[3.7.] Realism vs. Anti-Realism.

 

The material that we are reading for this topic is taken from Michael Loux, Metaphysics: A Contemporary Introduction (2002).

 

 

[3.7.1.] An Introduction to the Debate.

 

The “realism” involved in this debate is a different theory than the one discussed by Quine in “On What There Is.” It is not the theory according to which there are universals that exist independently of particular objects.^[1]

 

Loux defines Realism (with a capital “R”) as consisting of three claims (250, emphases added):

1.      “there is a mind-independent world about which we form beliefs and make statements”;

2.      “those beliefs/statements are true just in case they correspond to the world they are about”;

3.      “the correspondence that is truth is a property that can transcend our ability to determine whether or not it obtains,” i.e., it is possible that a belief/statement is true even if we are unable to know whether or not it is true.

 

To most non-philosophers, Realism seems obviously true. But it does not seem obviously true to many philosophers:

 

Realism about the ordinary observable physical world is a compelling doctrine. It is almost universally held outside philosophical circles. Indeed, it is regarded as too obvious to be worth stating. Yet within philosophy the doctrine has enjoyed little popularity. Anti-realism is an occupational hazard of philosophy.^[2]

 

Philosophers who reject Realism are bound to adopt some form of

 

anti-Realism (df.): “what we call ‘the world,’ what we call[] ‘reality,’ is constituted in part by our conceptual activities or the conceptual tools we employ in our inquiry.” (250)

 

Analytic philosophers who have argued for anti-Realism include:

·         Michael Dummett (b.1925) [discussed in a part of the Loux chapter that we will not discuss]

·         Hilary Putman (b.1926)

 

The central idea involved in their objections to Realism is that the account of truth and meaning involved in Realism is extremely problematic.

 

So part of the anti-Realist’s job will be to provide an alternative account of truth and meaning. As Loux says, “The central question for these anti-Realists is whether their own accounts of meaning and truth are any more successful than the Realist’s account at avoiding the problems [with Realism] they claim to uncover.” (250)

 

 

[3.7.2.] Realism: The Three Claims.

 

Claim 1: The Mind-Independent World.

 

Loux explains this claim as follows: “the world consists of objects whose existence, nature, and relations are fixed independently of what we happen to think, feel, or desire. We, in turn, form beliefs and make statements about those objects. Those beliefs and statements are representational: each represents the world or some sector of it as being some way or other.” (252)

 

Claim 2: Truth as Correspondence.

 

Loux quotes Aristotle’s statement of the correspondence theory:

 

To say of what is that it is not or of what is not that it is is false; while to say of what is that it is and of what is not that it is not is true. (252)^[3]

 

And he unpacks this as follows: “truth is just a matter of fit or match. A belief or statement is true when things are as it asserts them to be and false when they are not. As it is usually put, truth is correspondence between a belief or statement and the mind-independent world the belief or statement is about.” (252)

 

Realism Claim 3: Transcendence.

 

“…correspondence ... is independent of our ways of finding out about it. That is, there is nothing in the concept of truth as correspondence to guarantee that, for each belief/statement, it will be possible for us to get ourselves into a position where we can determine whether or not the correspondence requisite for truth obtains.” (252)

 

It is important to understand this third claim. It does not mean that we can never know whether any statement is ever true or false. Realists acknowledge that there are loads of beliefs/statements that we can know to be true and others which we can know to be false.

 

Rather, it means that it is possible that some beliefs/statements transcend (go beyond) what we are capable of verifying (showing to be true).

 

As Loux says, on the Realist view truth is epistemically unconstrained: “in principle, the fact of its obtaining is independent of the results of employing our best epistemic tools” (253), i.e., our best tools for obtaining knowledge. Truth is such that “its obtaining might transcend our best efforts at detecting it.” (253)

 

 

[3.7.3.] More about Realism.

 

·         The three claims that make up Realism are separable. You can accept one without accepting all (e.g., you can believe in a mind-independent world while at the same time maintaining that truth is something other than correspondence.)

