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Read this essay to learn about Realism. After reading this Essay you will learn about: 1. Introduction to Realism 2. Fundamental Philosophical Ideas of Realism 3. Forms 4. Realism in Education 5. Curriculum 6. Evaluation

• Essay on the Evaluation

Essay # 1. Introduction to Realism:

Emerged as a strong movement against extreme idealistic view of the world around.

Realism changed the contour of education in a systematic way. It viewed external world as a real world; not a world of fantasy.

It is not based upon perception of the individuals but is an objective reality based on reason and science.

The Realist trend in philosophical spectrum can be traced back to Aristotle who was interested in particular facts of life as against Plato who was interested in abstractions and generalities. Therefore, Aristotle is rightly called as the father of Realism. Saint Thomas Aquinas and Comenius infused realistic spirit in religion.

John Locke, Immanuel Kant, John Freiderich Herbart and William James affirmed that external world is a real world. In the 20th century, two sections of realist surfaced the area of philosophy. Six American professors led by Barton Perry and Montague are neo-realists. Another section spearheaded by Arthur Lovejoy, Johns Hopkins and George Santayana emerged are called as critical realists.

Essay # 2. Fundamental Philosophical Ideas of Realism :

(i) phenomenal world is true:.

Realists believe in the external world which is true as against the idealist world-a world d this life. It is a world of objects and not ideas. It is a pluralistic world. Ross has commented, “Realism simply affirms the existence of an external world and is therefore the antithesis of subjective idealism.”

There is an order and design of the external world in which man is a part and the world idealism by the laws of cause and effect relationships. As such there is no freedom of the will for man.

(ii) Opposes to Idealist Values :

In realism, there is no berth for imagination and speculation. Entities of God, soul and other world are nothing; they are mere figments of human imagination. Only objective world is real world which a man can know with the help of his mind. Realism does not believe in ideal values, would discover values in his immediate social life. The external world would provide the work for the discovery and realization of values.

(iii) Theory of Organism :

Realists believe that an organism is formed by conscious and unconscious things. Mind is regarded as the function of organism. Whitehead, a Neo-realist remarks “ The universe is a vibrating organism in the process of evolution. Change is the fundamental feature of this vibrating universe. The very essence of real actuality is process. Mind must be regarded as the function of the organism.”

(iv) Theory of Knowledge :

According to realists, the world around us is a reality; the real knowledge is the knowledge of the surrounding world. Senses are the gateways of knowledge of the external world. The impressions and sensations as a result of our communication with external world through our sense organs result in knowledge which is real.

The best method to acquire the knowledge of the external world is the experiment or the scientific method. One has to define the problem, observe all the facts and phenomena pertaining to the problem, formulate a hypothesis, test and verify it and accept the verified solution. Alfred North, Whitehead, and Bertrand Russel have stressed on the use of this scientific method.

(v) Stress on Present Applied Life :

According to realists, spiritual world is not real and cannot be realized. They believed in the present world-physical or material which can be realized. Man is a part and parcel of this material world. They put premium upon the molding and directing of human behaviour as conditioned by the physical and material facts of the present life, for this can promote happiness and welfare.

Therefore, metaphysics according to realism is that the external world is a reality-it is a world of objects and not ideas. Epistemology deals with the knowledge-knowledge of this external world through the senses and scientific method and enquiry. Axiology in it is that realists reject idealistic values, favour discovering values in the immediate social life.

Essay # 3. Forms of Realism :

There are four forms of realism, viz., humanistic realism, social realism, sense realism and neo-realism.

(i) Humanistic Realism :

The advocates of this form of realism are Irasmus, Rebelias and Milton. The supporters of the realism firmly believed that education should be realistic which can promote human welfare and success. They favoured the study of Greek & Roman literature for individual, social and spiritual development.

Irasmus (1446-1536) castigated narrow educational system and in its place. favoured broad and liberal education. Rebelias (1483-1553) also advocated liberal education, opposed theoretical knowledge and said that education should be such as to prepare the individual to face all the problems of life with courage and solve them successfully.

He suggested scientific and psychological methods and techniques. Milton (1608-1674) also stressed liberal and complete education. He, in this connection, writes, “I call therefore a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skillfully and magnanimously all the offices both private and public of peace and war.”

He opposed mere academic education and insisted that education should give knowledge of things and objects. He prescribed language, literature and moral education is main subjects of study; and physiology, agriculture and sculpture as subsidiary subjects of study for children.

(ii) Social Realism :

Social realists opposed academic and bookish knowledge and advocated that education should promote working efficiency of men and women in the society. Education aims at making human life happier and successful. They suggested that curriculum should include History, Geography. Law, Diplomacy, Warfare, Arithmetic’s, Dancing, Gymnastics etc. for the development of social qualities.

Further, with a view to making education practical and useful, the realists stressed upon Travelling, Tour, observation and direct experience. Lord Montaigne (1533-1552) condemned cramming and favored learning by experience through tours and travels. He opposed knowledge for the sake of knowledge and strongly advocated practical and useful knowledge.

John Locke (1635-1704) advocated education through the mother tongue and lively method of teaching which stimulates motivation and interest in the children. As an individualist, he believed that the mind of a child is a clean slate on which only experiences write. He prescribed those subjects which are individually and socially useful in the curriculum.

(iii) Sense Realism :

Developed in the Seventeenth century sense realism upholds the truth that real knowledge comes through our senses. Further, sense realists believed all forms of knowledge spring from the external world. They viewed that education should provide plethora of opportunities to the children to observe and study natural phenomena and come in contact with external objects through the senses.

Therefore, true knowledge is gained by the child about natural objects, natural phenomena and laws through the exercises of senses. They favoured observation, scientific subjects, inductive method and useful education. Mulcaster (1530—1611) advocated physical and mental development aims of education.

Reacted against any forced impressions upon the mind of the child, he upheld use of psychological methods of teaching for the promotion of mental faculties-intelligence, memory and judgement.

Francis Bacon (1562-1623) writes, “The object of all knowledge is to give man power over nature.” He, thus, advocated inductive method of teaching-the child is free to observe and experiment by means of his senses and limbs. He emphasised science and observation of nature as the real methods to gain knowledge.

Ratke (1571-1625) said that senses are the gateways of knowledge and advocated the following maxims:

a. One thing at a time,

b. Follow nature,

c. Repetition,

d. Importance on mother-tongue,

e. No rote learning,

f. Sensory knowledge,

g. Knowledge through experience and uniformity of all things.

Comenius (1592-1671) advocated universal education and natural method of education. He said that knowledge comes not only through the senses but through man’s intelligence and divine inspiration. He favoured continuous teaching till learning is achieved and advocated mother-tongue to precede other subjects.

(iv) Neo-Realism :

The positive contribution of neo-realism is its acceptance of the methods and results of modern development in physics. It believes that rules and procedures of science are changeable from time to time according to the conditions of prevailing circumstances.

Whitehead said that an organism is formed by the consciousness and the unconsciousness, the moveable and immovable thing. Education should give to child full-scale knowledge of an organism. Man should understand all values very clearly for getting full knowledge about organism. Bertrand Russell emphasized sensory development of the child.

He favoured analytical method and classification. He assigned no place to religion and supported physics to be included as one of the foremost subjects of study. Further, he opposed emotional strain in children as it leads to development of fatigue.

Essay # 4. Realism in Education :

Realism asserts that education is a preparation for life, for education equips the child by providing adequate training to face the crude realities of life with courage as he or she would perform various roles such as a citizen, a worker, a husband, a housewife, a member of the group, etc. As such, education concerns with problems of life of the child.

Chief Characteristics of Education :

The following are the chief characteristics of realistic education:

(i) Based on Science:

Realism emphasized scientific education. It favored the inclusion of scientific subjects in he curriculum and of natural education. Natural education is based on science which is real.

(ii) Thrust upon present Life of the Child :

The focal point of realistic education is the present life of the child. As it focuses upon the real and practical problems of the life, it aims at welfare and happiness of the child.

(iii) Emphasis on Experiment and Applied life :

It emphasizes experiments, experience and practical knowledge. Realistic education supports learning by doing and practical work for enabling the child to solve his or her immediate practical problems for leading a happy and successful life.

(iv) Opposes to Bookish Knowledge :

Realistic education strongly condemned all bookish knowledge, for it does not help the child to face the realities of life adequately. It does not enable the child to decipher the realities of external things and natural phenomena. The motto of realistic education is ”Not Words but Things.”

(v) Freedom of Child:

According to realists, child should be given full freedom to develop his self according to his innate tendencies. Further, they view that such freedom should promote self-discipline and self-control the foundation of self development.

(vi) Emphasis on Training of Senses:

Unlike idealists who impose knowledge from above, realists advocated self-learning through senses which need to be trained. Since, senses are the doors of knowledge, these needs to be adequately nurtured and trained.

(vii) Balance between Individuality and Sociability :

Realists give importance to individuality and sociability of the child equally. Bacon lucidly states that realistic education develops the individual on the one hand and tries to develop social trails on the other through the development of social consciousness and sense of service of the individual.

Aims of Education :

The following aims of education are articulated by the realists:

(i) Preparation for the Good life:

The chief aim of realistic education is to prepare the child to lead a happy and good life. Education enables the child to solve his problems of life adequately and successfully. Leading ‘good life’ takes four important things-self-preservation, self-determination, self-realization and self-integration.

(ii) Preparation for a Real Life of the Material World:

Realists believe that the external material world is the real world which one must know through the senses. The aim of education is to prepare a child for real life of material world.

(iii) Development of Physical and Mental Powers:

According to realists, another important aim of education is to enable the child to solve different life problems by using the faculty of mind: intelligence, discrimination and judgement.

(iv) Development of Senses:

Realists thought that development of senses is the sine-qua-non for realization of the material world. Therefore, the aim of education is to help the development of senses fully by providing varied experiences.

(v) Acquainting with External Nature and Social Environment:

It is an another aim of realistic education to help the child to know the nature and social environment for leading a successful life.

(vi) Imparting Vocational Knowledge and Skill :

According to realists, another important aim of education is to provide vocational knowledge, information, skill etc., to make the child vocationally efficient for meeting the problems of livelihood.

(vii) Development of Character :

Realistic education aims at development of character for leading a successful and balanced life.

(viii) Enabling the Child to Adjust with the Environment :

According to realists, education should aim at enabling the child to adapt adequately to the surroundings.

Essay # 5. Curriculum of Realism :

Realists wanted to include those subjects and activities which would prepare the children for actual day to day living. As such, they thought it proper to give primary place to nature, science and vocational subjects whereas secondary place to Arts, literature, biography, philosophy, psychology and morality.

Besides, they have laid stress upon teaching of mother- tongue as the foundation of all development. It is necessary for reading, writing and social interaction but not for literary purposes.

