To anyone who is looking for light it is a pleasure to receive a criticism so acute and on the whole so fair-minded as Professor Montague has given to my little book on Syndicalism and Philosophical Realism in the last number of the Philosophical Review. I am indebted to the editor for permission to publish a few lines of reply,...

This study elucidates and defends philosophical realism. The version I propose includes a realist understanding of the nature of reality, and a twofold realist view of truth. I hold that reality is cognition-independent. This means that the conceptual scheme of inquiry into a given subject matter does not constitute its nature. Using a different set of concepts to investigate a certain phenomenon will not change what it is. This is realism about reality: Reality is not contingent upon (...) the concepts we use in our attempts to understand it. ;I embrace, as well, a realist conception of truth, according to which, truth consists in agreement with reality. In addition, truth is not characterized as any sort of justification. What we say is true if, and only if, what we are talking about is as we claim it to be. Furthermore, the conditions under which a statement is true are not to be identified with the conditions which would make anyone justified in believing the statement: Truth conditions and justification conditions of statements are not identical. ;There are two major ways in which I defend realism. First, I specify exactly what the doctrine should be. This involves so characterizing realism that it is not committed to a number of undesirable theses; for example, foundationalism, physicalism, scientism, skepticism, and moral relativism. The realism I embrace allows for ontological and epistemological pluralism, according to which there are many kinds of things in the world, and many ways to describe them. Secondly, I respond to two of the most important recent attacks on realism, those of Richard Rorty and Hilary Putnam. I examine their alternatives to realism, and find them lacking in merit. I formulate their strongest arguments against realism, and then respond on the realist's behalf. Realism emerges as a plausible, interrelated conception of the nature of knowledge, truth, and reality which stands up well against the attacks of its most prominent contemporary critics. (shrink)

Social epistemology assumes a justification as a realist philosophy in both dealing with cognitive and ontological matters, and providing a profound and refined picture of knowledge and reality. Compared to scientific realism, social epistemology’s advantage consists of grasping the variety of conditions and circumstances influencing the cognitive process. Social epistemology also provides limitations for naturalism in offering a genuine philosophical vision of knowledge and reality. From a social epistemological perspective, extreme forms of defending scientific realism are considered (...) especially relevant as such arguments reveal the ideological ladeness of objectivist argumentation. (shrink)

Jean-Paul Sartre and Jan Patočka claim to go beneath the phenomenal correlation between the subject and the world discovered by Husserl in order to account for it from a more fundamental plane. Their going below the “universal a priori of correlation” allows them to describe it more thoroughly. But we wish to show that Sartre’s description remains dependent on a philosophical realism which prevents him from accounting for the genesis of the correlation. Patočka, however, achieves just this thanks (...) to his conception of an originary appearing. To verify this thesis, we will investigate the status of the body in both authors, so far as a successful account of the body should ensure the connection between the original plane and the openness to the world characteristic of the subject. Recognizing this function in the body, we ask if either Sartre’s or Patočka’s philosophy grants to the body the place it deserves and suggest that only Patočka achieves this, while Sartre is prevented from doing so by his realism. (shrink)

One of the two major parts of Dummett’s defense of intuitionism is the rejection of classical in favor of intuitionistic reasoning in mathematics, given that mathematical discourse is anti‐realist. While there have been illuminating discussions of what Dummett’s argument for this might be, no consensus seems to have emerged about its overall form. In this paper I give an account of this form, starting by investigating a fundamental, but little discussed question: to what view of the relation between deductive principles (...) and meaning is anti‐realism committed? The result of this investigation is a constraint on meaning theoretic assessments of logical laws. Given this constraint, I show that, surprisingly, a consistent anti‐realist critique of classical logic could not rely on the rejection of bivalence. Moreover, a consistent anti‐realist defense of intuitionism must begin with a radical rejection of the very conception of logical consequence that underlies realist classical logic. It follows from these conclusions that anti‐realist intuitionism seems committed to proceeding by proof theoretic means. (shrink)

This essay explains for a general philosophical audience the central issues and strategies in the contemporary moral realism debate. It critically surveys the contribution of some recent scholarship, representing expressivist and pragmatist nondescriptivism, subjectivist and nonsubjectivist naturalism, nonnaturalism and error theory. Four different faces of ‘ moral realism ’ are distinguished: semantic, ontological, metaphysical, and normative. The debate is presented as taking shape under dialectical pressure from the demands of capturing the moral appearances and reconciling morality with (...) our understanding of the mind and world. (shrink)

v. 1. Nominalism and realism.--v. 2. A theory of universals.

