There is a famous puzzle in Rorty scholarship: Did or did Rorty not subscribe to a form of realism and truth when he made concessions regarding objectivity to Bjørn Ramberg in 2000? Relatedly, why did Rorty agree with Ramberg but nevertheless insist upon disagreeing with Brandom, though large parts of the research community hold their two respective requests for shifts in Rorty’s stance to be congruous? The present article takes up the discussion and tries, for the first time, (...) to make sense of Rorty’s insistence that there is a difference between Brandom’s notion of “made true by facts” and Ramberg’s notion of “getting things right” by showing that Ramberg’s appropriateness-conditions are fully compatible with Rorty’s revised interpretation of Davidson’s concept of “triangulation,” whereas Brandom’s inferential “made-true-by-facts”-language game is not. The reason why Rorty agrees with Ramberg but not with Brandom, I argue, is that Brandom’s contemporary concept of objectivity, as developed in his contribution to the debate and in his Making It Explicit, works with a scheme-content distinction, whereas Ramberg’s Davidson-based version does not. As many of his critics suppose, Rorty’s concession to Ramberg entails a substantive revision of Rorty’s position, not just a clarification. However, this new position is not in conflict with Rorty’s most important commitment, namely his anti-authoritarianism. The revised account still does not bind him to the forms of realism and truth that his critics favor. The article explains to which forms of realism and truth Rorty’s concessions to Ramberg commit him instead. (shrink)

I offer a meta-level analysis of realist arguments for the reliability of ampliative reasoning about the unobservable. We can distinguish form-driven and content-driven arguments for realism: form-driven arguments appeal to the form of inductive inferences, whilst content-driven arguments appeal to their specific content. After regimenting the realism debate in these terms, I will argue that the content-driven arguments are preferable. Along the way I will discuss how my analysis relates to John Norton’s recent, more general (...) thesis that the grounds for licit induction are always material. (shrink)

I offer a meta-level analysis of realist arguments for the reliability of ampliative reasoning about the unobservable. We can distinguish form-driven and content-driven arguments for realism: form-driven arguments appeal to the form of inductive inferences, whilst content-driven arguments appeal to their specific content. After regimenting the realism debate in these terms, I will argue that the content-driven arguments are preferable. Along the way I will discuss how my analysis relates to John Norton’s recent, more general (...) thesis that the grounds for licit induction are always material. (shrink)

American critical realism emerged in two forms: an ‘essentialist’ version defended, with some significant divergences, by George Santayana and C. A. Strong, and an ‘empirical’ version primarily defended by Roy Wood Sellars. Both forms of American critical realism aimed at an epistemologically convincing ‘representationalist’ account of perception. However, they were divided over issues of ontology. While Santayana and Strong invoked the notion of essence in order to ontologically reinforce their epistemological conceptions, Sellars attempted a more empirical, evolution-based approach. (...) It will be argued that Sellars’s view has more to recommend it because it better explains the actual mechanism of perceptual representation. (shrink)

This essay defends a view which is near enough to Putnam's characterization of metaphysical realism for it to be called by the same name. Indeterminacy of reference is conceded, in the sense that there may be multiple reference relations, but it is denied that this implied belief in unknowable noumena. It is enough for metaphysical realism as conceived here, that there be at least one reference relation. The essay also argues against defining truth epistemically. Even a Peircean ideal (...) theory might be false, in a contextual sense of might' stronger than that of the logically possible. (shrink)

This paper offers an overview of "the species problem", arguing for a view of species as homeostatic property cluster kinds, positioning the resulting form of realism about species as an alternative to the claim that species are individuals and pluralistic views of species. It draws on taxonomic practice in the neurosciences, especially of neural crest cells and retinal ganglion cells, to motivate both the rejection of the species-as-individuals thesis and species pluralism.

