Holism, Realism, and Error

International Philosophical Quarterly 59 (4):485-492 (2019)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Holism in metaphysics can be defended because it can solve a dilemma about error: that the object of one’s wrong judgment is either inside or outside one’s mind and that neither alternative can be the case. Among holists the American philosopher Josiah Royce provides the best account of both the dilemma and its holist answer. The latter consists in steering between the hard and fast difference of being inside and outside the mind that sparks the dilemma. Royce does this by identifying a unity in the difference, which then ceases to be a stark division and becomes instead a unity-in-difference. I then show how a related dilemma is susceptible to this sort of holist solution. Yet the holist answer to these dilemmas invites all the stock objections to holism. These include the obliteration of finite selves and the distinction between such selves and their experiences. Answering these objections calls for an alternative that uses Royce’s ploy of synthesizing the extremes of being inside and being outside the mind. This sort of realism gets between the horns of the dilemmas via the real and intentional modes of forms.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Meaning Holism and Semantic Realism.H. G. Callaway - 1992 - Dialectica 46 (1):41-59.
Indispensability and Holism.Jacob Busch - 2011 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 42 (1):47-59.
The Indispensability Argument for Mathematical Realism and Scientific Realism.Jacob Busch - 2012 - Journal for General Philosophy of Science / Zeitschrift für Allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie 43 (1):3-9.
Holism: A Consumer Update.Johannes L. Brandl (ed.) - 1993 - Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Holism: A Consumer Update.Johannes Brandl - 1993 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 46 (1):1-16.
Semantic Holism Is Here To Stay.Johannes Brandl - 1993 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 46 (1):1-16.
Semantic Holism Is Here To Stay.Johannes Brandl - 1993 - Grazer Philosophische Studien 46 (1):1-16.
Meaning holism and interpretability.C. J. L. Talmage & Mark Mercer - 1991 - Philosophical Quarterly 41 (July):301-15.
Structural realism and Davidson.Jack Ritchie - 2008 - Synthese 162 (1):85 - 100.

Analytics

Added to PP
2019-10-15

Downloads
1 (#1,770,361)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads

Sorry, there are not enough data points to plot this chart.
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references