Trotskyism treats all the populations of the world as one population to then propose to unify "the proletariat" it presumes is singular (or anarchism does nearly the same thing with "The Multitude"), but there are factors separating those populations that affect all individuals in each population, they might not stand together. Similarly, if center-Liberals assume that everyone desires to be part of the same population and give people the same human rights purely because there is a constitution and people can say buzzwords like "democracy" and "empathy", but in reality "Our Democracy" consists of two or three separate populations in plurality that fundamentally don't believe in the same things and act as separate nations, passing any kind of progressive policies whatsoever with only half a population to work with may prove to be a problem.

=== Alias "multiplicity" ===

[[E:Q42|Existentialist]] philosopher Henri Bergson describes this concept with the term <i>multiplicity</i>, but that term extends further than the scope of this entry. The concept of plurality described in this entry is fundamentally connected to the notion of subunits of a greater whole being countable and separable at least at some point in time; particular subunits may take time to emerge out of a <i>unity</i>, but as long as they emerge eventually at some later date they would then be <i>in plurality</i> or in <i>separable multiplicity</i>. On the other hand, <i>multiplicity</i> may also extend to "qualitative" aspects of a whole which can never be properly separated. This entry does not include that.


[[Category:Countable ideologies ontology]]