(i) Methods of Teaching :

Realists favoured principles of observation and experience as imparting knowledge of objects and external world can be given properly through the technique of observation and experience. Further, they encouraged use of audio-visual aids in education as they would develop sensory powers in the children.

Children would have “feel” of reality through them. Realists also encouraged the use of lectures, discussions and symposia. Socratic and inductive methods were also advocated. Memorization at early stage was also recommended.

Besides, learning by travelling was also suggested. The maxims of teaching are to proceed from easy to difficult, simple to complex, known to unknown, definite to indefinite, concrete to abstract and particular to general. In addition, realists give importance on the principle of correlation as they consider all knowledge as one unit.

(ii) Discipline :

Realists decry expressionistic discipline and advocate self-discipline to make good adjustment in the external environment. They, further, assert that virtues can be inculcated for withstanding realities of physical world. Children need to be disciplined to become a part of the world around in and to understand reality.

(iii) Teacher :

Under the realistic school, the teacher must be a scholar and his duty is to guide the children towards the hard core realities of life. He must expose them to the problems of life and the world around. The teacher should have full knowledge of the content and needs of the children.

He should present the content in a lucid and intelligible way by employing scientific and psychological methods is also the duty of the teacher to tell children about scientific discoveries, researches and inventions id he should inspire them to undertake close observation and experimentation for finding out new facts and principles.

Moreover, he himself should engage in research activities. Teachers, in order to be good and effective, should get training before making a foray into the field of teaching profession.

(iv) School :

Some realists’ view that school is essential as it looks like a mirror of society reflecting its real picture of state of affairs. It is the school which provides for the fullest development of the child in accordance with his needs and aspirations and it prepares the child for livelihood. According to Comenius, “The school should be like the lap of mother full of affection, love and sympathy. Schools are true foregoing places of men.”

Essay # 6. Evaluation of Realism :

Proper evaluation of realism can be made possible by throwing a light on its merits and demerits.

(i) Realism is a practical philosophy preaching one to come to term with reality. Education which is non-realistic cannot be useful to the humanity. Now, useless education has come to be considered as waste of time, energy and resources.

(ii) Scientific subjects have come to stay in our present curriculum due to the impact of realistic education.

(iii) In the domain of methods of teaching the impact of realistic education is ostensible. In modern education, inductive, heuristic, objective, experimentation and correlation methods have been fully acknowledged all over the globe.

(iv) In the area of discipline, realism is worth its name as it favours impressionistic and self-discipline which have been given emphasis in modern educational theory and practice in a number of countries in the globe.

(v) Realistic philosophy has changed the organisational climate of schools. Now, schools have been the centres of joyful activities, practical engagements and interesting experiments. Modern school is a vibrant school.

(i) Realism puts emphasis on facts and realities of life. It neglects ideals and values of life. Critics argue that denial of ideals and values often foments helplessness and pessimism which mar the growth and development of the individuals. This is really lop-sided philosophy.

(ii) Realism emphasizes scientific subjects at the cost of arts and literature. This affair also creates a state of imbalance in the curriculum. It hijacks ‘humanities’ as critics’ label.

(iii) Realism regards senses as the gateways of knowledge. But the question comes to us, how does illusion occur and how do we get faulty knowledge? It does not provide satisfactory answer.

(iv) Realism accepts the real needs and feelings of individual. It does not believe in imagination, emotion and sentiment which are parts and parcel of individual life.

(v) Although realism stresses upon physical world, it fails to provide answers to the following questions pertaining to physical world.

(i) Is the physical world absolute ?

(ii) Is there any limits of physical world ?

(iii) Is the physical world supreme or powerful?

(vi) Realism is often criticized for its undue emphasis on knowledge and it neglects the child. As the modern trend in education is paedocentric, realism is said to have put the clock behind the times by placing its supreme priority on knowledge.

In-spite of the criticisms, realism as a real philosophy stands to the tune of time and it permeates all aspects of education. It is recognized as one of the best philosophies which need to be browsed cautiously. It has its influence in modern educational theory and practice.

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Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought

A. C. Grayling, Truth, Meaning and Realism: Essays in the Philosophy of Thought , Continuum, 2007, 173pp., $19.95 (pbk), ISBN 9781847061546.

Reviewed by Alexander Miller, University of Birmingham

This volume is a collection of revised versions of ten essays apparently written in the 1980s or thereabouts, mainly as invited contributions to conferences. As Grayling admits in his preface, "All the papers are of their time". British philosophy in the 1970s and 1980s was dominated by an approach to the debate between realism and antirealism that was associated with Oxford and championed by Michael Dummett, and according to which the key issue was whether the theory of meaning should take as its central concept the notion of truth or the notion of assertibility , with realism favouring the former and antirealism favouring the latter. Much of the book concerns the realism debate conceived in these terms, and although there are also extended discussions of Putnam's twin-earth examples these are mainly in the context of an exchange with David Wiggins. Grayling's essays are thus also very much "of their place" (Oxford) as well as of their time (1980s).

Although in his early works Dummett had defended the idea that assertibility, and not truth, should be the central concept of the theory of meaning, in later work he -- and Crispin Wright -- suggested that antirealism could after all take the notion of truth to be the central notion of the theory of meaning so long as it was an epistemically constrained notion. Given this way of formulating antirealism there is no need to argue that the notion of assertion can be explained in terms that don't presuppose the notion of truth: even the antirealist can admit that it is a platitude that "to assert is to present as true".

In Essay 1, Grayling puts forward a view of assertion that contrasts with the approach of Wright and the later Dummett. Whereas the Wright-later Dummett view sees the aim of assertion as "the presentation of or laying claim to truth" (p.10), Grayling sees it as "the realisation of certain cognitive and practical goals" (ibid.).

Essay 2 proposes a recasting of the debate between realism and antirealism. Grayling suggests that (a) properly understood realism is not a metaphysical but an epistemological thesis: "that the domains or entities to which ontological commitment is made exist independently of knowledge of them" (p.26); and that (b) it is in fact a second-order debate about whether the realistic commitments of ordinary, first-order discourse are literally true or not, and as such has no implications for "logic, linguistic practice, or mundane metaphysics" (p.30). Grayling returns to these issues in Essays 8 and 9.

An alternative to deflationary and indefinabilist conceptions of truth is offered in Essay 3: "The predicate 'is true' is a lazy predicate. It holds a place for more precise predicates, denoting evaluatory properties appropriate to the discourse in which possession of those properties is valued" (p.32). On this view "there are, literally, different kinds of truth, individuated by subject-matter" (p.36). Grayling backs this up in Essay 4 (which, like Essay 3, is a reworked chapter from Grayling's An Introduction to Philosophical Logic , first published in 1982) with a critique of the indefinabilist position Davidson recommends in "The Folly of Trying to Define Truth". This essay also argues that Davidson's "The Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge" fails to yield a satisfying account of objectivity: in particular "the principle of charity is questionable beyond its heuristic applications" (p.49).

Putnam's famous "twin-earth" argument appears to some to establish that it is essential to Jones's thinking the thought that someone is drinking water in the next room that there is (or has been) some H 2 0 in Jones's environment. In Essay 5 Grayling considers Wiggins's attempt to fuse this construal of Putnam's insight -- "the extension-involvingness of natural kind terms" (p.62) -- with a Fregean theory distinguishing between the sense and reference of such a term. For Wiggins,

Taking the sense of a name as its mode of presentation of an object means that we have two things … : an object that the name presents, and a way in which it is presented. This latter [is] the 'conception' of the object … 'a body of information' -- typically open-ended and imperfect, and hence rarely if ever condensable into a complete description of the object -- in which the object itself plays a role (p.62),

and something similar holds for natural kind terms: "the sense of a natural kind term is correlative to a recognitional conception that is unspecifiable except as the conception of things like this, that and the other specimens exemplifying the concept that this conception is a conception of" (p.65). Grayling suggests that instead of taking senses to be "correlative" to "conceptions" we should instead identify senses with conceptions: "a term's sense is: an open-ended extensible body of information, possession of which enables speakers to identify the term's reference" (p.69). However, this modified account has consequences for the notion of extension-involving sense:

on the minimum specification given for the grasp of the sense of a concept-word, any concept word which applies to nothing retains its sense because what is known by one who understands it is what would count as an exemplary instance of its application if ever one were offered. (p.74)

In consequence, Wiggins was wrong to take it "that the extension-involvingness constraint ensured the realism of the reality-involvingness he took this to entail" (p.75). Related matters are pursued in Essay 6. Grayling rejects Frege's "strong objectivism" about sense, and argues that since the publicity of sense "is essentially a matter of speakers' mutual constrainings of use", it is best construed in terms of "intersubjective agreement in use" (p.85). This has implications for the externalist arguments of Putnam and Burge. Although it is true that meanings are not in the head of any single speaker, "they are in our heads, collectively understood … meaning is the artefact of intersubjectively constituted conventions governing the use of sounds and marks to communicate, and therefore resides in the language itself" (p.89). This shows -- contra Putnam -- that "facts about the physical environment of language-use are not essential to meaning" (p.89). Grayling reaches this conclusion by reflecting on what he calls an "Explicit Speaker", an idealised speaker who knows everything contained in "some best and latest dictionary [which] pooled a community's knowledge of meanings" (p.87). It follows that

when he [an individual speaker with the linguistic community's best joint knowledge at his disposal] says 'water' he intends to refer to water, that is, H 2 0, or if he lives on twin-earth, then to water on twin-earth, that is, XYZ; and so in either case his grasp of the expression's meaning determines its extension, and the psychological state in which his grasp of the meaning consists is broad. But this is not because it is related, causally or in some other way, to water, but rather to theories of water, because he is speaking in conformity with the best dictionary, that is, with the fullest available knowledge of meaning, in accord with the best current theories held by the linguistic community. (p.88)

Grayling does not consider the obvious reply that a defender of Putnam might give: that a 10 th century English peasant's application of "water" to a sample of XYZ is incorrect, and clearly not because of anything to do with the best current theory held by his linguistic community. Moreover, it appears to beg the question against Putnam to assume that, in the late-20 th century scenario that Grayling is concerned with, facts about the physical environment are not essential to grasp the meanings of some of the expressions that appear in "the best current theories held by the linguistic community".

