Realism and Anti-Realism, Misc

Dem "Manifestationsargument" zufolge steht eine realistische Semantik der Wahrheitsbedingungen im Widerspruch zu dem Gedanken, dass das Verstehen von Sätzen eine Fähigkeit ist, die sich im Handeln manifestieren können muss. – Der Aufsatz zeigt, dass sowohl Realisten als auch Anti-Realisten die These aufzugeben haben, dass das Verstehen eines Satzes im Erfassen der jeweiligen Wahrheitsbedingungenbesteht. Die realistische Annahme der Existenz verifikationstranszendenter Wahrheiten steht – unabhängig vom Manifestationsprinzip – im Widerspruch zu einer wahrheitskonditionalen Semantik. Die von heutigen Anti-Realisten vertretenen Theorien des Verstehens sind (...) allerdings einem ähnlichen Einwand ausgesetzt, insofern sie gleichfalls nicht unsere Fähigkeit, unentscheidbare Sätze zu verstehen, erklären können. (shrink)

The purpose of this work (as yet in draft) is to present a series of arguments in sequential form, regarding our ontological categories, the relations that determine them, and their epistemic role. It is not just intended to explain the close dependence of epistemology to ontology, nor their epistemic role in our acquisition of phenomenal knowledge, as showed Kant, but their essential function on the construction of noumenal knowledge itself. In other words, this paper is on their nature, and on (...) how they enable cognition, providing non-sensable, but limited, information about the structure of the world in itself. This is, on how they make possible noumenal knowledge of a minimal aspect “of what there is”, and on what they determine to be the necessary conditions for an explanation of “why there is something rather than nothing”. Among the conclusions arrived at is that it cannot be assumed as did Hegel, that all reality is rational, and thus, that 2 x 2 = 4 in all possible worlds. That there must be assumed to exist orders of meta-rational reality of a higher relational order to ours, or even non-relationally constituted, not dependent on others for existence, but which might be the condition for the existence of what is dependent. That contrary to Wittgenstein in his Tractatus, the world (understood as the sum of all possible worlds) has more than a logical form, and it cannot be bound by the relations and categories of logic and mathematics. That there must exist worlds “with a categorical difference” “differing in the manner of existing”, that is, of the kind excluded as possible worlds (of existents) from his multiple world thesis, by David Lewis . That these other paralogical worlds from our limited intellectual perspective will be judged irrational or illogical, though this would not be so if considered from the perspective of the same. I agree that the above conclusions will appear prima facie incongruent, which is the reason I present the arguments in this succinct and logical order. However, the point is that if they happen to be correct, not only many tenets and doctrines of today are wrong, but also our worldview, the belief in the powers of science, and the current idea about the importance of philosophy, and will have to be adjusted. In fact, from this entails that philosophy –as a study of what these basic concepts are- can be rightfully considered to be: the science of the innate knowledge of the world which is neither empirically given nor inferable from sense experience without the same. The importance of this in science cannot be minimized, as all the natural sciences and the extent of knowledge that they can generate is constrained by these concepts. Concepts that happen to be of an incorrigible nature, determinants of our primary premises of judgment, and our ultimate explanatory resources As the reader will observe, the work requires significant further editing, which I will endeavour to do if I survive the current pandemic of Corona virus (COVIR19). In the meantime, I prefer to have the same available for researchers just in case they find it of some value, since due to my age, it would be at risk of not being published at all. Let me add that in this work, I start with a brief summary of the Arguments, with which I do not yet feel very comfortable at all, after which I proceed to produce the same, but they still need significant revision. Most of the arguments here listed have been already posited in my former book –Our Incorrigible Ontological Relations and Categories of Being-, though not in sequential order as I here seek to present. (shrink)

I argue that recent attempts to deflect Access Problems for realism about a priori domains such as mathematics, logic, morality, and modality using arguments from evolution result in two kinds of explanatory overkill: the Access Problem is eliminated for contentious domains, and realist belief becomes viciously immune to arguments from dispensability, and to non-rebutting counter-arguments more generally.

