Over the last two decades, climate security has become an increasingly salient policy agenda in international fora. Yet, despite a large body of research, the empirical links between climate-change and conflict remain highly uncertain. This paper contends that uncertainty around climate–conflict links should be understood as characteristic of complex social–ecological systems rather than a problem that can be fully resolved. Rather than striving to eliminate uncertainty, we suggest that researchers need to learn to cope with it. To this end, this article advances a set of principles for guiding scholarly practice when investigating a complex phenomenon: recognizing epistemological uncertainty, embracing epistemological diversity, and practicing humility and dialogue across difference. Taken together we call this ethos epistemological pluralism, whereby scholars self-consciously recognize the limits of their chosen epistemology for understanding the climate–conflict nexus and engage with other approaches without attempting to usurp them. Reviewing the last decade of climate–conflict scholarship, we show that climate–conflict research already manifests many of these ideals; however, we also identify problematic patterns of engagement across epistemological divides and thus plenty of scope for improvement. To illustrate why a diversity of methods (e.g., qualitative and quantitative) will not suffice, the article critically discusses prior research to illustrate why at least two epistemological approaches—constructivism and positivism—cannot be synthesized or integrated without significant analytical cost, and elaborates why excluding insights from any one would lead to an impoverished understanding of the climate–conflict nexus. We conclude with five practical recommendations of how scholars can help realize the ideal of epistemological pluralism in practice.

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应对复杂性：气候冲突奖学金中的认识论多元主义

在过去的二十年里，气候安全已成为国际论坛上日益突出的政策议程。然而，尽管进行了大量研究，但气候变化与冲突之间的实证联系仍然高度不确定。本文认为，围绕气候-冲突联系的不确定性应被理解为复杂社会-生态系统的特征，而不是一个可以完全解决的问题。我们建议研究人员需要学会应对不确定性，而不是努力消除不确定性。为此，本文提出了一套在研究复杂现象时指导学术实践的原则：承认认识论的不确定性，拥抱认识论的多样性，以及实践谦逊和跨越差异的对话。总而言之，我们称这种精神为认识论多元主义，借此，学者们自觉地认识到他们所选择的认识论在理解气候-冲突关系方面的局限性，并在不试图篡夺它们的情况下采用其他方法。回顾过去十年的气候冲突学术研究，我们表明气候冲突研究已经体现了其中的许多理想；然而，我们也发现了跨越认识论鸿沟的有问题的参与模式，因此有很大的改进空间。为了说明为什么多种方法（例如，定性和定量）是不够的，本文批判性地讨论了先前的研究，以说明为什么至少有两种认识论方法——建构主义和实证主义——在没有大量分析成本的情况下不能综合或整合，并阐述了为什么排除任何人的见解会导致对气候-冲突关系的理解贫乏。我们总结了五项关于学者如何在实践中帮助实现认识论多元主义理想的实用建议。