The "Explicit Speaker" reappears in Essay 7. As Grayling advertises in the preface, this chapter suggests that " point is the driving force in interpretation of implicatures by competent speakers of a natural language" (p.vi), and that "this simple insight reveals certain puzzles to be artefacts of inexplictness" (ibid.). According to Grayling:

An Explicit Speaker of his language is one who so uses it whenever he makes an assertion (and mutatis mutandis for other kinds of utterance) he: (1) expresses his intended meaning as fully as, if not more fully than, his audience needs in the circumstances; (2) expresses his intended meaning as exactly as, if not more exactly than, his audience, etc; and (3) is as epistemically cautious as the circumstances do or might require, if not more so, with respect to the claims made or presupposed by what he says. (p.93)

Grayling proposes to deploy this notion of an Explicit Speaker to shed light on the analogues in natural language of the logical constants, presupposition-failure in uses of the likes of "Jones omitted to turn out the light", the distinction between referential and attributive uses of definite descriptions, and Putnam's use of twin-earth type examples. This chapter is difficult to follow. Although it is titled "Explicit Speaker Theory", and although the expression "Explicit Speaker Theory" is mentioned throughout, Grayling never gives a clear and explicit statement of what the theory actually is. The reader is left to work this out from inexplicit hints. We are told, for example, that according to Explicit Speaker Theory "the crux in meaning is the point, which is to be explained in terms of speakers' intentions to mean something on an occasion" (p.92), that "conventional meaning is to be characterised as the dry residue of speakers' meanings, agreed in the language community under constraints of publicity and stability" (ibid.), that "the meanings of expressions in a language are the agreed dry residue of speakers' meanings" (p.105), and that "what the Explicit Speaker does [when he says "the man whom I take to be drinking champagne is happy tonight"] is what all speakers are enthymematically doing anyway" (p.102). (Grayling does not attempt to explain what it is to do something enthymematically: again, the reader is left to work this out for himself.) In the light of this, readers with less sunny temperaments than the present reviewer are likely to be irritated by comments like "One should surely recognise all this as obvious" (p.100).

That Essay 8 is very much of its time and place is evident from its characterisation as "current orthodoxy" of the view that the realism/antirealism dispute is a debate about whether linguistic understanding is a matter of grasp of epistemically unconstrained truth-conditions or a matter of grasp of assertion conditions. For "current orthodoxy" read "orthodoxy in Oxford in the 1980s", and -- accordingly -- the essay is largely taken up with a discussion of Dummett's analysis of realism as the view that grasp of sentence-meaning is grasp of potentially evidence-transcendent truth-conditions. Grayling argues that rather than attempting in this way to bring all realist/antirealist controversies under one label, we should instead "recognise that they are controversies of different kinds" (p.126). This point is now well-taken -- and indeed defended -- even by philosophers out of the Dummettian stable (cf. Crispin Wright, Truth and Objectivity (Harvard University Press 1992)). However, in contrast to Wright, Grayling argues not that we can develop different realism-relevant considerations that can be brought to bear in different combinations as we move across different discourses, but rather that "we do well to restrict talk of realism to the case where controversy concerns unmetaphorical claims about the knowledge-independent existence of entities or realms of entities -- namely, the 'external world' case" (p.126).

Grayling's argument for this surprising claim is unconvincing. Dummett argues that realism is most fundamentally a semantic thesis, "a doctrine about the sort of thing that makes our statements true when they are true" (quoted by Grayling on p.120), since in some cases a straightforwardly ontological characterisation in terms of the existence of entities is not possible because there are no entities for the realist and antirealist to debate about (Dummett mentions realism about the future and realism about ethics as examples). Grayling argues against this that the semantic thesis is actually less fundamental than realism characterised in metaphysical and epistemological terms on the grounds that Dummett "goes on to unpack the expression 'sort of thing' in a way which shows that its being a semantic thesis comes courtesy of something else" (p.120). To display this Grayling quotes the following passage from Dummett:

the fundamental thesis of realism, so regarded, is that we really do succeed in referring to external objects, existing independently of our knowledge of them, and that the statements we make about them are rendered true or false by an objective reality the constitution of which is, again, independent of our knowledge. (Note that this is not, as Grayling refers to it, on p.55 of Dummett's 1982 "Realism" article, but actually on p.104.)

Grayling takes the reference to external objects in this latter characterisation to show that the semantic characterisation of realism presupposes the ontological characterisation rather than, as Dummett has it, vice versa. It then follows from this that "what we should say about those 'realisms' which are not readily classifiable in terms of entities is, simply, and on Dummett's own reasoning, that they are not realisms" (p.125), and it is this that leads in part to Grayling's restriction of talk of realism to the 'external world' case.

But this is an uncharitable interpretation of Dummett. I take it that what Dummett is saying in the passage quoted by Grayling is actually along the following lines: "the fundamental thesis of realism, so regarded, is that in cases where there is a relevant class of entities whose existence can be a matter of debate , the statements we make about them are rendered true or false by an objective reality the constitution of which is independent of our knowledge, so that in this sense we really do succeed in referring to external objects, existing independently of our knowledge of them; and that in cases where there is no relevant class of entities whose existence can be a matter of debate , the canonical statements of the discourse concerned are rendered true or false by an objective reality the constitution of which is independent of our knowledge". Read in this more charitable way it is clear that the class of entities mentioned is secondary to the mention of knowledge-independent truth, and so there is no implication that talk of realism should be restricted to the "external world" case, so that the way is left open for a Wright-style broadening of the realist/antirealist canvass.

Essay 9 is an extended discussion of McGinn, Nagel and McFetridge on the realism debate, while the final Essay 10 offers some brief reflections on evidence and judgement.

It is not straightforward to appraise this collection, as it is not clear what its target audience is. The various debates have moved on quite a way since Grayling's conference papers were written, and I can't help feeling that they should have been updated and submitted to the rigours of peer-review in the journals before being issued in a collection. To be fair to Grayling, though, he does attempt to pre-empt this kind of worry in his preface, where he points to the "exploratory character" of the essays and says that he "in no case take[s] them to be remotely near a final word on the debates they relate to" (p.v). But I'm not sure that this is enough to get Grayling off the hook. My main problem with the book is not that it is exploratory (there's nothing wrong with that), or that its approach is parochial and somewhat dated, but that the writing style displays some of the worst vices of philosophical writing a la 1980s Oxford, where writing clearly and succinctly appears to be regarded as a mark of superficiality, and where as you get nearer to the nub of an argument, the cruder the stylistic barbarities become. The following example -- of a single sentence! -- from Essay 5 is, unfortunately, not atypical:

Generalising from natural kind terms, we might wish to say that concept words which, in Frege's terminology, refer to empty concepts, can nevertheless be understood, because we can be (so to say) lexically exposed to -- it is more accurate to say: given an understanding of what it would be for something to fall into -- the extensions they would, in better or fuller worlds, have. (p.74)

I'm here reminded of Schopenhauer's comment that "when parentheses are inserted into sentences that have been broken up to accommodate them" the result is "unnecessary and wanton confusion" ( Essays and Aphorisms , trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Penguin 1970), p.207). At any rate, the cause of serious philosophy is not furthered by the poor attempt at Henry James impersonation. Grayling writes:

Too many gifted colleagues publish too little for fear of having every nut and bolt tightened into place; those who venture ideas as if they were letters to friends, trying out a way of thinking about something, and knowing that they will learn from the mistakes they make, do more both for the conversation and themselves thereby. (p.v)

Far be it from me to dictate Grayling's epistolary habits, but if his style in this book is typical of the way he writes to his friends, I'll give his collected correspondence a miss.

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Realism and Anti-Realism

Introduction.

• Mind-Independence
• Realism and the Idea of a Ready-Made World
• Examples of Ontologically Realist Views
• Arguments for Ontological Realism
• Ontological Realism and Skepticism
• Varieties of Ontological Anti-realism
• Varieties of Epistemological Realism
• Sources of Unknowability
• Epistemological Realism and Truth
• Arguments for Recognition-Transcendence
• Arguments for Epistemological Anti-realism
• Epistemological Realism and Bivalence

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Realism and Anti-Realism by Sven Rosenkranz LAST REVIEWED: 19 March 2013 LAST MODIFIED: 19 March 2013 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780195396577-0098

The realism/anti-realism divide has its proper place in metaphysics, but it also has important implications for epistemology and for the philosophy of thought and language. Anti-realism is defined in opposition to realism, and so it is natural to ask first what realism is and to arrive at a characterization of anti-realism on this basis. Sometimes, however, the positions put forward as competitors to realism provide us with clues as to what realism involves. Realism is not a monolithic doctrine. For one thing, one may be a realist about this but not about that. So there are differences in scope, even if not all scope restrictions allow for sensible combinations of realist and anti-realist views. For instance, realism about chemistry does not sit well with anti-realism about physics. Besides differences in scope, there are also differences in kind. Thus we must distinguish between realism as an ontological thesis and realism as an epistemological thesis. The former is concerned with what there is and how it is and argues that there are certain things that exist mind-independently. The latter is concerned with how far our epistemic powers reach and argues that there may be parts of reality in principle beyond our ken. Note that the latter thesis does not merely say something about our epistemic powers. Like the former, it also says something about reality itself, and so is just as much a metaphysical claim as the former. The need to distinguish between these kinds of realism does not imply that there are no connections between them. On the contrary, under suitable interpretations of mind-independence there may be facts about mind-independent things that are in principle beyond our reach because of the mind-independence of those things.

Realism as an Ontological Thesis

Realism as an ontological thesis always concerns things, particular or universal, of a given category (where “things” is construed broadly so as to subsume states of affairs). It contends that there are things of that category, but that things of that category exist mind-independently. Thus ontological realism combines a claim of existence with a claim of mind-independence ( Devitt 1997 , Brock and Mares 2007 ). To say that things of category C exist mind-independently is systematically ambiguous: one may read it to mean that the things that belong to C exist mind-independently; alternatively, one may read it to mean that whether a thing belongs to C is a mind-independent matter. The same distinction can be applied to the individual kinds into which things of the relevant category C might be classified: natural caves may serve as places of worship, but while, plausibly, natural caves exist mind-independently, nothing would be a place of worship without there being any minds who take it to be such. Similarly, a particular piece of brass may not exist mind-independently insofar as it was manufactured by humans with a specific purpose in mind, and yet, plausibly, its being a piece of brass is not in turn a mind-dependent matter. Even if artifacts may not be the best examples of mind-dependent existents in the intended sense, the first example is already sufficient to show the need to distinguish between two types of claims: that certain portions of reality are not in any relevant sense of our making, and that certain partitions of reality, or groupings into kinds, are not of our making in any such sense. Typically, ontological realists commit themselves to both types of claims, which is why their position naturally generalizes so as to cover the subject matter of statements about a given area or the facts , if any, these statements are apt to state, and not just the referents of the singular terms these statements contain.

Brock, Stuart, and Edwin Mares. Realism and Anti-realism . Durham, UK: Acumen, 2007.

This is one of the many helpful introductions to the realism/anti-realism debate. The authors discuss various ontologically realist views and their anti-realist competitors, concerning, for example, colors, morals, modality, and the unobservable entities posited by science, mathematics.

Devitt, Michael. Realism and Truth . 2nd ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997.