The question of what is real seems to be the easiest to answer, because in our daily lives we are and must be naive realists. But as soon as reflection begins, we get into trouble. On the one hand we have to admit that there are several concepts of reality if we want to say that things other than physical things are also real, on the other hand we see that even that form of knowledge, which seems to be most (...) responsible for reality, natural science, cannot give the desired uniqueness in terms of what it itself wants or needs to understand to be real. Alternatively, when we see that nothing can be and nothing is real, if it is not in a world, and if we understand the world as the order of things (worldI ), then this leads us to the speculative answer that the function of worldI is to enable the reality of our empirical worldII. (shrink)

Nach den Kriterien einer einflußreichen (vor allem in den englischsprachigen Ländern vertretenen) Deutung der neuzeitlichen Philosophie enthält das Denken Kants die maximale Dosis an Idealismus, die eine Philosophie vertragen kann, ohne inkonsistent zu werden. Die Radikalisierung des idealistischen Ansatzes durch Fichte, Schelling und Hegel wird demnach als eine Abkehr von den geltenden Vernunftstandards betrachtet. Ausgangspunkt dieser Einschätzung ist nicht selten die Verwechslung des nachkantischen Idealismus mit einer überspannten Variante des Idealismus von Berkeley. Diese Lesart des postkantischen Idealismus läßt sich aber (...) weder exegetisch noch konzeptuell rechtfertigen. Der Grundsatz der Einheit von Sein und Denken, dessen erste explizite Aufstellung und Entfaltung Hegel zufolge Fichte zu verdanken ist, impliziert in keiner Weise, daß man dadurch die Existenz der Welt verneinen muß. Was dieser Grundsatz zum Ausdruck bringt, ist eigentlich nur die Notwendigkeit, ein komplexes theoretisches Modell auszuarbeiten, das imstande ist, zu erklären, wie sich die Existenz von wirklichen Dingen behaupten läßt, die vom Subjekt durch seine eigenen Erkenntnisakte erkannt werden, dabei aber zugleich vom Subjekt selbst verschieden sind. Hegels erkenntnistheoretischer Hauptansatz ist, daß die Verbindung von Denken und Sein, von Geist und Welt, strukturell ist. Das Sein kommt zu den Denkinhalten insofern nicht synthetisch hinzu; es sind hingegen die nur vorgestellten Erkenntnisinhalte, welche unter bestimmten Bedingungen der strukturellen Einheit des Geistes mit der Welt zugeschrieben werden. (shrink)

I discuss Benacerraf's epistemological challenge for realism about areas like mathematics, metalogic, and modality, and describe the pluralist response to it. I explain why normative pluralism is peculiarly unsatisfactory, and use this explanation to formulate a radicalization of Moore's Open Question Argument. According to the argument, the facts -- even the normative facts -- fail to settle the practical questions at the center of our normative lives. One lesson is that the concepts of realism and objectivity, which are widely identified, (...) are actually in tension. (shrink)

The purpose of this article is to support the logical incompatibility of the opposing views as a criterion for characterizing disagreements as genuinely metaphysical. That is, I intend to argue that a specific dispute is a metaphysical disagreement only when the conflicting views are governed by different logics. If correct, this criterion would not only help to separate merely verbal from genuine metaphysical debates, but it also would ground an argument against deflationism, guaranteeing the substantiality and relevance of metaphysics. I (...) intend to clarify the criterion, to present its basic foundations and commitments, to give some logical and metaphysical motivations for its adoption and some examples of its application. (shrink)

This book aims at six important conceptual tools developed by philosophers. The author develops each particular view in a chapter, hoping to constitute at the end a concise, interesting and easily readable whole. These concepts are: 1. Ethics and realism: elucidation of the distinction between understanding and explanation – the lighthouse type of normativity. 2. Leadership, antirealism and moral psychology – the lightning rod type of normativity. 3. Bright light on self-identity and positive reciprocity – the reciprocity type of normativity. (...) 4. The virtue of generosity and its importance for inclusive education – the divine will type of normativity. 5. Ethical education as normative philosophical perspective. The normativity of self-transformation in education. 6. Aesthetics as expression of human freedom and concern for the whole world in which we live. (shrink)