The standard argument for the existence of distinctively mathematical objects like numbers has two main premises: some mathematical claims are true, and the truth of those claims requires the existence of distinctively mathematical objects. Most nominalists deny. Those who deny typically reject Quine’s criterion of ontological commitment. I target a different assumption in a standard type of semantic argument for. Benacerraf’s semantic argument, for example, relies on the claim that two sentences, one about numbers and the other about cities, have (...) the same grammatical form. He makes this claim on the grounds that the two sentences are superficially similar. I argue that these grounds are not sufficient. Other sentences with the same superficial form appear to have different grammatical forms. I offer two plausible interpretations of Benacerraf’s number sentence that make use of plural quantification. These interpretations appear not to incur ontological commitments to distinctively mathematical objects, even assuming Quine’s criterion. Such interpretations open a new, plural strategy for the mathematical nominalist. (shrink)

Structural realism has recently re-entered mainstream discussions in the philosophy of science. The central notion of structure, however, is contested by both advocates and critics. This paper briefly reviews currently prominent structuralist accounts en route to proposing a metaphysics of structure that is capable of supporting the epistemic aspirations of realists, and that is immune to the charge most commonly levelled against structuralism. This account provides an alternative to the existing epistemic and ontic forms of the position, incorporating elements (...) of both. Structures are here identified with relations between first order, causal properties: properties that confer specific dispositions for relations. This form of structuralism constitutes an explicit proposal for what seem implicit structuralist tendencies in sophisticated but more traditional characterizations of realism. An outline of the proposal's response to the anti-realist's pessimistic induction on the history of scientific theories is considered. (shrink)

Para el realismo nomológico, la mejor explicación del mundo afirma la existencia de leyes naturales que lo fundamentan. Si el estatuto de estas es controvertido, sus partidarios coinciden en que implican una adición de ser con respecto a las regularidades de Hume. Se busca mostrar cómo el argumento nomológico, que todos ellos utilizan de alguna forma, se asemeja en su estructura a diversos argumentos teístas, como el de la quinta vía de Tomás de Aquino. Ante el carácter no conclusivo del (...) argumento, se sostiene que la adopción de un realismo nomológico proviene de una mera preferencia subjetiva. According to nomological realism, the best explanation of the world is one that appeals to the existence of natural laws which ground it. Althought there are controversies regarding the status of such laws, those who defend this position agree they involve a plus of being regarding Hume's regularities. In this paper we show how the nomological argument, which they all use somehow, has a structural similarity with various theistic arguments such as Thomas Aquina's fifth way. Finally, in the absence of conclusiveness of the argument, we hold that the adoption of a nomological realism comes from a mere subjective preference. (shrink)

In “All Play and No Work,” Andrew Kania claims that standard form jazz involves no works, only performances. This article responds to Kania by defending one of the alternative ontological proposals that he rejects, namely, that jazz works are ontologically continuous with works of classical music. I call this alternative “the standard view,” and I argue that it is the default position in the ontology of standard form jazz. Kania has three objections to the standard view. The bulk (...) of the article is devoted to explaining why none of these objections succeed. (shrink)

Realism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. (...) The paper explores this by analysis of Kant’s methodological procedure to distinguish between empirical and transcendental realism. This methodological procedure is still of great help in contemporary philosophy, although it has its limits. (shrink)

Realism takes many forms. The aim of this paper is to show that the “Critique of Pure Reason” is the founding document of realism and that to the present-day Kant’s discussion of realism has shaped the theoretical landscape of the debates over realism. Kant not only invents the now common philosophical term ‘realism’. He also lays out the theoretical topography of the forms of realism that still frames our understanding of philosophical questions concerning reality. (...) The paper explores this by analysis of Kant’s methodological procedure to distinguish between empirical (i.e. nonmetaphysical) and transcendental (metaphysical) realism. This methodological procedure is still of great help in contemporary philosophy, although it has its limits. (shrink)

Serious Play provides a rich, multilayered argument that engages and contributes to contemporary theory and cultural studies.--Victorian Studies.

Darwinians are realists about the force of selection, but there has been surprisingly little discussion about what form this realism should take. Arguments about the units of selection in general and genic selectionism in particular reveal two realist assumptions: (1) for any selection process, there is a uniquely correct identification of the operative selective forces and the level at which each impinges; and (2) selective forces must satisfy the Pareto-style requirement of probabilistic causation. I argue that both assumptions (...) are false; we must temper realism about the force of selection and revise the way we think about probabilistic causation. (shrink)