 

·         However, the three claims tend to travel together. Most philosophers who have accepted one have accepted the other two.

 

·         Different Realists will disagree about the details of the theory. For example, they will give different answers to the following sorts of question:

• what sorts of things are truth-bearers (the items that have the properties of truth and falsehood)? are they beliefs? statements? propositions? vocalized or written sentences? uses of sentences to make statements? or something else?
• what sorts of things are the truth-makers, the aspect(s) of the world that make a true belief/statement true? are they states of affairs? or facts (as in the early Wittgenstein)? or something else?

 

·         Realism is compatible with, but does not require, “qualifications” of the Principle of Bivalence. According to this principle, every meaningful belief/statement is either true or else false; no third option is possible. You can be a Realist without necessarily believing that every meaningful belief/statement is either true or else false. For example,

 

Sentences with non-referring singular terms (“The current king of France is overweight,” 254; Frege’s example: “Odysseus was set ashore at Ithaca while sleeping”). Frege held that such sentences are neither true nor false.

 

Sentences with vague predicates, e.g.,

·         “Sam is tall” (spoken of someone who is 5’10” and thus neither clearly tall nor clearly non-tall);

·         “Sam is bald” (spoken of someone who has some hair but not a lot, so that he is neither clearly bald nor clearly non-bald).

 

Semantic paradoxes, e.g., “This sentence is false.” (If it is true, then it is false—but that is contradictory; and if it is false, then it is true—but that is also contradictory; since either outcome is contradictory, the sentence must be neither true nor false.) This sentence is known as the Liar Paradox.

 

·         Realism can maintain that true statements describe a world that is mind independent while at the same time acknowledging that some true statements are about mental states and events, e.g.,

• “Sam is in pain” can be true, even though it refers to something mental, viz. the pain that Sam is experiencing.
• “Sam believes that the economy is in bad shape” can be true, even though it refers to something mental, viz. one of Sam’s propositional attitudes, his belief that the economy is in bad shape.

 

But that concession represents no interesting form of deviation from the traditional view; for we will insist that where truth involves a correspondence with something mental, it is because of the subject matter of our beliefs/statements rather than the concept of truth itself that this is so. Truth may upon occasion be correspondence with what is mind-dependent; but this fact is not part of the essence of the concept of truth. True beliefs/statements can and typically do correspond with some state of affairs or structure that has an objective existence independent of the contents and operations of human minds. (255, emphasis added)

 

 

[3.7.4.] Anti-Realism.

 

Anti-Realism is not new. But there is a difference between traditional anti-Realist arguments against and contemporary arguments:

 

Earlier arguments against realism were epistemological, i.e., they emerged from philosophical concerns about knowledge:

·         These arguments begin with the assumption that we have knowledge of reality.

·         They then claim that knowledge of reality is possible only if there is no “gap” between the knowing mind and the real objects known.

·         They conclude that the real objects known (i.e., reality) must be (in some sense) mental.

·         This sort of idealism was most famously defended by George Berkeley.

 

The logical positivists rejected the debate between realism and anti-realism. One of them, Moritz Schlick, described the “problem of the reality of the external word” as a “meaningless pseudo-problem.”^[4]

 

Contemporary analytic philosophers once again take this debate seriously. But they arguments that they employ tend not to be epistemological. As we will see, contemporary arguments originate within the philosophy of language.

 

Both Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam argue for anti-Realism based on considerations of semantics, or meaning. The basic assumption here is that one can arrive at a substantive metaphysical conclusion by starting from claims about language.

 

 

Stopping point for Wednesday March 11. For next time continue reading the chapter from Loux (pp.266-73, the section entitled “The Inscrutability of Reference” -- notice we are skipping the section called “Dummett’s anti-realism.”

 

This is a relatively difficult reading. In the section on Quine, focus your attention on the explanation of the inscrutability of reference. The passage in which Loux discusses the relativity of reference, from the middle of p.271 to the bottom of p.273, is of secondary importance.