In a recent article, Christopher Ormell argues against the traditional mathematical view that the real numbers form an uncountably infinite set. He rejects the conclusion of Cantor’s diagonal argument for the higher, non-denumerable infinity of the real numbers. He does so on the basis that the classical conception of a real number is mys- terious, ineffable, and epistemically suspect. Instead, he urges that mathematics should admit only ‘well-defined’ real numbers as proper objects of study. In practice, this means excluding as (...) inadmissible all those real numbers whose decimal expansions cannot be calculated in as much detail as one would like by some rule. We argue against Ormell that the classical realist account of the continuum has explanatory power in mathematics and should be accepted, much in the same way that "dark matter" is posited by physicists to explain observations in cosmology. In effect, the indefinable real numbers are like the "dark matter" of real analysis. (shrink)

On the notion of responsibility employed by John Passmore in his classic Man’s Responsibility for Nature, the relationship of responsibility can only hold between persons (human beings, subjects), or groups and communities of them, and other persons. And in this relationship the persons that are responsible 'to' other persons are responsible 'for' how their actions affect these other persons, not to the direct object of these actions (in this case: nature). If this is correct, we cannot be responsible to nature (...) without conceiving of it as a ‘pseudo-person’, as Passmore calls it. However, non-anthropocentric environmental ethics requires such a moral relationship. The question is, therefore, how this can be allowed in a metaphysically acceptable way. To answer this I first provide an account of what it means to stand in the relation of being ‘responsible to’. Next, I describe two major paradigmatic examples of the metaphysics of nature that perfectly match the thesis that we can, and should, be responsible to nature (the Spinoza-inspired view and the Gaia hypothesis). Unfortunately, they have to be rejected for common sense or naturalist reasons. Finally, I therefore defend a 'fictionalist' view of nature (as person-like) that allows for this relationship. (shrink)

Inwieweit vermag sich der ehemalige explanative Erfolg nicht mehr anerkannter Theorien auf die Geltung derjenigen Teilaussagen, die Nachfolgetheorien übernommen haben, zu stützen? Zur Klärung dieser Fragestellung können die Ergebnisse von Machs Untersuchung zur mechanistischen Auffassung des Energieerhaltungssatzes herangezogen werden. Indem er sich in seiner Kritik an den ontologischen Annahmen des Mechanismus auf die Wissenschaftsgeschichte beruft, steht er einer heutigen realismuskritischen Argumentation nahe. Andererseits mißt er den hypothesenfreien Theoriebestandteilen einen Geltungscharakter zu, der in seinem Wahrheitsanspruch durchaus mit einer heutigen realistischen Behauptung (...) theorieübergreifender Bestände der wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis vergleichbar ist. Daß Mach mit einer quer zur gegenwärtigen Terminologie liegenden Analyse einen Beitrag zur Entschärfung gegenwärtiger Kontroversen leistet, läßt eine erneute Vergegenwärtigung der Schrift von 1872 und den sich daran anschließenden Überlegungen Machs lohnenswert erscheinen. (shrink)

In the article, I consider seven metaphysical postulates that lie in the foundations of modern physics. These are postulates: about the nature of space-time, about the existence, about the direction of time, about the causality, about the elementary event, about the nature of information and about the immutability of laws. The directions of critical analysis and possible radical revision of these postulates are briefly presented. It is supposed that this revision can indirectly contribute to the development of a theory that (...) will be able to generalize quantum phenomena, gravity and the evolution of the universe. (shrink)

Lifeworld realism and quantum-physical realism are taken as experience-dependent conceptions of the world that become objects of explicit reflection when confronted with context-external discourses. After a brief sketch of the two contexts of experience—lifeworld and quantum physics—and their realist interpretations, I will discuss the quantum world from the perspective of lifeworld realism. From this perspective, the quantum world—roughly speaking—has to be either unreal or else constitute a different reality. Then, I invert the perspective and examine the lifeworld from the standpoint (...) of quantumphysical realism. This conception of the lifeworld has gained momentum from new research results in recent decades. Despite its experiential basis, quantum-physical realism bears an ambiguity akin to that of lifeworld realism. While the perspectival inversion serves to highlight the problem, it also contributes to an improved understanding of lifeworld-realism. (shrink)

Many ideas of this paper are UNBELIEVABLE similar to my ideas published long time ago! Let me introduce paragraphs.

