In literature, polyphony () is a feature of narrative, which includes a diversity of simultaneous points of view and voices. Caryl Emerson describes it as "a decentered authorial stance that grants validity to all voices." The concept was introduced by Mikhail Bakhtin, using a metaphor based on the musical term polyphony. Bakhtin's primary example of polyphony was Fyodor Dostoevsky's prose. According to Bakhtin, the chief characteristic of Dostoevsky's novels is "a plurality of independent and unmerged voices and consciousnesses, a genuine polyphony of fully valid voices". His major characters are, "by the very nature of his creative design, not only objects of authorial discourse but also subjects of their own directly signifying discourse." Polyphony in literature is the consequence of a dialogic sense of truth in combination with the special authorial position that makes possible the realization of that sense on the page. The dialogic sense of truth, as it manifests in Dostoevsky, is a radically different way of understanding the world to that of the monologic. Dostoevsky's novels, according to Bakhtin, cannot be understood from within the monological tradition of western thought, a way of thinking about 'truth' that has dominated religion, science, philosophy and literature for many centuries. Monologic and dialogic In the monologic conception of truth, the "truth" or "falsehood" of a thought/assertion/proposition exists independently of the person who utters it. The monologic truth is a disembodied truth, or what Bakhtin calls "'no-man's' thoughts". The truth of a proposition is determined solely by reference to its accuracy or inaccuracy relative to its object. As such it doesn't matter who utters it: it is an abstraction that has the same relationship to truth regardless of who utters it. In philosophy and science, such 'separate thoughts' are generally formed with a view toward monologic systematisation of truth, which will be similarly "'no-man's'". Even if such a system is produced collectively, it is expressed and comprehended in the form of a single consciousness, potentially utterable by anyone, but always the same. The advocate of such a system "has only one principle of cognitive individualization: error. True judgments are not attached to a personality but correspond to some unified, systematically monologic context. Only error individualizes." In contrast to this model of truth, Bakhtin postulates a truth that requires a multiplicity of consciousnesses, something that cannot be contained within a single consciousness; rather it comes into existence at the point of contact