Devitt explicates and defends the central tenets of realism as an ontological thesis and gives an account of mind-independence. Devitt furthermore argues that, quite generally, realism has nothing to do with epistemological matters, thereby denying that there is any genuinely realist position that answers to the label “realism as an epistemological thesis,” contrary to what we have assumed.

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An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense

• Published: 15 June 2007
• Volume 17 , pages 425–447, ( 2008 )

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• William W. Cobern 1 &
• Cathleen C. Loving 2  

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“What is truth?” Pontius Pilot asked Jesus of Nazareth. For many educators today this question seems quaintly passé. Rejection of “truth” goes hand-in-hand with the rejection of epistemological realism. Educational thought over the last decade has instead been dominated by empiricist, anti-realist, instrumentalist epistemologies of two types: first by psychological constructivism and later by social constructivism. Social constructivism subsequently has been pressed to its logical conclusion in the form of relativistic multiculturalism. Proponents of both psychological constructivism and social constructivism value knowledge for its utility and eschew as irrelevant speculation any notion that knowledge is actually about reality. The arguments are largely grounded in the discourse of science and science education where science is “western” science; neither universal nor about what is really real. The authors defended the notion of science as universal in a previous article. The present purpose is to offer a commonsense argument in defense of critical realism as an epistemology and the epistemically distinguished position of science (rather than privileged) within a framework of epistemological pluralism. The paper begins with a brief cultural survey of events during the thirty-year period from 1960–1990 that brought many educators to break with epistemological realism and concludes with comments on the pedagogical importance of realism. Understanding the cultural milieu of the past forty years is critical to understanding why traditional philosophical attacks on social constructivist ideas have proved impotent defenders of scientific realism.

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Rivers and Fireworks: Social Constructivism in Education

Comparing radical, social and psychological constructivism in Australian higher education: a psycho-philosophical perspective

Toward a new philosophical anthropology of education: fuller considerations of social constructivism.

Traditionally realism refers to ontology. However, especially in education circles, realism is taken as an epistemology. Few anti-realist in the education community are ontological anti-realists––the issue is epistemology.

Our cultural survey is of necessity very brief. First, our argument is meant as an hypothesis to stimulate further study and discussion. Second, a longer treatment would be beyond the scope of the journal. Third, our focus is limited to American culture. Other countries and societies would undoubtedly tell the story differently.

It should be noted that logical positivism , in its doctrinaire form, was never a realist position. Early positivists like Carnap and Ayer rejected the idea that science aims to describe an independent reality, not because they thought it was false, but because they saw no way to confirm or disconfirm it by experience. Later (long before the 1960s), many former positivists abandoned this position in favor of a form of realism known as logical empiricism . The two positions have significant similarities but should not be confused (Salmon 2000 ).

There were other reasons for reforming science education. See Rudolph ( 2002 ) for a thorough discussion of economic and political pressures for science education reform prominent in the early Cold War period.

For an excellent discussion of the difference between the interests of science and public interest in science, see Eger ( 1989 ).

For examples of socially relevant science curriculum ideas of the period, see Baird ( 1937 ) or Zechiel ( 1937 ).

One indication that the critics failed in their efforts is that the Kromhout and Good title reappears thirteen years later in Gross et al. ( 1996 ). Indeed, in the eyes of many in science, the situation had only worsened as indicated by the two-word addition in the Gross et al title, The Flight From Science and Reason .

See < http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/Kuhnsnap.html > for a brief biographical sketch of Kuhn’s life and work. See also Science & Education vol.9 nos.1–2 for discussion of Kuhn’s impact on science educators.

We are not indicating a chronological order. For the most part, these were simultaneous events during the decade.

Although our focus is the United States, Kuhn’s book had more immediate impact in Great Britain during the late 1960s founding of the University of Edinburgh’s Strong Program in the sociology of science. This school of sociology was “in direct conflict with all philosophical theories that seek to distinguish logic or rationality from psychology or sociology” (Giere 1991 , p. 51). On the Continent, while no direct influence is claimed here between Kuhn’s science writings and the European literary “deconstructionists,” it is interesting to note some similar revolutionary writings. While Kuhn was revising the first edition of his magnum opus in an attempt to deal with criticisms of his myriad uses of “paradigms” in science communities, Jacque Derrida was, at about the same time, “deconstructing” literary texts in articles with titles like Ends of Man (Derrida 1969 ), The Purveyor of Truth (Derrida ( 1975 ), or his psychoanalysis of the “truth factor” ( 1975 ).

See RachelCarson.org (“a website devoted to the life and legacy of Rachel Carson”) at: http://www.rachelcarson.org/.

The education and social science literatures often overstate Kuhn’s influence in academic philosophy. As a counterbalance, consider that in Wesley Salmon's ( 1989 ) Four Decades of Scientific Explanation , Kuhn is mentioned only once in over 200 pages of meticulous historical survey.

The notion that Copernicus was an instrumentalist is an historical myth. “All of the evidence is that Copernicus was a robust realist and that it is Osiander, not Copernicus, who bears responsibility for the instrumentalism here. When Copernicus's disciple Georg Joachim Rheticus (author of the famous “Narratio Prima”) read the unsigned preface, he was furious and said that if he had positive proof that Osiander had inserted this he would personally give him such a thrashing that Osiander would never again interfere in the affairs of scientific men! Many good scientists who read further than the preface realized that Copernicus is an earnest realist: Maestlin and his famous pupil Kepler, Thomas Digges in England, etc.” (McGrew 2002 )

We quote Vico because Glasersfeld does; however, we do not necessarily agree with Glasersfeld’s interpretation of Vico’s work. For a different perspective on Vico, see Lilla ( 1993 ).

For a discussion on types of multiculturalism, see: Haack ( 1998 , Ch. 8).

It should be apparent that epistemological realism and ontological realism go hand in hand.

The inability to have direct access to reality is a key supposition for anti-realists. For an incisive rebuttal and defense of the theory of direct perception, see Nola ( 2003 ).

Along with the sociology of science, critical realism agrees that constructing goes on in science––that science is not about discovering “already categorized objects and relations.” The difference comes, however, in that scientists can legitimately claim “genuine similarities” between logical constructs and aspects of reality. Rather than “critical,” Giere ( 1999 ) refers to “perspectival” realism to emphasize that scientific theories never capture completely the “totality of reality” but provide us with only—perspectives “…science that is perspectival rather than absolute” (Giere 1999 , p. 79). Our use of “critical realism” is in this vein. For a philosophical introduction to critical realism, see Bhaskar ( 1989 ), Harré ( 1975 ), Putman ( 1987 ) or Salmon ( 1989 ). There are different varieties of critical realism such as Giere’s ( 1999 ) “constructive realism” but what they have in common is nicely described by Polkinghorne ( 1991 , p. 304): “epistemology models ontology.”

For more on Traditional Ecological Knowledge, see Snively and Corsiglia ( 2001 ).

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Cobern, W.W., Loving, C.C. An Essay for Educators: Epistemological Realism Really is Common Sense. Sci & Educ 17 , 425–447 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11191-007-9095-5

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4 Chapter 4: Foundational Philosophies of Education

A philosophy is often defined as the foundation upon which knowledge is based. However, when you break apart the actual word, a much different meaning emerges. Derived from the Greek “philos,” which means love , and “sophos,” which means wisdom , the actual meaning of the word philosophy is love of wisdom (Johnson et. al., 2011).

In this chapter, we will explore how traditional philosophies have evolved over time by briefly looking at three key branches of philosophy. Then, the schools of philosophy and their influence on education will be presented. Finally, you will hear from educators in the field and see how they put their “philosophies” of education into practice.

Section I: Schools of Philosophy

4.1 Essential Questions

At the end of this section, the following essential questions will be answered:

• What are the four 
 main schools of philosophy?
• Who were the 
 key philosophers within each 
 school of 
 philosophy?
• What are the key implications of 
 each school of philosophy 
on education 
 today?

There are four broad schools of thought that reflect the key philosophies of education that we know today. These schools of thought are: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, and Existentialism. It is important to note that idealism and realism, otherwise known as general or world philosophies, have their roots in the work of the ancient Greek philosophers: Plato and Aristotle. Whereas pragmatism and existentialism are much more contemporary schools of thought.

It is important to study each school of thought because they shape the way we approach education today. Specifically, each school of thought directly impacts how curriculum is developed, implemented, and assessed.

Idealism is a school of philosophy that emphasizes that “ideas or concepts are the essence of all that is worth knowing” (Johnson et. al., 2011, p. 87). In other words, the only true reality is that of ideas. Based on the writings of Plato, this school of philosophy encourages conscious reasoning in the mind. Furthermore, idealists look for, and value, universal or absolute truths and ideas. Consequently, idealists believe that ideas should remain constant throughout the centuries.

Key Philosophers

Plato (ca. 427 – 
 ca. 347 BCE):

4.2 A Closer Look

• How does the Allegory of the Cave give us insight into Plato’s conception of reality?
• What are some other examples of “cave-like” thinking?
• Do you agree with Plato’s premise? Why or why not?

Socrates (ca. 470 – ca. 399 BCE):

4.3 A Closer Look

• In what ways does the Socratic Method actively engage students in the learning process?
• Do you think this method improves students understanding?
• How does this method promote higher-order thinking?
• Elementary Example: Socratic Seminar Strategies for the Second Grade Classroom
• Secondary Example: Scaffolding Discussion Skills with a Socratic Circle

Kant (1724 – 1804):

Educational Implications of Idealism

When translated to the classroom, teachers with an Idealist school of though would emphasize being role models of these absolute truths, ideas, and values. Curriculum would focus on broad ideas, particularly those contained in great works of literature and/or scriptures. Teaching methods used within idealism include: lecture, discussion, and Socratic dialogue. Essential to these teaching methods is posing questions that generate thoughts and spark connections.

Paul (n/d) suggests the following six types of Socratic questions:

• How does this relate to our discussion?

• What would be an example?
• What is another way to look at it?
• What are the consequences of that assumption?
• What was the point of this question?

Realism is a school of 
 philosophy with origins in the work of Aristotle. This philosophy emphasizes that “reality, knowledge, and value exist independent of the human mind” (Johnson, 2011, p. 89). Realists argue for the use of the senses and scientific investigation in order to discover truth. The application of the scientific method also allows individuals to classify things into different groups based on their essential differences.

Aristotle (384 – 
 322 BCE):

4.4 A Closer Look

• Scientific Method Clip

Locke (1632 – 1704):

John Locke believed in the tabula rasa, or blank tablet, view of the mind. According to this view, a child’s mind is a blank slate when they are born. All the sensory experiences they have after birth fill up the slate through the impressions that are made upon the mind.

4.5 A Closer Look

• Do you agree with Locke’s claim that “at birth our minds are like a sheet of white paper?” Why or why not?
• How is this idea more similar to “nature” vs. “nurture?”