This note poses a dilemma for scientific realism which stems from the apparent conflict between science and common sense. On the one hand, we may accept scientific realism and agree that there is a conflict between science and common sense. If we do this, we remove the evidential basis for science and have no reason to accept science in the first place. On the other hand, we may accept scientific realism and endorse common sense. If we do this, we must (...) reject the conflict between science and common sense. The dilemma is to be resolved by distinguishing between basic common sense and widely held beliefs. Basic common sense survives the advance of science and may serve as the evidential basis for science. (shrink)

The paper considers the philosophical component of the approach to the time as an emergent phenomenon absent at the fundamental level. The anthropic principle is shown as arising from the time emergence. Consciousness is shown as an epiphenomenon in such a model, although it is more fundamental than matter in this case. An answer to the question about the prime cause is suggested.

Philosophy part of theory of emergent space-time-matter is discussed. It was shown that anthropic principle is direct consequence of emergent time. It was shown that conscience is epiphenomenon, but it is more fundamental than matter.

We discuss the philosophical implications of formal results showing the con- sequences of adding the epsilon operator to intuitionistic predicate logic. These results are related to Diaconescu’s theorem, a result originating in topos theory that, translated to constructive set theory, says that the axiom of choice (an “existence principle”) implies the law of excluded middle (which purports to be a logical principle). As a logical choice principle, epsilon allows us to translate that result to a logical setting, where one can (...) get an analogue of Diaconescu’s result, but also can disentangle the roles of certain other assumptions that are hidden in mathematical presentations. It is our view that these results have not received the attention they deserve: logicians are unlikely to read a discussion because the results considered are “already well known,” while the results are simultaneously unknown to philosophers who do not specialize in what most philosophers will regard as esoteric logics. This is a problem, since these results have important implications for and promise signif i cant illumination of contem- porary debates in metaphysics. The point of this paper is to make the nature of the results clear in a way accessible to philosophers who do not specialize in logic, and in a way that makes clear their implications for contemporary philo- sophical discussions. To make the latter point, we will focus on Dummettian discussions of realism and anti-realism. Keywords: epsilon, axiom of choice, metaphysics, intuitionistic logic, Dummett, realism, antirealism. (shrink)

Halbach has argued that Tarski biconditionals are not ontologically conservative over classical logic, but his argument is undermined by the fact that he cannot include a theory of arithmetic, which functions as a theory of syntax. This article is an improvement on Halbach's argument. By adding the Tarski biconditionals to inclusive negative free logic and the universal closure of minimal arithmetic, which is by itself an ontologically neutral combination, one can prove that at least one thing exists. The result can (...) then be strengthened to the conclusion that infinitely many things exist. Those things are not just all Gödel codes of sentences but rather all natural numbers. Against this background inclusive negative free logic collapses into noninclusive free logic, which collapses into classical logic. The consequences for ontological deflationism with respect to truth are discussed. (shrink)

This paper investigates the nature of reality by looking at the philosophical debate between realism and idealism and at scientific investigations in quantum physics and at recent studies of animal senses, neurology and cognitive psychology. The concept of perceptual relativity is examined and this involves looking at sense perception in other animals and various examples of perceptual relativity in science. It will be concluded that the universe is observer dependent and that there is no reality independent of the observer, which (...) is knowable to the observer. The paper concludes by an investigation of what an observer dependent universe would be like and that recognition of an observer dependent world would lead to a more open minded and tolerant world. (shrink)

Scientific realists argue that a good track record of multi-agent, and multiple method, validation of empirical claims is itself evidence that those claims, at least partially and approximately, reflect ways nature actually is independent of the ways we conceptualize it. Constructivists contend that successes in validating empirical claims only suffice to establish that our ways of modelling the world, our “constructions,” are useful and adequate for beings like us. This essay presents a thought experiment in which beings like us intersubjectively (...) validate claims about properties of particular things in nature under conditions in which those beings have profoundly different personal phenomenological experiences of those properties. I submit that the thought experiment scenario parallels our actual situation, and argue that this shows that successes in intersubjectively validating empirical claims are indeed enough to claim victory for the realist. More specifically, I champion a variation of realism that marries Ronald Giere’s brand of ‘perspectival realism’ with Philip Kitcher’s ‘real realism,’ and posits that causal relations between ourselves and properties instantiated in nature ground our references to the relevant properties even though our conceptions of them are perspective relative. (shrink)

