Abstract
My aim in this paper is to help lay the conceptual and methodological foundations for the study of realism. I come to two main conclusions: first, that there is a primitive metaphysical concept of reality, one that cannot be understood in fundamentally different terms; and second, that questions of what is real are to be settled upon the basis of considerations of ground. The two conclusions are somewhat in tension with one another, for the lack of a definition of the concept of reality would appear to stand in the way of developing a sound methodology for determining its application; and one of my main concerns has been to show how the tension between the two might be resolved.
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Notes
A useful survey of such criteria is given in Wright [1992] and some general critiques of them are to be found in Rosen [ 1994 ], Dworkin [1996] and Stroud [2000], Chapters 1–2.
A similar proposal has been made by Gaifman [ 1975 ]. It should be noted that Dummett [1993], p.467, is not inclined, as I am, to assimilate the nonfactualism of a sophisticated form of expressivism with the nonfactualism of a constructivist position. However, none of my criticisms will turn upon making this assimilation.
See Edgington [1980–81] and Winkler [1985] for further criticisms of Bivalence as a sufficient condition. I also believe that there are problems with Bivalence as a necessary condition for realism even when the obvious sources of truth-value gaps (such as vagueness or reference-failure) are removed, but this is not something I shall discuss.
Dummett [1978], pp.365–67, has reservations about making the transition from the Law to the Principle, but I do not believe that they apply in the present case.
Dummett propounds such a conception in [1993], pp.56–7.
Advocates of this approach include Armstrong [1997], p.12, Chalmers [ 1996 ], p.48, and Jackson [1998], p. 5. Many philosophers, I should note, do not take supervenience to capture a metaphysically significant notion of reduction.
For further discussion of these points, see Kim [1993], pp.144–46, and the references contained therein.
Their number include Blackburn [1992], pp.7, 34, 168, and [1998], p.319; Dworkin [ 1996 ]; A. Fine [1984], pp.97–100; Putnam [1987], p.19. Other philosophers, such as Rosen [1994], have flirted with quietism without actually embracing it.
Rorty [1979], p.311, is someone who has espoused a more moderate form of quietism.
A related assumption (which he regards as a fallacy) has been adumbrated by Horwich [ 1998 ], p. 21. This is that “whenever a fact has a certain component, then whatever constitutes this fact must contain either the same component or alternatively something that constitutes it”. Assumption (g) says that the constituting fact must contain the same component when that component is itself fundamental, i.e., such as to occur in an unconstituted fact. But if the constituting fact does not contain something that constitutes the component in his sense, there is no reason to suppose that it is fundamental in my sense. Thus accepting (g) is perfectly compatible with rejecting his fallacy.
On certain deflationary views, of the sort proposed by Field [ 2001 ], Chapters 4 and 5, these propositions would not even be taken to involve a relationship between a term or concept and an entity.
Thus Putnam’s argument for scientific realism ([1978], p.100) and the argument that Harman [ 1977 ], Chapter 1, considers against moral realism both turn on whether the best explanation of some phenomenon (the success of science, our moral responses) does or does not involve reference to the facts that are in dispute. But in so far as the relevant notion of explanation is not metaphysical, it is unclear why the factualist or antifactualist should differ on this question. I also doubt, though this is a separate matter, that these arguments can plausibly be brought to bear on the skeptical form of antirealism.
Other philosophers (principally Dummett, passim, and Blackburn [1984], p.169, and [1998], p.50) have also emphasized the role of practice in adjudicating realist disputes. What is distinctive about my view is the precise way in which it articulates what a practice is and what is involved in accounting for a practice.
This is merely a picture. It need not commit one to the view that there are facts in the world whose structure might correspond to the structure of the propositions or sentences by which they are described, as in the standard exposition of logical atomism (Wisdom [1969]).
See Williams [1978], p.66, and [1985], p.241.
In making out this case, it is essential to distinguish between ground and reduction. If a ground is taken to bring one closer to what is real, then it is hard to see how there could be an infinite regress of grounds (with nothing at the bottom). For how can one get closer to what does not exist? But once grounds are taken to be metaphysically neutral, there is no more difficulty than in the case of cause in conceiving them to form an infinite regress. ( Cf. the discussion of Leibniz’s position on this question in Adams [ 1994 ], pp 333–8 ).
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Fine, K. (2002). The Question of Realism. In: Bottani, A., Carrara, M., Giaretta, P. (eds) Individuals, Essence and Identity. Topoi Library, vol 4. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1866-0_1
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