Educational Implications of Realism

Within a realist educational philosophy, the curricular focus is on scientific research and development as Realists’ consider education a matter of reality rather than speculation. The teacher role is to teach students about the world they live in. Realists view the subject expert as the source and authority for determining the curriculum.

Outcomes of this thinking in classrooms today include the appearance of standardized tests, serialized textbooks, and specialized curriculum (Johnson et. al., 2011). Teaching methods used in realism include:

• Critical thinking
• Observation
• Experimentation

Pragmatism is “a process 
philosophy 
that stresses evolving and 
change rather than being” (Johnson et. al., 2011, p. 91). In other words, pragmatists believe that reality is constantly changing so we learn best through experience.

According to pragmatists, the learner is constantly conversing and being changed by the environment with whom he or she is interacting. There is “no absolute and unchanging truth, but rather, truth is what works” (Cohen, 1999, p.1). Based on what is learned at any point and time, the learner or the world in which he or she is interacting can be changed.

Peirce (1839 – 1914):

Charles Sanders Peirce is one of the first pragmatic thinkers. He introduced the pragmatic method in which students are supplied a procedure for constructing and clarifying meanings. In addition, this system helps to facilitate communication among students.

Dewey (1859 – 1952):

Dewey also believed that the application of the “scientific method” could solve an array of problems. He saw ideas as the instruments to solving problems and advocated for the application of the following steps to meet this goal:

• Recognize that the problem exists.
• Clearly define the problem.
• Suggest possible solutions.
• Consider the potential consequences of the possible solutions.
• Carry out further observation and experiment leading to the solution’s acceptance or rejection. (Timm, 2020)

4.6 A Closer Look

• What did the “new” or “Romantic” side believe about education? What did the “old” or “traditional” side believe about education? Which side(s) did Dewey lean toward and why?
• What else did Dewey think we should take into account? Why is this so important to Dewey?
• Why did Dewey want to connect education with society?
• What is the question of education according to Dewey? Do you agree? Why or why not?

Educational Implications of Pragmatism

According to a Pragmatic school of thought, curriculum should be so planned in such a way that it teaches the learner how to think critically rather than what to think. Teaching should, therefore, be more exploratory in nature than explanatory. To promote this approach to teaching, students should be actively engaged in the learning process and be challenged to solve problems. The teachers job is to help  support students learning by promoting questioning and problem-solving during the natural course of lesson delivery.

The curriculum is also interdisciplinary. Teaching methods used in pragmatism include:

• Hands-on problem solving
• Experimenting
• Cooperative Learning

Existentialism

Existentialism is a school of philosophy 
 that “focuses on the 
importance of the individual rather than on external standards” (Johnson et. al., 2011, p. 93). Existentialists believe that our reality is made up of nothing more than our lived experiences, therefore our final realities reside within each of us as individuals. As such, 
 the physical world has no real meaning outside our human 
 experience and there is no objective, authoritative truth about metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics.

Kierkegaard (1813-1855):

Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish minister and philosopher. He is

considered to be the founder of existentialism.

4.7 A Closer Look

• Kierkegaard’s Philosophy

Nietzsche (1844-1900):

Friedrich Nietzcshe stressed the importance of the individuality of each person. According to Johnson et. al. (2011), his work provided a “strategy to liberate people from the oppression of feeling inferior within themselves, and a teaching of how not to judge what one is in relation to what one should be” (p. 95).

Educational Implications of Existentialism

Within an existentialist classroom, subject matter takes second place to helping the students understand and appreciate themselves for who they are as individuals.  The teacher’s role is to help students accept individual responsibility for their personal thoughts, feelings, and actions. To do this, the teacher is responsible for creating an environment in which student may freely choose their own preferred way of learning by giving students latitude in their choice of subject matter.

Furthermore, answers come from within the individual in an existential classroom, not from the teacher. For this reason, Existentialists strongly oppose standardized assessments which measure or track student learning.  Instead, they want the educational experience of the student to focus on creating opportunities for self-direction and self-actualization of the whole person, not just the mind (Cohen, 1999).

In an Existentialist classroom, curriculum is structured to provide students with experiences that will help unleash their own creativity and self-expression through an emphasis on teaching humanities. For example, rather than emphasizing historical events, existentialists focus upon the actions of historical individuals, each of whom provides possible models for the students’ own behavior. Math and science may be de-emphasized because their subject matter would be considered “cold,” “dry,” “objective,” and therefore less fruitful to self-awareness.  In teaching art, existentialism encourages individual creativity and imagination more than copying and imitating established models.

As described above, Existentialist methods focus on the individual. Learning is self-paced, self directed, and includes a great deal of individual contact with the teacher, who relates to each student openly and honestly. Although elements of existentialism occasionally appear in public schools, this philosophy has found wider acceptance in private schools and in alternative public schools founded in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

4.8 A Closer Look

Now that you have learned about the four main schools of thought, let’s find out which one you most align to right now. In order to do this, you are going to take the quiz below. Note: Make sure to write down which school of thought you are based on your quiz results.

• What school of thought were you?
• Do you agree that you align with the school of thought identified by the quiz? Why or why not?
• What are some specific implications for you as a future teacher given the school of thought you were identified as from the quiz?

 Section II: Defining your own philosophy

4.9 Essential Questions

• What is a philosophy?
• What elements do you consider to be most important to include in your philosophy of education?
• Think about the elements identified in this section, do you think all of them are essential to include when writing a philosophy of education? Why or why not?

As discussed in section one, there are 
 several key schools of thought that reflect key philosophies of education. In this section, we are going to look at the “definition” of a 
 philosophy. We will also explore the 
 importance of defining your own education philosophy as a future teacher. Finally, we will identify essential elements that should 
 be considered when writing your educational philosophy.

What is a Philosophy?

When asked to think about the following question, what comes to mind: What is a Philosophy?

Common responses 
 include:

• A set of beliefs

• A personal platform

• Our personal thoughts

A philosophy is indeed all of these things, and so much more! According to the New Oxford American Dictionary (2005), a philosophy is “the study of the fundamental nature of knowl- edge, reality, and existence” (p. 1278).

When it comes to our educational philosophy, Webb et. al. (2010) state that our “philosophy of education enables us to recognize certain educational principles that define our views about the learner, the teacher, and the school” (p. 50). As such, it critical to determine what school of thought you most align to as this will shape the way you see the students, curriculum and educational setting.

Articulating Your Philosophy of Education

When articulating your philosophy of education, it is 
 essential to reflect on the multiple dimension of teaching 
that would impact your philosophy. As demonstrated by the diagram, there are a lot of factors to consider. Take a moment to reflect on the diagram, are there any elements you feel are more important than the others? Are there elements missing that you would include? If so, what are they and why do you feel they are important?

When approaching the writing of your philosophy of education, we recommend using the following key elements to ensure that your philosophy of education is well thought out and supported, no matter which school of thought it is based upon.

• Why do you teach?
• Why have you chosen to teach elementary, 
 secondary, or a particular content area?
• What are your values as a teacher?
• FOUNDATIONS OF EDUCATION
• What philosophy of education do you MOST 
 align with and why (revisit Ch. 4 – Ch. 9 of 
 your iBook)?
• How has education changed historically in the 
 last 50/60 years (revisit Ch. 2 & Ch. 3 of your iBook)?
• What impact have movements like the civil 
 rights had on schools (revisit Ch. 2 of your 
 iBook)?
• How have educational policies like NCLB 
 and the standardized testing movement 
 impacted educators and instructional decisions/programming?
• In what ways has the increased diversity 
 in our educational settings impacted the 
 need for teachers to be prepared to address 
 the needs of linguistically and culturally 
 diverse students in their classrooms now 
 more than ever before?

3. UNDERSTANDING OF TEACHING AND 
 LEARNING

• What approaches, methods, pedagogy do you 
 use and why and how are these influenced 
 by the philosophy you MOST aligned with
 (revisit Ch. 4 – Ch. 9 of your iBook)?
• Which elements of effective instruction do you 
 think are most important to apply to support 
 ALL students learning?
• What strategies do you apply to actively engage 
 ALL your students throughout the lesson?
• How do you motivate your students to learn?
• How do you motivate yourself to be the teacher 
 your students need you to be?

    4. CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT

• How do you create a community of learners 
 (revisit Ch. 1 of your iBook)?
• What is your “code of conduct” (revisit Ch. 1 
 of your iBook)?
• How do you engage students to limit disruptions 
 and time off task?
• If disruptions do occur, what do you do?

     5. INCLUSIVENESS

• Do you understand your own bias and how this 
 impacts your teaching (revisit Ch. 2 of your iBook)?
• How are you effective with ALL students (revisit 
 Ch. 2 of your iBook)?
• How do you create a culturally responsive class
 room environment (revisit Ch. 1 of your iBook)?
• How do you teach UNCONDITIONALLY so 
 that all your students get the best education 
 possible and you demonstrate respect for the 
 customs and beliefs of the diverse student groups 
 represented in your classroom?
• What specific strategies do you use to support 
 diverse learners?
• In what ways do you act as an advocate for your 
 students, their families, and the 
 community?

Take a moment to reflect on all the information 
 you read about educational philosophies. Your challenge is to write at least a one-page, 
 single-spaced philosophy of education paper
 that summarizes your current philosophy of 
 education.

Section III: The importance of student voices

4.10 Essential Questions

By the end of this section, the following essential questions will be answered.

• What can we learn from student voices?
• What insights might you gain from the student quotes?
• What did you learn from watching the video clips?
• What links did you make between the what the speakers shared in the video clips and the different schools of thought discussed in this chapter?

To best understand the power of an educational philosophy in practice, this section is going to provide you with two different sets of evidence. The first set of evidence comes from KSU students. The second set comes from a student and two educators in the field. As you read and listen to the 
 information being shared, please reflect on the questions to consider. Although you do not need to document your responses to each of the questions, they have been provided to help you critical reflect on the information being presented.

4.11 Student Voices

• “My philosophical belief is that I want to 
 prepare my children, not for the next grade or college;
 but for their future in society through tools learned in 
 the classroom.” ASU16
• “I feel that after studying several popular philosophies
 of education my personal philosophy is a medley of all 
 of them, making it completely mine.” DP U16
•  “Every experience I have impacts the way I look at the 
 world and I will continue to strive to keep my teaching
 the same while as the same time adapting to the needs of my students.” MLU16

4.12 A Closer Look

The following video provides and more in-depth look the importance of having a solid philosophy of education from a student’s point of view. As you watch this video, consider the following questions:

• What insights did you gain from the video?
• Based on the information shared, what school of thought(s) do you think influenced prior educational experiences of this student?
• What school of thought do you think this student is 
 advocating for in the future? Why?

As demonstrated in the student voices, and video by Adora Avitak, being able to articulate your philosophy of education is essential as a future educator. For your philosophy of education shapes your delivery of academic content, but more importantly guides your beliefs when it comes to working with students. To learn more about the importance of how educators view students, let’s watch Rita Pierson.