The madness in education -- Dysfunctional behavioral sciences -- Science and the bad ideas of scientism -- Derangements in religion -- The lunacy in the law -- Art, beauty, and technology.

I assess Churchland's views on folk psychology and conceptual thinking, with particular emphasis on the connection between these topics.

Debunking skeptics claim that our moral beliefs are formed by processes unsuited to identifying objective facts, such as emotions inculcated by our genes and culture; therefore, they say, even if there are objective moral facts, we probably don’t know them. I argue that the debunking skeptics cannot explain the pervasive trend toward liberalization of values over human history, and that the best explanation is the realist’s: humanity is becoming increasingly liberal because liberalism is the objectively correct moral stance.

Contemporary realist theories of value claim to be compatible with natural science. In this paper, I call this claim into question by arguing that Darwinian considerations pose a dilemma for these theories. The main thrust of my argument is this. Evolutionary forces have played a tremendous role in shaping the content of human evaluative attitudes. The challenge for realist theories of value is to explain the relation between these evolutionary influences on our evaluative attitudes, on the one hand, and the (...) independent evaluative truths that realism posits, on the other. Realism, I argue, can give no satisfactory account of this relation. On the one hand, the realist may claim that there is no relation between evolutionary influences on our evaluative attitudes and independent evaluative truths. But this claim leads to the implausible skeptical result that most of our evaluative judgements are off track due to the distorting pressure of Darwinian forces. The realist’s other option is to claim that there is a relation between evolutionary influences and independent evaluative truths, namely that natural selection favored ancestors who were able to grasp those truths. But this account, I argue, is unacceptable on scientific grounds. Either way, then, realist theories of value prove unable to accommodate the fact that Darwinian forces have deeply influenced the content of human values. After responding to three objections, the third of which leads me to argue against a realist understanding of the disvalue of pain, I conclude by sketching how antirealism is able to sidestep the dilemma I have presented. Antirealist theories of value are able to offer an alternative account of the relation between evolutionary forces and evaluative facts —
an account that allows us to reconcile our understanding of evaluative truth with our understanding of the many non-rational causes that have played a role in shaping our evaluative judgements. (shrink)

I will first discuss a peculiarity of the realism-antirealism debate. Some authors defending antirealist positions in a philosophical discussion seem to be inconsistent with what they do when treating scientific subjects. In the latter situation, they behave as realists. This tension can be dissolved by distinguishing different discourses belonging to different levels of philosophical radicality. Depending on the respective level, certain presuppositions are either granted or questioned. I will then turn to a discussion of the miracle argument (...) by discussing a simple example of curve fitting. In the example, multiple use-novel predictions are possible without indicating the truth of the fitting curve. Because this situation has similarities with real scientific cases, it sheds serious doubt upon the miracle argument. Next, I discuss the strategy of selective realism, especially its additional crucial component, the continuity argument. The continuity of some X in a series of theories, with X being responsible for the theories’ use-novel predictions, is taken to be a reliable indicator for the reality of X. However, the continuity of X could as well be due to the similarity of the theories in the series with an empirically very successful theory embodying X, without X being real. Thus, the two main arguments for scientific realism show severe weaknesses. (shrink)

This survey covers some of the main philosophical debates raised by the framework of effective field theories during the last decades. It is centered on three issues: whether effective field theories underpin a specific realist picture of the world, whether they support an anti-reductionist picture of physics, and whether they provide reasons to give up the ultimate aspiration of formulating a final and complete physical theory. Reviewing the past and current literature, we argue that effective field theories do not (...) give convincing reasons to adopt a particular stance towards these speculative issues. They hold good prospects for asking ontologically perspicuous and sensible questions about currently accessible domains. With respect to more fundamental questions, however, the only certainty is provisional and instrumental: effective theories are currently indispensable for conducting fruitful scientific research. (shrink)