Retrieving Realism renders the joint philosophical goals of Hubert Dreyfus and Charles Taylor into what is probably their final and most concise form. It has two main objectives: first, it aims to deconstruct the mediationalism that undergirds Western philosophy, and second, it endorses contact theory, or embodied/embedded coping, as an alternative. In this essay, I present the book’s most salient themes and reveal areas that are ripe for further philosophical consideration. I also direct the reader to the work’s genuine ontological (...) challenge: how to come to grips with contact theory beyond the borders of epistemology. (shrink)

State of the art paper on the topic realism/anti-realism. The first part of the paper elucidates the notions of existence and independence of the metaphysical characterization of the realism/anti-realism dispute. The second part of the paper presents a critical taxonomy of the most important positions and doctrines in the contemporary literature on the domains of science and mathematics: scientific realism, scientific anti-realism, constructive empiricism, structural realism, mathematical Platonism, mathematical indispensability, mathematical empiricism, intuitionism, mathematical fictionalism and second philosophy.

In this paper, I argue that there are indispensable and irreducible metaphors in religious language and that this does not threaten a realist interpretation of religion. I first sketch a realist theory of religious language and argue that we cannot avoid addressing the problems metaphor poses to semantics. I then give a brief account of what it means for a metaphorical sentence to be true and how metaphors can refer to something even if what they mean is not expressible in (...) literal terms. Finally, I discuss how this realist theory of metaphor influences our understanding of negative theology and gives a new perspective on religious pluralism. (shrink)

The scientific successes of the last 400 years strongly suggest a picture on which our scientific theories exhibit a layered structure of dependence and determination. Economics is dependent on and determined by psychology; psychology in its turn is, plausibly, dependent on and determined by biology; and so it goes. It is tempting to explain this layered structure of dependence and determination among our theories by appeal to a corresponding layered structure of dependence and determination among the entities putatively treated by (...) those theories. In this paper, I argue that we can resist this temptation: we can explain the sense in which, e.g., the biological truths are dependent on and determined by chemical truths without appealing to properly biological or chemical entities. This opens the door to a view on which, though there are more truths than just the purely physical truths, there are no entities, states, or properties other than the purely physical entities, states, and properties. I argue that some familiar strategies to explicate the idea of a layered structure of theories by appeal to reduction, ground, and truthmaking encounter difficulties. I then show how these difficulties point the way to a more satisfactory treatment which appeals to something very close to the notion of ground. Finally, I show how this treatment provides a theoretical setting in which we might fruitfully frame debates about which entities there really are. (shrink)

In the Transcendental Dialectic (KrV, A 599-560/B 627-628), Kant presents the argument of the hundred talers as a concrete example of his general claim against conceiving existence as a real predicate. According to Kant, the content of concepts can be completely determined as merely possible content; in the existential judgment, the subject then relates the completely determined content of his internal thoughts with perception: it is only through perception that the subject knows the content of his concepts as real things (...) of the world. Thus, although in his epistemology conceptual activity plays a crucial role in perceptual activity, Kant still offers an empiricist account of empirical knowledge. Hegel criticizes Kant´s theory of perception by distinguishing representation (Vorstellen) from comprehension (Begreifen) and by developing on that basis a more complex theory of the relation between concept, existence, and empirical knowledge. From the standpoint of representation, concept and existence, being-determined and being-real exclude each other; in comprehension, on the contrary, representation and perception are no longer unilateral forms of knowing: for the mind that comprehends what it perceives, the existence of what it perceives is –when abstractly considered as such– only a collateral product of the way it knows the real world. According to Hegel, comprehension develops the internal necessity of the contents of knowledge and, by doing so, grasps the individual objects that constitute our world. (shrink)