4.7 A  Closer Look

As you listen to Rita Pierson, consider the following questions:

• Based on the information shared, what school of thought(s) do you think influence this teacher?
• How might you apply what you learned from Rita Pierson to your own future practice?

Rita Pierson is such a powerful educator and advocate for students. I hope you learned a lot from her TedTalk! As we wrap up this chapter, I leave you with one final question: How will you be a  champion for your future students?!

Media Attributions

• Socrates Aristotle Shakespeare Flintstone © esmemes
• Plato Quote © TraumaAndDissociation
• Socrates Quote © obscuredreamer
• Kant Quote © Butrous Foundation
• Socratic Circle © Samantha Bush
• Aristotle Quote © Mountaingoat Seventeen
• Standardized Test © Alberto G.
• Pragmatism Pic © Kristian Bjornard
• Dewey Quote © PetiteFamily93
• Existentialist Snoopy © Rob S
• Kierkegaard Quote © Max Lagace
• Nietzcshe Quote © SnD Quotes
• Glass half full © Geralt
• Thinking © GlobalUppal
• My Philosophy of Education © Kelsey F. Hawkins

To the extent possible under law, Della Perez has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to Social Foundations of K-12 Education , except where otherwise noted.

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Overview – Knowledge from Perception

This A level philosophy topic looks at 3 theories of perception that explain how we can acquire knowledge from experience, i.e. a posteriori. They are:

Direct Realism

• Indirect Realism

The theories disagree over the metaphysical question of whether the external world exists (realism vs. anti-realism) and the epistemological question  the way we perceive it (direct vs. indirect). Each theory also has various arguments for and against. These key points are summarised below:

“The immediate objects of perception are mind-independent objects and their properties.”

Direct realism is the view that:

• The external world exists independently of the mind (hence, realism )
• And we perceive the external world directly (hence, direct )

So, basically, what you see is what you get.

When you look at, and perceive, a tree, you are directly perceiving a tree that exists ‘out there’ in the world. You are also perceiving its properties (size, shape, smell, etc.).

So, the immediate objects of perception are mind-independent objects and their properties.

Direct realism is often thought of as the common sense theory of perception . When asked what you see, you describe the external object itself , not your perception of it. For example:

“What do you see?” “A table.”

You wouldn’t respond with:

“Brown patches of sense data in a rectangular arrangement.”

At least on the face of it, perceptual experience presents itself to us as mind-independent objects. However, there are a number of issues with this simple explanation.

Problems for direct realism

Bertrand russell: argument from perceptual variation.

Differences in perceptual variation provide a problem for direct realism.

For example, when I stand on one side of the room, a shiny wooden table may have a white spot where the light is shining on it. But to someone standing on the other side of the room, there may be no white spot.

But the white spot is either there or it isn’t – it can’t be both! So, at least one of us is not perceiving the table directly as it is .

Russell also talks about the shape of a table. From directly overhead, it may appear to be rectangular. But from a few metres away it may look kite-shaped. Again, it can’t be both shapes!

These examples highlight differences in our perception of the table and the table itself. However, according to direct realism, there should be no such differences between perception and reality.

Possible response:

Direct realism can respond by refining the theory and introducing the idea of relational properties .

A relational property is one that varies in relation to something else. For example, being to the North or South of something, or being left or right of something, are all real and mind-independent properties that something can have – but they vary relative to other objects. London has the (mind-independent) property of being South of Leeds, for example, but it’s not like London has the property of ‘Southness’ relative to all perceivers – if you’re in Spain then London is North of you.

Applying this to perception, we could say that the table has the (mind-independent) relational property of appearing kite-shaped relative to certain perceivers , whilst simultaneously having the (mind-independent) relational property of appearing square-shaped to other perceivers. The table has both these mind-independent properties, but which one you perceive will vary depending on where you are.

In other words: The object itself does not change, but the perceiver does – and thus the perceived properties of the object change.

Argument from illusion

Remember, direct realism says that we perceive the external world directly as it is.

But if this is true, how is it that reality (i.e. the external world) can be different to our perception of it?

For example, when a pencil is placed in a glass of water, it can look crooked. But it isn’t really crooked.

If direct realism is true, the external world would be exactly as we perceive it. However, in the case of illusions, there is an obvious difference between our perception and reality.

Similar to the response to perceptual variation, the direct realist could reply that the pencil has the relational property of looking crooked to certain perceivers (even though it isn’t really crooked). However, this response fails to explain the argument from hallucination .

Argument from hallucination

This is a more extreme version of the argument from illusion .

Direct realism says that when we perceive something, we are perceiving something that exists in the external world (directly).

So what is causing these perceptions? It can’t be a (mind-independent) goblin because no such thing exists in reality!

The direct realist could argue that hallucinations are not perceptions at all – they’re imaginations .

Ordinarily, what we perceive are mind-independent objects. But in cases of hallucination, we confuse imagination for perception – a bit like in a dream. Just because there are these weird exceptions , it doesn’t mean that ordinary perceptions are not of mind-independent objects.

Time lag argument

The sun is 149,600,000 km from earth.

Light travels at 299,792,458 metres per second.

This means it takes approximately 8 minutes for light to reach earth.

So, when you look at the sun, you are seeing it as it was 8 minutes ago – i.e. there is a difference between the sun itself and your perception of it. In other words, you are not perceiving the sun directly .

The direct realist can argue that this response confuses what we perceive with how we perceive it. Yes, we perceive objects via light and sound waves and, yes, it takes time for these light and sound waves to travel through space. But what we are perceiving is still a mind-independent object (it’s not sense data or some other mind-dependent thing) – it’s just we are perceiving the object as it was moments ago rather than how it is now.

Indirect realism

“The immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects (sense-data) that are caused by and represent mind-independent objects.”

Indirect realism is the view that:

• But we perceive the external world in directly , via sense data (hence, indirect )

Indirect realism says the immediate object of perception is sense data . This sense data is caused by , and represents , the mind-independent external world.

Most philosophers who argue for indirect realism start with the problems for direct realism . The many differences between reality and our perception of it, they say, make direct realism implausible.

Instead, they claim that what we really perceive is sense data .

Sense data can be described as the content of perceptual experience.

It’s not a physical thing, it exists in the mind. However, sense data is said to be caused by and represent mind-independent physical objects (see diagram above) .

Sense data is private. No one else can experience your sense data.

This avoids the problems with direct realism described above. For example, differences in perceptual variation can be explained by differences in sense data . The object itself stays the same throughout even if the sense data changes.

John Locke: primary and secondary qualities

An idea closely related to sense data is John Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities:

Locke uses various examples to illustrate this distinction.

One such example is porphyry – a red and white stone. Locke says that when you prevent light from reaching porphyry, “its colours vanish” . However, the primary qualities – size, shape, etc. – remain .

The distinction between primary and secondary qualities can be used to support indirect realism. Like sense data, this distinction explains the difference between reality (primary qualities) and our perception of it (secondary qualities) .

For a problem with this view, see Berkeley’s criticism of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities .

Problems for indirect realism

Berkeley: mind-independent objects are totally different to sense data.

Again, indirect realism says something like: what we perceive is sense data that resembles the mind-independent external world. But George Berkeley (the idealism philosopher) questions how it’s possible for mind-dependent sense data to resemble so-called mind-independent objects in any way.

For example, sense data constantly changes , but mind-independent objects do not. The perceptual variation argument demonstrates this: One moment my sense data may be of a square table, the next it’s diamond -shaped. The sense data changes, but the mind-independent object doesn’t – so how can the two things resemble each other?

“How then is it possible, that things perpetually fleeting and variable as our ideas, should be copies or images of anything fixed and constant?” – Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous , First Dialogue

Further, how can the properties of sense data be like the properties of mind-independent objects? We say that a table is square , but how can my sense data be square? How can the squareness of a (mind-independent) table be like the squareness of sense data? They are two completely different kinds of things!

These major differences between sense data and mind-independent objects undermine the indirect realist claim that sense data is caused by and resembles mind-independent objects.

Scepticism and the veil of perception

A problem for indirect realism is that it leads to scepticism about the nature and existence of the external world.

Look at the two diagrams above. What would be the difference from the perceiver’s perspective between the two? What difference would it make to the perceiver if there was no physical world at all?

The answer, surely, is nothing .

If we only perceive sense data , and not the object itself, how can we know anything about the external world? There is no way of telling if the sense data is an accurate representation of the external world – or even that there is an external world at all!

We can’t get beyond the veil of perception (sense data) to access the external world behind it. So, how can indirect realism justify its claim that there is a mind-independent external world that causes sense data if we never actually perceive the mind-independent external world itself?

Indirect realist replies to scepticism

Russell’s reply: external world is the best hypothesis.

Bertrand Russell , an indirect realist, concedes that there is no way we can conclusively defeat this sceptical argument and prove the existence of the external world. So, instead, we must treat the external world as a hypothesis .

• Hypothesis A: The cat exists independently of my mind and while I was away making a cup of tea it walked from the sofa to the floor (passing through a series of physical positions along the way)
• Hypothesis B: The cat does not exist independently of my mind and so stopped existing while I was away making a cup of tea and sprung back into existence in a different location when I returned

Russell argues that hypothesis A – the existence of mind-independent objects – is a much better explanation than hypothesis B. For one thing, hypothesis A provides an explanation that connects the two perceptions (the cat on the sofa and the cat on the floor) whereas hypothesis B isn’t really an explanation at all. Hypothesis A also explains why, for example, the cat gets hungry even when I’m not perceiving it: The cat exists independently of my mind and so gets progressively more hungry even when I’m not perceiving it.

So, even though we can’t prove the existence of mind-independent objects, Russell argues we should believe in them since they are the best hypothesis to explain perceptions (btw, this is an example of an abductive argument ).

Locke’s first reply: The involuntary nature of perception

John Locke offers two responses to the sceptical challenge.

First, Locke notes how he is unable to avoid having certain sense data produced in his mind when he looks at an object. By contrast, memory and imagination allows him to choose what he experiences. Locke concludes from this that whatever causes his perceptions must be something external to his mind as he is unable to control these perceptions.

“when my Eyes are shut […] I can at Pleasure re-call to my my Mind the Ideas of Light, or the Sun […] But if I turn my Eyes at noon towards the Sun, I cannot avoid the Ideas , which the Light, or Sun, then produces in me […] And therefore it must needs be some exteriour cause […] that produces those Ideas in my Mind.” – Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding   (Bk. 4, Ch. 11, §5)

However, even if Locke succeeds in proving something external, he doesn’t succeed in proving that sense data is in any way an accurate representation of the external world. The sceptic could argue that the external world may be completely different to our perception of it and there’s no way we could know.

