In 1927, the Scottish philosopher John Anderson arrived in Australia to take up the chair of Philosophy at the University of Sydney. By the late 1930s, the ‘macrostructure’ of his realist system was in place. It includes a theory of process and a substantial metaphysics, one that opposes positivism, linguistic philosophy and all forms of idealism. However, beyond Australia it remains largely unknown, despite its bearing on a number of current issues in psychology and the social sciences generally. This article (...) outlines Anderson’s transition from Hegelian idealism to realism, describes aspects of his ontology and epistemology, compares some of Anderson’s ideas with Dewey’s pragmatism and explains their relevance to present-day psychology. (shrink)

In this paper I shall discuss the theory of what may be called material realism. The term "material" is borrowed fran Kant. He defined "material idealism" as "the theory which declares the existence of objects in space outside us either to be merely doubtful and indemonstrable or to be false and impossible." [...].

Analytic rejections of extreme traditional views, especially scepticism, as ?absurd? in some sense of violating ?rules? of discourse, arc considered. References to linguistic and pragmatic rules are discussed and found inadequate as bases for rejecting scepticism. References to logical principles alone are found to lead into scepticism. The claim that epistemology and scepticism take for granted an inadequate theory of words like ?know?, or ?knowledge?, as descriptive predicates, is considered. Alternatives, construing such words as appraisive or performative, are discussed, but (...) are not found to provide any real escape from the traditional epistemological issues, or from scepticism. (shrink)