No Tratado da natureza humana, David Hume dedica uma longa seção à problemática sobre a possibilidade da existência do mundo externo intitulada “Do ceticismo quanto aos sentidos”. A seção traz idas e vindas do autor no que diz respeito à resposta para o problema. Inicialmente, Hume dá como certa a existência externa dos corpos, i.e., independente das percepções, e avisa que sua investigação se limitará, apenas, às causas que levam a crer nisso. Sua pretensão inicial não é cumprida e logo (...) dá espaço a uma rede de complexos argumentos céticos, os quais colocam em dúvida as realidades independentes das percepções. No último parágrafo, porém, Hume parece retroceder em sua posição e parece tomar como certa a existência independente dos corpos, mais uma vez, tal como fez no começo da seção. O objetivo desse trabalho foi, pois, evidenciar que há dois pontos bem diferentes que caracterizam sua argumentação sobre esse assunto: I) A existência do mundo externo; II) a possibilidade de conhecê-lo. Ao primeiro, a resposta de Hume será positiva, ao segundo ponto, negativa. O ceticismo, portanto, sempre decorreria de qualquer tentativa em conhecer tais realidades independentes, pois, através da argumentação filosófica, da razão, sempre se esbarraria na impossibilidade de sua existência. Ao mesmo tempo, sua realidade ontológica parece se impor pela própria natureza e, com isso, desativa os argumentos céticos, os quais sempre demonstram a impossibilidade de conhecê-lo, i.e., acessá-lo pela razão. Assim, o que se tem sobre o mundo externo são, apenas, impressões geradas através da experiência para com o mesmo. Em vista dos fins supracitados, foram utilizados, além do Tratado, a Investigação sobre o entendimento humano e outros textos do filósofo escocês. (shrink)

Social constructionism is often considered a form of anti-realism. But in contemporary feminist philosophy, an increasing number of philosophers defend views that are well-described as both realist and social constructionist. In this paper, I use the work of Sally Haslanger as an example of realist social constructionism. I argue: that Haslanger is best interpreted as defending metaphysical realism about social structures; that this type of metaphysical realism about the social world presents challenges to some popular ways of understanding metaphysical realism.

Wright's _Truth and Objectivity_ seeks to systematise a variety of anti-realist positions. I argue that many objections to the system are avoided by transposing its talk of truth into talk of warrant. However, a problem remains about debates involving 'direction-of-fit'. -/- Dummett introduced 'anti-realism' as a philosophical view informed by mathematical intuitionism. Subsequently, the term has been associated with many debates, ancient and modern. _Truth and Objectivity_ proposes that truth admits of different characteristics; these various debates then concern which characteristics (...) truth has, in a given area. This pluralism of truth is at odds with deflationism. I find fault with Wright's argument against deflationism. However, transmission of warrant across the Disquotational Schema suffices to ground Wright's proposal, which survives as a pluralism of classes of warrant. -/- The two main debates concern whether truths are always knowable (Epistemic Constraint) and whether disagreements in an area must be down to some fault of one of those involved (Cognitive Command). I introduce Assertoric Constraint, relating to Epistemic Constraint, where truths cannot outstrip the availability of warrant for their assertion. I solve a structural problem by a comparison with a constitutive analysis of Moore's Paradox. The relativism of blameless disagreement is problematic. Wright's response invokes a sort of ignorance which he calls `Quandary'. I criticise this before proposing an alternative. -/- I agree with Wright that Dummett's original anti-realism does not belong among the positions which Wright seeks to systematise. However, two candidates show that the proposal suffers a weakness. Wright thinks Expressivism misguided, and implicitly rules out his earlier non-cognitivism about necessity. I argue that Expressivism has promise, and I endorse Wright's Cautious Man argument for non-cognitivism about necessity; both involve play with `direction-of-fit'. I conclude that this sort of anti-realist debate needs to be accommodated by the proposal. (shrink)

Sense perception and Reality examines the remarkable similarities between philosophical idealism and the Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum physics. The book looks at perceptual relativity involving animal senses, neurology and cognitive psychology. It concludes the universe is observer dependent and varies with the sensory apparatus used to observe it. The Copenhagen Interpretation is examined and perceptual relativity would appear to apply in the quantum world. The Copenhagen Interpretation suggests the universe is observer dependent, the same conclusion as is found in philosophical (...) idealism in the macro world. The book concludes by examining the consequences of an observer dependent universe and by showing such a universe is quite consistent with a modern objective science. (shrink)