The most puzzling and intriguing aspect of intuitionism as a philosophy of mathematics is its claim that classical deductive reasoning in mathematics is illegitimate. The two most well-known proponents of this position are L. E. J. Brouwer and Michael Dummett. Both of their criticisms of the use of classical logic in mathematics have, by and large, been taken to depend on the thesis that the principle of bivalence does not apply to mathematical statements; and the difference between these criticisms is (...) taken to consist in their grounds for this thesis. Brouwer bases this thesis on an account of the nature of mathematics: it is an activity of mental construction essentially independent of language. Dummett, in contrast, bases the thesis on his anti-realist view of the nature of meaning. ;My first principal argument in this essay shows that the conception of anti-realism just outlined is problematic as a reading of Dummett. To begin with, Dummett explicitly rejects, not only the evidentiary restrictions of this conception, but also, more seriously, the use of specific epistemological theses in a philosophical account of meaning. Moreover, I give an alternative account of anti-realism, consisting of alternative interpretations of the manifestation requirement and of the rejection of realist truth conditions, that do not rely on an epistemology of meaning, and hence, a fortiori, not on evidential restrictions. ;My second principal argument in this essay consists of drawing a consequence of this conception of anti-realism, namely, that the failure of bivalence cannot, by itself, support a cogent criticism of classical logic. The basic reason is that, given my view of anti-realism, the claim that the legitimacy of applying classical reasoning to a class of statements depends on whether bivalence applies to that class already implies that the system of deductive reasoning applying to these statements is non-classical. Hence an argument against classical logic based on this claim is question-begging. ;Finally, I conclude by showing that Dummett's criticism of classical reasoning, as reconstructed by my third argument, fails. (shrink)

Visual experiences seem to exhibit phenomenological particularity: when you look at some object, it – that particular object – looks some way to you. But experiences exhibit generality too: when you look at a distinct but qualitatively identical object, things seem the same to you as they did in seeing the first object. Naïve realist accounts of visual experience have often been thought to have a problem with each of these observations. It has been claimed that naïve realist views cannot (...) account for the generality of visual experiences, and that the naïve realist explanation of particularity has unacceptable implications for self- knowledge: the knowledge we have of the character of our own experiences. We argue in this paper that neither claim is correct: naïve realism can explain the generality of experiences, and the naïve realist explanation of particularity raises no problems for our self-knowledge. (shrink)

This paper defends moral realism against Sharon Street’s “Darwinian Dilemma for Realist Theories of Value” (this journal, 2006). I argue by separation of cases: From the assumption that a certain normative claim is true, I argue that the first horn of the dilemma is tenable for realists. Then, from the assumption that the same normative claim is false, I argue that the second horn is tenable. Either way, then, the Darwinian dilemma does not add anything to realists’ epistemic worries.

Perceptions are externally-directed—they present us with a mind-independent reality, and thus contribute to our abilities to think about this reality, and to know what is objectively the case. But perceptions are also internally-dependent—their phenomenologies depend on the neuro-computational properties of the subject. A good theory of perception must account for both these facts. But naive realism has been criticized for failing to accommodate internal-dependence. This paper evaluates and responds to this criticism. It first argues that a certain version of (...) naive realism, often called “selectionism”, does indeed struggle with internal-dependence. It then develops an alternate version of naive realism which does not. This alternate version, inspired by an idea of Martin’s, accommodates the internal-dependence of perceptions by recognizing the role that the subject’s neuro-computational properties play in shaping perceptual phenomenology. At the same time, it retains the distinctive naive realist account of the external-directedness of perceptions. (shrink)

This paper sets out a moderate version of metaphysical structural realism that stands in contrast to both the epistemic structural realism of Worrall and the—radical—ontic structural realism of French and Ladyman. According to moderate structural realism, objects and relations (structure) are on the same ontological footing, with the objects being characterized only by the relations in which they stand. We show how this position fares well as regards philosophical arguments, avoiding the objections against the other (...) two versions of structural realism. In particular, we set out how this position can be applied to space-time, providing for a convincing understanding of space-time points in the standard tensor formulation of general relativity as well as in the fibre bundle formulation. (shrink)

