Metaphysical Monism, Statements about Plurality and Moderate Error Theory

Abstract

In the article, I deal with the relationship between metaphysical monism and error theory. If we first consider the thesis that there is a single thing (monism of existence), the question arises, what consequences follow regarding our daily statements that describe the world as a multitude or plurality of things. In the history of philosophy, this question was first raised by Parmenides in his poem about truth and appearances. My focus will not be the correctness of such an interpretation of Parmenides fragments and his philosophical thought, but the contemporary form of existence monism as advocated by Terry Horgan and Matjaž Potrč. After a presentation of the view, I pose a question whether one of the consequences of such a position is that the ordinary, everyday beliefs of are systematically false and that thus the position encompasses a form of error theory. It turns out that such monism does not succumb to error theory since it has a way to explain the truth and falsity of such ordinary statements or beliefs. At the end of, I confront this monistic view with a new challenge posed by the so-called moderate error theory. The standard error theory regards as erroneous beliefs in a certain domain or discourse (for example, in the moral error theory this pertains to moral beliefs or moral judgments). On the other hand, the moderate error theory does not impute such an error directly to these beliefs but to other beliefs that accompany the beliefs in question (which themselves are not necessarily false). To illustrate the challenge, I briefly introduce Hägerström's moderate error theory and ultimately pose this new challenge to metaphysical monism.