Following on from Roy Bhaskarâe(tm)s first two books, A Realist Theory of Science and The Possibility of Naturalism, Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation, establishes the conception of social science as explanatoryâe"and thence emancipatoryâe"critique. Scientific Realism and Human Emancipation starts from an assessment of the impasse of contemporary accounts of science as stemming from an incomplete critique of positivism. It then proceeds to a systematic exposition of scientific realism in the form of transcendental realism, highlighting a (...) conception of science as explanatory of a structured, differentiated and changing world. Turning to the social domain, the book argues for a view of the social order as conditioned by, and emergent from, nature. Advocating a critical naturalism, the author shows how the transformational model of social activity together with the conception of social science as explanatory critique which it entails, resolves the divisions and dualisms besetting orthodox social and normative theory: between society and the individual, structure and agency, meaning and behavior, mind and body, reason and cause, fact and value, and theory and practice. The book then goes on to discuss the emancipatory implications of social science and sketches the nature of the depth investigation characteristically entailed. In the highly innovative third part of the book Roy Bhaskar completes his critique of positivism by developing a theory of philosophical discourse and ideology, on the basis of the transcendental realism and critical naturalism already developed, showing how positivism functions as a restrictive ideology of and for science and other social practices. (shrink)

Às vezes o naturalismo é apresentado como uma visão de mundo geral. Na maioria das vezes quando o naturalismo é assim apresentado, ele é identificado com o fisicalismo: a visão de que tudo é físico ou em algum sentido dependente do que é físico. Mas o fisicalismo enfrenta um problema muito sério e bastante conhecido, o dilema de Hempel. O problema pode ser colocado do seguinte modo: quando dizemos que tudo é físico, o que fazemos é utilizar o termo “físico” (...) como é concebido pelo fisicalismo. Significamos o físico em termos da física atual? Se sim, então essa visão é provavelmente falsa. Esperamos que a física atual possa ser revisada assim como a ciência, a qual se desenvolve em caminhos desconhecidos, e, assim, algumas das reivindicações atualmente aceitas pelos físicos possam ser rejeitadas como falsas no futuro. Queremos com isso alguma física futuramente idealizada? Desde que não temos ideia do que essa física futuramente idealizada seja, não temos uma ideia real de qual é o conteúdo que o fisicalismo deve ter sob tal definição. Se nos dizem que física aqui significa apenas a disciplina que abarca todos os fatos dos quais todos os outros fatos são dependentes, então as reivindicações do fisicalismo são tautológicas. (shrink)

A study in the philosophy of science, proposing a strong form of the doctrine of scientific realism' and developing its implications for issues in the philosophy of mind.

The paper offers a realist account of political obligation. More precisely, it offers an account that belongs to the Williamsian liberal strain of contemporary realist theory (as opposed to a Geussian radical realist strain) and draws on and expands some ideas familiar from Bernard Williams’s oeuvre (thick/thin ethical concepts, political realism/moralism, a minimal normative threshold for distinctively political rule). Accordingly, the paper will claim that the fact of membership in a polity provides people with sufficient reason for complying with (...) those political authority claims whose source is that particular polity. The paper will explain that membership in a polity is constituted not by communitarian identification (Horton), nationhood (Tamir), joined commitment/plural subjectivity (Gilbert), but by the fact that people are stably exposed to political authority claims associated with a particular polity which they find making sense as passing the minimal normative threshold for a distinctively political form of rule (as opposed to the rule of terror or sheer coercion). This political-ethical phenomenon is widely known as political obligation but the paper will argue that the label is in fact a misnomer because it does not refer to a generic obligation. The implications of this account are manifold but two seem especially important: first, the notion of political obligation makes sense even beyond the realm of moralist political theory and, second, realist political theory should pay more attention to the problem of compliance than it used to do. (shrink)

Political realism is characterised by fidelity to the facts of politics and a refusal to derive political judgments from pre- political moral commitments. Even when they are not taken to make normative theorising impossible or futile, those characteristics are often thought to engender a conservative slant, or at least a tendency to prefer incremental reformism to radicalism. I resist those claims by distinguishing between three variants of realism—ordorealism, contextual realism, and radical realism—and contrasting them with both (...) non-ideal theory and utopianism. I then develop a version of radical realism as a form of debunking and vindicatory genealogy. Even though this new approach eschews both feasibility constraints (unlike non-ideal theory) and prescriptions about the ideal society (unlike utopianism), I show how it has more radical potential than morality-driven (and hence often ideological) political theory, and how it supports both open-ended, radical social critique and concrete forms of prefigurative political action. (shrink)

