On Arturo Escobar’s Concept of the ‘Pluriverse’: Questioning the Concept of the Universe Inherited from Galilean-Copernican Physics

From ancient cosmologies to modern physics

The concept of the universe inherited from the physics of Aristotle and Ptolemy, corrected by the Copernican model and then expressed mathematically by Kepler and Newton in the form of laws, clearly carries a worldview that continues to mark Western thought despite the remarkable advances of the physical sciences—special and general relativity and modern cosmology.

Ancient civilisations had varied cosmologies, often based on religious or mythological beliefs. They perceived the Earth as central and surrounded by celestial spheres.

In Greek antiquity, the geocentric model of Aristotle and Ptolemy placed the Earth at the centre of the universe, with the planets and stars orbiting around it.

In the sixteenth century, Galileo and Nicolaus Copernicus proposed a major change in the conception of the universe by placing the Sun at its centre. Heliocentrism was born.

Kepler later formulated the laws governing the movement of the planets around the Sun, describing their elliptical orbits mathematically. After him, Isaac Newton developed his theory of gravity in the seventeenth century, explaining celestial motion and laying the foundations of classical physics.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, Einstein introduced special relativity, which transformed the understanding of space and time. He subsequently developed general relativity, offering a more complete account of gravity by describing mass as curving spacetime.

Why assume that the universe has a centre?

What nevertheless stands out in all the models described above is the dominance, within physical science, of the concept of the ‘centre’.

Why should we think that the universe has a centre in itself?

The idea of a centre unmistakably reflects an Earth-bound perspective, since human beings naturally tend to perceive the world from the place where they live. Historically, geocentric and later heliocentric models maintained the idea of a ‘centre’ in the universe, whether that centre was the Earth or the Sun.

The representation of the universe in physical science therefore contains an undeniable anthropocentric dimension. It is a model in which the human being—preferably the Western human being—sees himself at the centre of the great Whole. He lives there as ‘master and possessor of nature’, in Descartes’s words in Discourse on the Method.

From the universe to the pluriverse

Questioning the concept of the universe, as Arturo Escobar has done in anthropology, makes it possible to recognise and include the diversity of worldviews found in different cultures and civilisations. Although the idea of the ‘pluriverse’ is more a philosophical or cultural notion than a postulate of contemporary physics, it is also explored in advanced theoretical speculation. Some theories, including string theory and quantum cosmology, have suggested the possible existence of multiple universes or realities.

The idea of a pluriverse is therefore not absurd. Nothing prevents us from using it in social research as a plausible hypothesis. Replacing the universe with the pluriverse decentres humanity and recognises that other forms of life, other worlds and other realities possess their own value and importance independently of human power.

Diversity of worlds, knowledge and relations

The pluriverse emphasises the diversity of relations between living beings and their environment, which can encourage greater respect for ecology and nature. The idea of a single universe, by contrast, continues to justify hierarchies of power, knowledge and civilisation. Replacing the universe with the pluriverse therefore challenges these hierarchies and opens the way to a more equitable recognition of the world’s different perspectives and realities.

In Africa, Latin America and Asia, the pluriverse encourages attention to Indigenous and local forms of knowledge that Western science has often marginalised or neglected. It recognises that these forms of knowledge can make important contributions to our understanding of the world and nature.

A constellation of worlds against a dominant modernity

In short, the pluriverse recognises that each culture may have its own world and its own vision of the cosmos. Questioning the Galilean-Copernican universe—that is, the unification of the representation of the world around a single centre, under the authority of white humanity—encourages a worldview that is more inclusive, more respectful of cultural diversity, more ecological and more attentive to realities beyond dominant Western thought.

To think the ‘pluriverse’ rather than the universe is to think a constellation of diverse worlds whose operation no longer obeys the gravitational force of a dominant planet. This lies at the heart of Arturo Escobar’s research. He challenges the dominant Western view of modernity as the sole domain of reason, progress and civilisation. A modernity that declares other worlds unviable is an absolute form of physical, moral and epistemic violence, because it assumes that knowledge means first eradicating whatever is not one’s own.

Coexistence and territories of re-existence

Escobar’s approach places the pluriverse within an understanding of the global as a space in which many worlds can coexist. His critique of modernity is therefore neither ‘anti-European’, ‘anti-Western’ nor ‘anti-modern’. It seeks to defend non-dominant worlds which, although engaged in modernity and profoundly shaped by it, also exceed it.

He observes that Indigenous worlds can be both modern and radically different. He evokes these peoples’ struggles to build territories of re-existence so as not to submit, for example, to the modern injunction to separate humans from non-humans, while arguing that animals, mountains and rivers can be sacred beings just as humans are.

At a civilisational crossroads

Arturo Escobar believes that we stand at a civilisational crossroads and must learn to live in multiple worlds while constructing other forms of re-existence. This entails the practical relocalisation of food, energy, transport, health and other essential activities, together with the recommunalisation of social life through renewed connections with human and non-human beings, including the spiritual world.

Finally, he considers these principles important for everyone, particularly those living in the most densely populated and consumption-oriented worlds: the middle classes throughout the world.