Hilbert’s choice operators τ and ε, when added to intuitionistic logic, strengthen it. In the presence of certain extensionality axioms they produce classical logic, while in the presence of weaker decidability conditions for terms they produce various superintuitionistic intermediate logics. In this thesis, I argue that there are important philosophical lessons to be learned from these results. To make the case, I begin with a historical discussion situating the development of Hilbert’s operators in relation to his evolving program in the (...) foundations of mathematics and in relation to philosophical motivations leading to the development of intuitionistic logic. This sets the stage for a brief description of the relevant part of Dummett’s program to recast debates in metaphysics, and in particular disputes about realism and anti-realism, as closely intertwined with issues in philosophical logic, with the acceptance of classical logic for a domain reflecting a commitment to realism for that domain. Then I review extant results about what is provable and what is not when one adds epsilon to intuitionistic logic, largely due to Bell and DeVidi, and I give several new proofs of intermediate logics from intuitionistic logic+ε without identity. With all this in hand, I turn to a discussion of the philosophical significance of choice operators. Among the conclusions I defend are that these results provide a finer-grained basis for Dummett’s contention that commitment to classically valid but intuitionistically invalid principles reflect metaphysical commitments by showing those principles to be derivable from certain existence assumptions; that Dummett’s framework is improved by these results as they show that questions of realism and anti-realism are not an “all or nothing” matter, but that there are plausibly metaphysical stances between the poles of anti-realism and realism, because different sorts of ontological assumptions yield intermediate rather than classical logic; and that these intermediate positions between classical and intuitionistic logic link up in interesting ways with our intuitions about issues of objectivity and reality, and do so usefully by linking to questions around intriguing everyday concepts such as “is smart,” which I suggest involve a number of distinct dimensions which might themselves be objective, but because of their multivalent structure are themselves intermediate between being objective and not. Finally, I discuss the implications of these results for ongoing debates about the status of arbitrary and ideal objects in the foundations of logic, showing among other things that much of the discussion is flawed because it does not recognize the degree to which the claims being made depend on the presumption that one is working with a very strong logic. (shrink)

It is often claimed that anti-realism is a form of transcendental idealism or that Kant is an anti-realist. It is also often claimed that anti-realists are committed to some form of knowability principle and that such principles have problematic consequences. It is therefore natural to ask whether Kant is so committed, and if he is, whether this leads him into difficulties. I argue that a standard reading of Kant does indeed have him committed to the claim that all empirical truths (...) are knowable and that this claim entails that there is no empirical truth that is never known. I extend the result to a priori truths and draw some general philosophical lessons from this extension. However, I then propose a re-examination of Kant’s notion of experience according to which he carefully eschews any commitment to empirical knowability. Finally I respond to a remaining problem that stems from a weaker, justified believability principle. (shrink)

According to Charles Travis our language is occasion-sensitive. The truth- conditions of all our sentences, and their correctness-conditions more generally, vary depending on the occasions on which they are used. This is part of a broader view of language as unshadowed. This paper develops objections Travis has made from this viewpoint against Michael Dummett’s anti-realism. It aims to show that the arguments are suggestive but inconclusive. For all it shows unshadowed anti-realism is a possibility.

Tim Button explores the relationship between minds, words, and world. He argues that the two main strands of scepticism are deeply related and can be overcome, but that there is a limit to how much we can show. We must position ourselves somewhere between internal realism and external realism, and we cannot hope to say exactly where.

This article examines whether it is possible to uphold one form of deflationism towards metaphysics, ontological pluralism, whilst maintaining metaphysical realism. The focus therefore is on one prominent deflationist who fits the definition of an ontological pluralist, Eli Hirsch, and his self-ascription as a realist. The article argues that ontological pluralism is not amenable to the ascription of realism under some basic intuitions as to what a “realist” position is committed to. These basic intuitions include a commitment to more than (...) a stuff-ontology, and a view that realism carries with it more than a rejection of idealism. This issue is more than merely terminological. The ascription of realism is an important classification in order to understand what sorts of entities can be the truthmakers within a given theory. “Realism” is thus an important term to understand the nature of the entities that a given theory accepts into its ontology. (shrink)

This is an extended intellectual obituary for Hilary Putnam.