Value pluralists see themselves as philosophical grown-ups. They profess to face reality as it is and accept resultant pessimism, while criticising their monist rivals for holding on to the naïve idea that the right, the good and the beautiful are ultimately harmonisable with each other. The aim of this essay is to challenge this self-image of value pluralists. Notwithstanding its usefulness as a means of subverting monist dominance, I argue that the self-image has the downside of obscuring various theoretical (...) positions that do not fall into either the pluralist or monist camp. Yet such positions do exist, as shown by my discussion of Albert Camus and Hannah Arendt. Near contemporaries of the pioneering value pluralist Isaiah Berlin, the pair, just like him, sought to be realistic about the lived experiences of political disasters and moral disorientation in the twentieth century. Moreover, they shared with Berlin a keen interest in real-world moral dilemmas, which seemed to them to have made traditional morality obsolete. But the three thinkers’ perspectives on ‘reality’ hardly converged, and neither Camus nor Arendt became a value pluralist as a result of their reflections on moral dilemmas. This, however, by no means indicates the pair’s immaturity. Rather, it shows that there is more than one way of observing fidelity to our actual experience and that value pluralists’ commitment to realism and resultant pessimism is not as uniquely mature as they would have us believe. (shrink)

In this paper I trace the development of one of the central debates of late twentieth-century moral philosophy—the debate between realism and what Rawls called “constructivism.” Realism, I argue, is a reactive position that arises in response to almost every attempt to give a substantive explanation of morality. It results from the realist’s belief that such explanations inevitably reduce moral phenomena to natural phenomena. I trace this belief, and the essence of realism, to a view about the (...) nature of concepts—that it is the function of all concepts to describe reality. Constructivism may be understood as the alternative view that a normative concept refers schematically to the solution to a practical problem. A constructivist account of a concept, unlike a traditional analysis, is an attemptto work out the solution to that problem. I explain how the philosophies of Kant and Rawls can be understood on this model. (shrink)

Metaethical—or, more generally, metanormative— realism faces a serious epistemological challenge. Realists owe us—very roughly speaking—an account of how it is that we can have epistemic access to the normative truths about which they are realists. This much is, it seems, uncontroversial among metaethicists, myself included. But this is as far as the agreement goes, for it is not clear—nor uncontroversial—how best to understand the challenge, what the best realist way of coping with it is, and how successful this attempt (...) is. In this paper I try, first, to present the challenge in its strongest version, and second, to show how realists—indeed, robust realists—can cope with it. The strongest version of the challenge is, I argue, that of explaining the correlation between our normative beliefs and the independent normative truths. And I suggest an evolutionary explanation as a way of solving it. (shrink)

A large number of physicists now admit that quantum mechanics is a non-local theory. The EPR argument and the many experiments showing the violation of Bell’s inequalities seem to have confirmed convincingly that quantum mechanics cannot be local. Nevertheless, this conclusion can only be drawn inside a standard realist framework assuming an ontic interpretation of the wave function and viewing the collapse of the wave function as a real change of the physical state of the system. We show that this (...) standpoint is not mandatory and that if the collapse is not considered an actual physical change it is possible to recover locality. (shrink)

This paper provides a critical review of the debate over the philosophical foundations of mixed methods research and examines the notion of philosophical foundations. It distinguishes axiology-oriented from ontology-oriented philosophical foundations. It also identifies three different senses of philosophical foundations of mixed methods research. The weak sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., pragmatism) merely allows the possibility of the integration of both quantitative and qualitative methods/data/designs. The moderate sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., transformativism) provide a (...) good reason to use mixed methods in (at least some) social scientific research. The strong sense of philosophical foundations (e.g., dialectical pluralism) justifies a normative thesis that mixed methods research should be encouraged in (at least some) social scientific research. (shrink)

Foundational attitudes towards quantum theory have recently thrown off much of the old philosophical baggage largely associated with Niels Bohr to which Einstein famously objected, including the central ‘collapse of the wavefunction’ concept. A ‘neo-Copenhagen’ interpretation, it is suggested, has arisen. This development is placed in its historical context and contrasted to philosophical allegations of anti-realism. The neo-Copenhagen interpretation remains wedded to Heisenberg's uncertainty and observer-dependent values of particles. However a discussion of Nick Herbert's ‘rainbow analogy’ suggests (...) that subatomic particles are emergent from a ‘nonlocal’ level of reality outside the domain of space and time. Critical realism recognizes that emergent systems have an irreducibly ontologically character, and in its combination of epistemological relativism and ontological realism, provides a basis for the proposition that realists who support Einstein's objections must now recognize that their realism must be redefined. (shrink)