One of the more debated topics in the recent realist literature concerns the compatibility of realism and utopianism. Perhaps the greatest challenge to utopian political thought comes from Bernard Williams' realism, which argues, among other things, that political values should be subject to what he calls the ‘realism constraint’, which rules out utopian arguments based on values which cannot be offered by the state as unrealistic and therefore inadmissible. This article challenges that conclusion in two ways. First, (...) it argues that the rationale for accepting Williams' original argument for the ‘realism constraint’ fails. Secondly, it argues that there is at least one genuinely political value of liberty available which is both compatible with realism and something that cannot be offered by the state, namely that of the political anarchist. This opens the way for far more ambitious and utopian forms of realist political thought and implies that the arguments of what we call political anarchists must be met by political argumentation, not simply ruled out by methodological stipulation. (shrink)

Debates about scientific realism are closely connected to almost everything else in the philosophy of science, for they concern the very nature of scientific knowledge. Scientific realism is a positive epistemic attitude toward the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences. This epistemic attitude has important metaphysical and semantic dimensions, and these various commitments are contested by a number of rival epistemologies of science, (...) known collectively as forms of scientific antirealism. This article explains what scientific realism is, outlines its main variants, considers the most common arguments for and against the position, and contrasts it with its most important antirealist counterparts. (shrink)

Structural realism is considered by many realists and antirealists alike as the most defensible form of scientific realism. There are now many forms of structural realism and an extensive literature about them. There are interesting connections with debates in metaphysics, philosophy of physics and philosophy of mathematics. This entry is intended to be a comprehensive survey of the field.

In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

Broadly speaking, the contemporary scientific realist is concerned to justify belief in what we might call theoretical truth, which includes truth based on ampliative inference and truth about unobservables. Many, if not most, contemporary realists say scientific realism should be treated as ‘an overarching scientific hypothesis’ (Putnam 1978, p. 18). In its most basic form, the realist hypothesis states that theories enjoying general predictive success are true. This hypothesis becomes a hypothesis to be tested. To justify our belief (...) in the realist hypothesis, realists commonly put forward an argument known as the ‘no-miracles argument’. With respect to the basic hypothesis this argument can be stated as follows: it would be a miracle were our theories as successful as they are, were they not true; the only possible explanation for the general predictive success of our scientific theories is that they are true. (shrink)

This paper outlines an account of political realism as a form of ideology critique. Our focus is a defence of the normative edge of this critical-theoretic project against the common charge that there is a problematic trade-off between a theory’s groundedness in facts about the political status quo and its ability to consistently envisage radical departures from the status quo. To overcome that problem we combine insights from three distant corners of the philosophical landscape: theories of legitimacy by (...) Bernard Williams and other realists, Frankfurt School-inspired Critical Theory, and recent analytic epistemological and metaphysical theories of cognitive bias, ideology, and social construction. The upshot is a novel account of realism as empirically-informed diagnosis- critique of social and political phenomena. This view rejects a sharp divide between descriptive and normative theory, and so is an alternative to the anti- empiricism of some approaches to Critical Theory as well as to the complacency towards existing power structures found within liberal realism, let alone mainstream normative political philosophy, liberal or otherwise. (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to revisit the phlogiston theory to see what can be learned from it about the relationship between scientific realism, approximate truth and successful reference. It is argued that phlogiston theory did to some extent correctly describe the causal or nomological structure of the world, and that some of its central terms can be regarded as referring. However, it is concluded that the issue of whether or not theoretical terms successfully refer is not the (...) key to formulating the appropriate form of scientific realism in response to arguments from theory change, and that the case of phlogiston theory is shown to be readily accommodated by ontic structural realism. (shrink)

This paper continues the defense of a version of scientific realism, Tautological Scientific Realism, that rests on the claim that, excluding some areas of fundamental physics about which doubts are entirely justified, many areas of contemporary science cannot be coherently imagined to be false other than via postulation of radically skeptical scenarios, which are not relevant to the realism debate in philosophy of science. In this paper we discuss, specifically, the threats of meaning change and reference failure (...) associated with the Kuhnian tradition, which depend on a descriptivist approach to meaning, and we argue that descriptivism is not the right account of the meaning and reference of theoretical terms. We suggest that an account along the lines of the causal-historical theory of reference provides a more faithful picture of how terms for unobservable theoretical entities and properties come to refer; we argue that this picture works particularly well for TSR. In the last section we discuss how our account raises concerns specifically for perspectival forms of scientific realism. (shrink)