Professors of philosophy, the authors have done a succinct and critical analysis of some theories of truth: deflationism, indeterminacy, insolubility, realism, and antirealism.

Rockmore’s paper offers a nice discussion on how classical German idealism provides a plausible account of the Parmenidean insight that thought and being are identical and suggests that idealist epistemic constructivism is arguably the most promising approach to cognition. In this short commentary, I will explore the implications of adopting other interpretations of Parmenidean identity thesis, which arguably lead to different conclusions than the ones drawn by Rockmore. En route to disavow the distinction between ontology and epistemology, I argue that (...) one may adopt an approach on cognition which would be immunized to worries that prompt Rockmore’s elaboration and also embrace (at least) some of its benefits. (shrink)

I happen to believe that though human experiences are to be characterized as pluralistic they are all rooted in the one reality. I would assume the thesis of pluralism but how could I maintain my belief in the realism? There are various discussions in favor of realism but they appear to stay within a particular paradigm so to be called “internal realism”. In this paper I would try to justify my belief in the reality by discussing a special use of (...) indexicals. I will argue for my indexical realism by advancing the thesis that indexicals can be used as an inter-agentic referential term. Three arguments for the thesis will be presented. The first argument derives from a revision of Kaplan-Kvart’s notion of exportation. Their notions of exportation of singular terms can be analyzed as intra-agentic exportation in the context of a single speaker and theirs may be revised so as to be an inter-agentic exportation in the context of two speakers who use the same indexicals. The second is an argument from the notion of causation which is specifically characterized in the context of inter-theoretic reference. I will argue that any two theories may each say “this” in order to refer what is beyond its own theory. Two theories address themselves to ‘this’ same thing though what ‘this’ represents in each theory turn out to be different objects all together. The third argument is an argument which is based on a possibility of natural reference. Reference is used to be taken mostly as a 3-place predicate: Abe refers an object oi with an expression ej. The traditional notion of reference is constructive and anthropocentric. But I would argue that natural reference is a reference that we humans come to recognize among denumerably many objects in natural states: at a moment mi in a natural state there is a referential relation among objects o1, o2, o3, . . , oj, o j+1, . . which interact to each other as agents of information processors. Natural reference is an original reference which is naturally given and to which humans are passive as we derivatively refer it by using ‘this’. (shrink)

Review of Truth and Realism, edited by Patrick Greenough and Michael Lynch.

In her ‘Spracherwerb’(2012) Ruth Millikan gives a compelling account of language acquisition based on our ability to track objects. I argue that, and how, it is undermined by her insistence on equating understanding language utterances and sense perception, point to idealist hazards, and plead against propositionality and for imagism in order to safeguard the account’s important potential for giving a comprehensive explication of meaning.

Traditional theists are, with few exceptions, global semantic realists about the interpretation of external world statement. Realism of this kind is treated by many as a shibboleth of traditional Christianity, a sine qua non of theological orthodoxy. Yet, this love affair between theists and semantic realism is a poor match. I suggest that everyone (theist or no) has compelling evidence drawn from everyday linguistic practice to reject a realist interpretation of most external world statements. But theists have further reason to (...) forswear this view, because those who insist on global semantic realism open themselves to the charge of hubris of a theologically inappropriate kind. If the arguments in this paper are sound, then neither God nor any of us have reason to apply a realist interpretation to all or even most statements about the external world. (shrink)

There is a dogma about metaphysical realism that is well nigh universal: "If one is a metaphysical realist about the external world, then one ought to be a semantic realist about external- world statements". I argue that this dogma should be rejected. It is possible for a metaphysical realist to be a "semantic dualist", holding that some middle- sized object statements receive a realist interpretation, but that most such statements require an antirealist interpretation. To show that a semantically dual language (...) is at least possible, I describe a possible world whose inhabitants speak a version of English that is syntactically dual. Further I argue that English in the "actual world" is itself semantically dual. (shrink)

This is a sequel to our dialogue "Che cosa c'è e che cos'è (2003), focusing on the interplay between what there is and what there could be—between actuality and possibility—from the perspective of Hylas (here: the realist philosopher) and from the perspective of Philonous (here: the conventionalist anti-realist).