Locke’s second reply: The coherence of different senses

Second, Locke argues that the different senses confirm the information of one another. He gives a couple of examples of this:

• Fire: “He that sees a Fire, may, if he doubt whether it be any thing more than a bare Fancy, feel it too; and be convinced, by putting his Hand in it.”   (Bk. 4, Ch. 11, §7)
• A piece of paper with writing on it: You can write something on a piece of paper and see the words. Then, you can get someone to read the words out loud and thus hear the same information via a different source.

These examples suggest that the same mind-independent object causes both perceptions. If my visual perception of the fire, for example, was just something in my mind, then there would be no reason why I couldn’t sometimes feel coldness instead of heat. The fact that warmth always accompanies visual perceptions of fire suggests the same (mind-independent) object causes both perceptions.

But does this really succeed in defeating the sceptical challenge? The information you hear may be equally misrepresentative of the external world as the information you see .

“The immediate objects of perception (i.e. ordinary objects such as tables, chairs, etc.) are mind-dependent objects.”

Idealism is the view that:

• There is no external world independent of minds (so it rejects realism – both direct and indirect)
• We perceive ideas directly

In other words, the immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent ideas .

Unlike direct realism and indirect realism , idealism says there is no mind-independent external world.  Instead, idealism claims that all that exists are ideas .

What’s more, idealism says that unless something is being perceived, it doesn’t exist!

Bishop Berkeley: Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous

“Esse est percipi” (to be is to be perceived)

Bishop George Berkeley (1685-1753) is the most famous proponent of idealism.

Berkeley offers various arguments against the existence of a mind-independent external world. These arguments include a variation of the sceptical argument described earlier. Berkeley asks how – if realism is true – we can link up our perception with the objects behind it. Again, it seems we can’t look past the veil of perception.

Berkeley then goes on to challenge Locke’s primary and secondary quality distinction , arguing that so-called primary qualities are equally mind-dependent as secondary qualities.

He later gives his master argument : An argument that the very idea of mind-independent objects is inconceivable and impossible.

Attack on Locke’s primary/secondary quality distinction

Berkeley argues that the only thing our senses perceive are qualities , and nothing more. For example, we perceive colours and shapes via vision, sounds via hearing, flavours via taste, and so on.

But we never perceive anything in addition to these qualities.

This claim forms the basis of one of Berkeley’s arguments against the existence of a mind-independent external world.

Earlier, we looked at Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities . Recall that Locke said primary qualities are inherent in the object, whereas secondary qualities are not:

“Take away the sensation […] and all colours, tastes, odours, and sounds […] vanish and cease, and are reduced to their causes” – Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Bk. 2, Ch. 8, §17)

Based on this extract, Locke seems to be saying that secondary qualities are mind-dependent .

Berkeley himself provides his own arguments that secondary qualities are mind dependent. For example, heat (a secondary quality) can be experienced as pain (mind-dependent). When you burn your hand on a hot fire, you don’t feel the pain and the heat separately. You feel one sensation: painful heat .

So, it seems Berkeley and Locke are in agreement so far: secondary qualities are mind dependent.

Where Berkeley disagrees with Locke is the status of primary qualities. Locke says they’re mind- independent , but Berkeley argues they’re not.

Berkeley offers various versions of perceptual variation to support the claim that primary qualities depend on the mind just as much as secondary qualities do:

• Something that looks small to me may seem large to a small animal
• Something that looks small at a distance may seem large close up
• A smooth surface may look jagged under a microscope
• An object that appears to be moving quickly to humans may appear to be moving slowly to a fly

Size, shape, and motion: they are all primary qualities but these examples show how our perception of them differs depending on the circumstances.

So, Berkeley argues, we can’t say these objects have one single size, shape, or motion independent of how it is perceived. So, primary qualities are also mind-dependent.

Bring together Berkeley’s points and we get the following argument:

• When we perceive an object, we don’t perceive anything in addition to its primary and secondary qualities
• So, everything we perceive is either a primary quality or a secondary quality
• Secondary qualities are mind-dependent
• Primary qualities are also mind-dependent
• Therefore, everything we perceive is mind-dependent

So, Berkeley uses Locke’s primary and secondary quality distinction to prove that everything we perceive is mind-dependent. This implies that there is no such thing as a mind-independent external world (and so realism is false).

The master argument

The second of Berkeley’s arguments for idealism/arguments against indirect realism is known as the master argument.

The dialogue (between Hylas and Philonous) for the master argument can be summarised as:

• P: Try to think of an object that exists independently of being perceived.
• H: OK, I am thinking of a tree that is not being perceived by anyone.
• P: But that’s impossible! You might be imagining a tree in a solitary place with no one perceiving it – but you’re still thinking about the tree. You can think of the idea of a tree, but not of a tree that exists independently of the mind.

So, Berkeley’s master argument is essentially that we cannot even conceive of a mind-independent object because as soon as we conceive of such an object, it becomes mind- dependent . Thus, mind-independent objects are impossible.

However, the conclusion does not necessarily follow: just because it’s impossible to have an idea of a mind-independent object, it doesn’t mean that mind-independent objects are themselves impossible.

God as the cause of perceptions

Despite arguing against the existence of a mind-independent external world, idealism does not lead to the same veil of perception problem that indirect realism does . The veil of perception disappears when we realise that the meaning of words like ‘physical object’ refer to ideas and not mind-independent objects (as realism assumes). By perceiving ideas, we are perceiving reality. That’s what reality is: ideas.

• Everything we perceive is mind-dependent (as argued above)
• My own mind
• Another mind
• It can’t be ideas (1), because ideas by themselves don’t cause anything
• It can’t be my own mind (2), because if I was the cause of my own perception then I’d be able to control what I perceived
• Therefore, the cause of my perception must be 3: another mind
• Given the complexity, variety, order, and manner of my perceptions, this other mind must be God

The role of God here resolves an obvious objection to idealism: If Berkeley’s theory is true, then presumably my desk and everything in my office no longer exist when I leave the room and stop perceiving them. So, why are they still there when I get back? Berkeley’s response is that the office (and all ‘physical objects’) constantly exist in the mind of God.

What we perceive, Berkeley says, are copies of ideas that exist eternally in God’s mind (when He wills me to perceive them). This resolves another potential criticism: We might object that when you and I both look at the same tree, we are perceiving different things – i.e. two separate ideas. However, since we are both perceiving the same copy of God’s idea, we both can be said to be perceiving the same thing.

Problems for idealism

Problems with the role of god.

According to Berkeley, what we perceive are ideas that exist in God’s mind (see above) . But this explanation appears to conflict with Berkeley’s conception of God.

For example, Berkeley says God doesn’t feel pain – He’s perfect. And yet I often feel and perceive pain. So, if my perception of pain is an idea in God’s mind, surely God must feel pain too? But this contradicts Berkeley’s description of God as a perfect being that doesn’t feel pain.

Berkeley’s response:

Berkeley’s response is that ideas like pain exist in God’s understanding . Although God doesn’t feel pain Himself , he understands what it is for us to feel pain. When we feel pain, it is what God actively wills us to perceive.

But we can push this objection a bit further: My perceptions constantly change from one moment to the next, and yet God is said to be unchanging . So, if my perceptions are ideas in God’s mind, and my perceptions are constantly changing, surely God must change too.

Solipsism is the view that one’s mind is the only thing that exists.

And Berkeley’s earlier argument – that everything one perceives is mind-dependent – suggests that there is no reason to believe anything exists beyond one’s experience. If “to be is to be perceived”, then what reason do I have to believe other people and objects exist when I’m not perceiving them, like when I’m asleep?

If idealism is true, it seems to imply that nothing exists unless I am perceiving it – that the world didn’t exist before I was born, and that the world doesn’t exist when I close my eyes or go to sleep! But this is surely absurd.

God exists, and He perceives everything even when I don’t.

Illusion (again)

As a direct theory of perception, idealism makes no distinction between appearance (perception) and reality.

But this makes it difficult to explain the argument from illusion that is also a problem for direct realism . For example, why does a pencil in water look crooked when it isn’t? If we perceive the pencil as crooked, Berkeley has to say the pencil is crooked – but surely this is false.

“He is not mistaken with regard to the ideas he actually perceives, but in the inference he makes from his present perceptions. Thus, in the case of the [pencil], what he immediately perceives by sight is certainly crooked; and so far he is in the right. But if he thence conclude that upon taking the [pencil] out of the water he shall perceive the same crookedness; or that it would affect his touch as crooked things are wont to do: in that he is mistaken.” – Berkeley, Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous , Third Dialogue

Berkeley’s response here is to double down on the theory: If the pencil looks crooked, it is crooked. The reason we think the crooked pencil is an ‘illusion’ (i.e. a false perception) is because it misleads us about future perceptions. For example, seeing the pencil look crooked in water may deceive us that the pencil would also feel crooked. But just because we make these mistakes sometimes it doesn’t mean the so-called ‘illusion’ is any less real than the perception of the pencil as not crooked.

Hallucination (again)

However, we can push this illusion objection further: What about hallucination ?

If, as Berkeley contends, “to be is to be perceived” – are we to say that hallucinations are just as real as ordinary perception? If I perceive a goblin because I took drugs, is it really plausible to say that the goblin is every bit as real as a table or a chair?

Also, why would God cause such perceptions?

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The question of the nature and plausibility of realism arises with respect to a large number of subject matters, including ethics, aesthetics, causation, modality, science, mathematics, semantics, and the everyday world of macroscopic material objects and their properties. Although it would be possible to accept (or reject) realism across the board, it is more common for philosophers to be selectively realist or non-realist about various topics: thus it would be perfectly possible to be a realist about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties, but a non-realist about aesthetic and moral value. In addition, it is misleading to think that there is a straightforward and clear-cut choice between being a realist and a non-realist about a particular subject matter. It is rather the case that one can be more-or-less realist about a particular subject matter. Also, there are many different forms that realism and non-realism can take.

The question of the nature and plausibility of realism is so controversial that no brief account of it will satisfy all those with a stake in the debates between realists and non-realists. This article offers a broad brush characterisation of realism, and then fills out some of the detail by looking at a few canonical examples of opposition to realism. The discussion of forms of opposition to realism is far from exhaustive and is designed only to illustrate a few paradigm examples of the form such opposition can take.

There are two general aspects to realism, illustrated by looking at realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties. First, there is a claim about existence . Tables, rocks, the moon, and so on, all exist, as do the following facts: the table's being square, the rock's being made of granite, and the moon's being spherical and yellow. The second aspect of realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects and their properties concerns independence . The fact that the moon exists and is spherical is independent of anything anyone happens to say or think about the matter. Likewise, although there is a clear sense in which the table's being square is dependent on us (it was designed and constructed by human beings after all), this is not the type of dependence that the realist wishes to deny. The realist wishes to claim that apart from the mundane sort of empirical dependence of objects and their properties familiar to us from everyday life, there is no further (philosophically interesting) sense in which everyday objects and their properties can be said to be dependent on anyone's linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, or whatever.