Abstract: According to the realist about philosophy, the goal of philosophy is to come to know the truth about philosophical questions; according to what Helen Beebee calls equilibrism, by contrast, the goal is rather to place one’s commitments in a coherent system. In this paper, I present a critique of equilibrism in the form Beebee defends it, paying particular attention to her suggestion that various meta-philosophical remarks made by David Lewis may be recruited to defend equilibrism. At the end (...) of the paper, I point out that a realist about philosophy may also be a pluralist about philosophical culture, thus undermining one main motivation for equilibrism. (shrink)

Naive realists hold that experience is to be understood in terms of an intimate perceptual relation between a subject and aspects of the world, relative to a certain standpoint. Those aspects of the world themselves shape the contours of consciousness. But blurriness is an aspect of some of our experiences that does not seem to come from the world. I argue that this constitutes a significant challenge to some forms of naive realism. But I also argue that there is (...) a robust form of naive realism which is unfazed by the blurriness of some of our experiences, even when that blurriness is understood as a subjective modification of consciousness. (shrink)

In this chapter, I make the case for platonic realism, the thesis that there are properties that lack spatial locations. After criticizing the one-over-many argument for realism and Lewis's argument for realism, I endorse a modal argument that derives the existence of platonic properties from considerations involving necessary truth. I then defend this argument from various objections. Finally, I argue that epistemic considerations and considerations of parsimony favor a weak form of platonic realism on which (...) there are platonic properties, but each property could have had an instance, and would have been located in its instances if it had any. (shrink)

Debates about scientific realism are closely connected to almost everything else in the philosophy of science, for they concern the very nature of scientific knowledge. Scientific realism is a positive epistemic attitude toward the content of our best theories and models, recommending belief in both observable and unobservable aspects of the world described by the sciences. This epistemic attitude has important metaphysical and semantic dimensions, and these various commitments are contested by a number of rival epistemologies of science, (...) known collectively as forms of scientific antirealism. This article explains what scientific realism is, outlines its main variants, considers the most common arguments for and against the position, and contrasts it with its most important antirealist counterparts. (shrink)

It is well-known that naïve realism has difficulty accommodating perceptual error. Recent discussion of the issue has focused on whether the naïve realist can accommodate hallucination by adopting disjunctivism. However, illusions are more difficult for the naïve realist to explain precisely because the disjunctivist solution is not available. I discuss what I take to be the two most plausible accounts of illusion available to the naïve realist. The first claims that illusions are cases in which you are prevented from (...) perceiving properties you would ordinarily perceive and subsequently form a mistaken judgment about the perceived object. The second appeals to an unusual look or appearance that the perceived object instantiates. I argue that neither account is satisfactory and that, consequently, naïve realism ought to be rejected. (shrink)

Using the language of common-sense psychology, we explain human behavior by citing its reason or purpose, and this is central to our understanding of human beings as agents. On the other hand, since human beings are physical objects, human behavior should also be explicable in the language of physical science, in which causal accounts cast human beings as collections of physical particles. CSP talk of mind and agency, however, does not seem to mesh well with the language of physical science.In (...) Teleological Realism, Scott Sehon argues that CSP explanations are not causal but teleological -- that they cite the purpose or goal of the behavior in question rather than an antecedent state that caused the behavior. CSP explanations of behavior, Sehon claims, are answering a question different from that answered by physical science explanations, and, accordingly, CSP explanations and physical science explanations are independent of one another. Common-sense facts about mind and agency can thus be independent of the physical facts about human beings, and, contrary to the views of most philosophers of mind in recent decades, common-sense psychology will not be subsumed by physical science.Sehon defends his non-reductionist account of mind and agency in clear and nontechnical language. He carefully distinguishes his view from forms of "strong naturalism" that would seem to preclude it. And he evaluates key objections to teleological realism, including those posed by Donald Davidson's influential article "Actions, Reasons and Causes" and some put forth by more recent proponents of causal theories of action. CSP, Sehon argues, has a different realm than does physical science; the normative notions that are central to CSP are not reducible to physical facts and laws. (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. (shrink)