In general, where the distinctive objects of a subject-matter are a , b , c , … , and the distinctive properties are F-ness , G-ness , H-ness and so on, realism about that subject matter will typically take the form of a claim like the following:

Generic Realism : a , b , and c and so on exist, and the fact that they exist and have properties such as F-ness , G-ness , and H-ness is (apart from mundane empirical dependencies of the sort sometimes encountered in everyday life) independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on.

Non-realism can take many forms, depending on whether or not it is the existence or independence dimension of realism that is questioned or rejected. The forms of non-realism can vary dramatically from subject-matter to subject-matter, but error-theories, non-cognitivism, instrumentalism, nominalism, certain styles of reductionism, and eliminativism typically reject realism by rejecting the existence dimension, while idealism, subjectivism, and anti-realism typically concede the existence dimension but reject the independence dimension. Philosophers who subscribe to quietism deny that there can be such a thing as substantial metaphysical debate between realists and their non-realist opponents (because they either deny that there are substantial questions about existence or deny that there are substantial questions about independence).

1. Preliminaries

2. against the existence dimension (i): error-theory and arithmetic, 3. against the existence dimension (ii): error-theory and morality, 4. reductionism and non-reductionism, 5. against the existence dimension (iii): expressivism about morals, 6. against the independence dimension (i): semantic realism.

• 7. Against the Independence Dimension (II): More Forms of Anti-realism

8. Undermining the Debate: Quietism

9. concluding remarks and apologies, other internet resources, related entries.

Three preliminary comments are needed. Firstly, there has been a great deal of debate in recent philosophy about the relationship between realism, construed as a metaphysical doctrine, and doctrines in the theory of meaning and philosophy of language concerning the nature of truth and its role in accounts of linguistic understanding (see Dummett 1978 and Devitt 1991a for radically different views on the issue). Independent of the issue about the relationship between metaphysics and the theory of meaning, the well-known disquotational properties of the truth-predicate allow claims about objects, properties, and facts to be framed as claims about the truth of sentences. Since:

(1) ‘The moon is spherical’ is true if and only if the moon is spherical,

the claim that the moon exists and is spherical independently of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices and conceptual schemes, can be framed as the claim that the sentences ‘The moon exists’ and ‘The moon is spherical’ are true independently of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes and so on. As Devitt points out (1991b: 46) availing oneself of this way of talking does not entail that one sees the metaphysical issue of realism as ‘really’ a semantic issue about the nature of truth (if it did, any question about any subject matter would turn out to be ‘really’ a semantic issue).

Secondly, although in introducing the notion of realism above mention is made of objects, properties, and facts, no theoretical weight is attached to the notion of a ‘fact’, or the notions of ‘object’ and ‘property’. To say that it is a fact that the moon is spherical is just to say that the object, the moon, instantiates the property of being spherical, which is just to say that the moon is spherical. There are substantial metaphysical issues about the nature of facts, objects, and properties, and the relationships between them (see Mellor and Oliver 1997 and Lowe 2002, part IV), but these are not of concern here.

Thirdly, as stated above, Generic Realism about the mental or the intentional would strictly speaking appear to be ruled out ab initio , since clearly Jones' believing that Cardiff is in Wales is not independent of facts about belief: trivially, it is dependent on the fact that Jones believes that Cardiff is in Wales. However, such trivial dependencies are not what are at issue in debates between realists and non-realists about the mental and the intentional. A non-realist who objected to the independence dimension of realism about the mental would claim that Jones' believing that Cardiff is in Wales depends in some non-trivial sense on facts about beliefs, etc.

There are at least two distinct ways in which a non-realist can reject the existence dimension of realism about a particular subject matter. The first of these rejects the existence dimension by rejecting the claim that the distinctive objects of that subject-matter exist, while the second admits that those objects exist but denies that they instantiate any of the properties distinctive of that subject-matter. Non-realism of the first kind can be illustrated via Hartry Field's error-theoretic account of arithmetic, and non-realism of the second kind via J.L. Mackie's error-theoretic account of morals. This will show how realism about a subject-matter can be questioned on both epistemological and metaphysical grounds.

According to a platonist about arithmetic, the truth of the sentence ‘7 is prime’ entails the existence of an abstract object , the number 7. This object is abstract because it has no spatial or temporal location, and is causally inert. A platonic realist about arithmetic will say that the number 7 exists and instantiates the property of being prime independently of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on. A certain kind of nominalist rejects the existence claim which the platonic realist makes: there are no abstract objects, so sentences such as ‘7 is prime’ are false (hence the name ‘error-theory’). Platonists divide on their account of the epistemology of arithmetic: some claim that our knowledge of arithmetical fact proceeds by way of some quasi-perceptual encounter with the abstract realm (Gödel 1983), while others have attempted to resuscitate a qualified form of Frege's logicist project of grounding knowledge of arithmetical fact in knowledge of logic (Wright 1983, Hale 1987, Hale and Wright 2001).

The main arguments against platonic realism turn on the idea that the platonist position precludes a satisfactory epistemology of arithmetic. For the classic exposition of the doubt that platonism can square its claims to accommodate knowledge of arithmetical truth with its conception of the subject matter of arithmetic as causally inert, see Benacerraf (1973). Benacerraf argued that platonism faces difficulties in squaring its conception of the subject-matter of arithmetic with a general causal constraint on knowledge (roughly, that a subject can be said to know that P only if she stands in some causal relation to the subject matter of P ). In response, platonists have attacked the idea that a plausible causal constraint on ascriptions of knowledge can be formulated (Wright 1983 Ch.2, Hale 1987 Ch.4). In response, Hartry Field, on the side of the anti-platonists, has developed a new variant of Benacerraf's epistemological challenge which does not depend for its force on maintaining a generalised causal constraint on ascriptions of knowledge. Rather, Field's new epistemological challenge to platonism arises from his reasonable observation that ‘we should view with suspicion any claim to know facts about a certain domain if we believe it impossible to explain the reliability of our beliefs about that domain’ (Field 1989: 232–3). Field's challenge to the platonist is to offer an account of what such a platonist should regard as a datum—i.e. that when ‘ p ’ is replaced by a mathematical sentence, the schema (2) holds in most instances:

(2) If mathematicians accept ‘ p ’ then p . (1989: 230)

Field's point is not simply, echoing Benacerraf, that no causal account of reliability will be available to the platonist, and therefore to the platonic realist. Rather, Field conceives what is potentially a far more powerful challenge to platonic realism when he suggests that not only has the platonic realist no recourse to any explanation of reliability that is causal in character, but that she has no recourse to any explanation that is non-causal in character either. He writes:

(T)here seems prima facie to be a difficulty in principle in explaining the regularity. The problem arises in part from the fact that mathematical entities as the [platonic realist] conceives them, do not causally interact with mathematicians, or indeed with anything else. This means we cannot explain the mathematicians beliefs and utterances on the basis of the mathematical facts being causally involved in the production of those beliefs and utterances; or on the basis of the beliefs or utterances causally producing the mathematical facts; or on the basis of some common cause producing both. Perhaps then some sort of non-causal explanation of the correlation is possible? Perhaps; but it is very hard to see what this supposed non-causal explanation could be. Recall that on the usual platonist picture [i.e. platonic realism], mathematical objects are supposed to be mind- and language-independent; they are supposed to bear no spatiotemporal relations to anything, etc. The problem is that the claims that the [platonic realist] makes about mathematical objects appears to rule out any reasonable strategy for explaining the systematic correlation in question. (1989: 230–1)

This suggests the following dilemma for the platonic realist:

• Platonic realism is committed to the existence of acausal objects and to the claim that these objects, and facts about them, are independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on (in short to the claim that these objects, and facts about them, are language- and mind-independent).
• Any causal explanation of reliability is incompatible with the acausality of mathematical objects.
• Any non-causal explanation of reliability is incompatible with the language- and mind-independence of mathematical objects.
• Any explanation of reliability must be causal or non-causal.
• There is no explanation of reliability that is compatible with platonic realism.

Whether there is a version of platonic realism with the resources to see off Field's epistemological challenge is very much a live issue (see Hale 1994, Divers and Miller 1999. For replies to Divers and Miller see Sosa 2002, Shapiro 2007 and Piazza 2009).

What does Field propose as an alternative to platonic realism in arithmetic? Field's answer (1980, 1989) is that although mathematical sentences such as ‘7 is prime’ are false, the utility of mathematical theories can be explained otherwise than in terms of their truth. For Field, the utility of mathematical theories resides not in their truth but in their conservativeness , where a mathematical theory S is conservative if and only if for any nominalistically respectable statement A (i.e. a statement whose truth does not imply the existence of abstract objects) and any body of such statements N , A is not a consequence of the conjunction of N and S unless A is a consequence of N alone (Field 1989: 125). In short, mathematics is useful, not because it allows you to derive conclusions that you couldn't have derived from nominalistically respectable premises alone, but rather because it makes the derivation of those (nominalistically respectable) conclusions easier than it might otherwise have been. Whether or not Field's particular brand of error-theory about arithmetic is plausible is a topic of some debate, which unfortunately cannot be pursued further here (see Hale and Wright 2001).

According to Field's error-theory of arithmetic, the objects distinctive of arithmetic do not exist, and it is this which leads to the rejection of the existence dimension of arithmetical realism, at least as platonistically conceived (for a non-platonistic view of arithmetic which is at least potentially realist, see Benacerraf 1965; for incisive discussion, see Wright 1983, Ch.3). J. L. Mackie, on the other hand, proposes an error-theoretic account of morals, not because there are no objects or entities that could form the subject matter of ethics (it is no part of Mackie's brief to deny the existence of persons and their actions and so on), but because it is implausible to suppose that the sorts of properties that moral properties would have to be are ever instantiated in the world (Mackie 1977, Ch.1). Like Field on arithmetic, then, Mackie's central claim about the atomic, declarative sentences of ethics (such as ‘Napoleon was evil’) is that they are systematically and uniformly false. How might one argue for such a radical-sounding thesis? The clearest way to view Mackie's argument for the error-theory is as a conjunction of a conceptual claim with an ontological claim (following Smith 1994, pp.63–66). The conceptual claim is that our concept of a moral fact is a concept of an objectively prescriptive fact, or, equivalently, that our concept of a moral property is a concept of an objectively prescriptive quality (what Mackie means by this is explained below). The ontological claim is simply that there are no objectively prescriptive facts, that objectively prescriptive properties are nowhere instantiated. The conclusion is that there is nothing in the world answering to our moral concepts, no facts or properties which render the judgements formed via those moral concepts true. Our moral judgements are all of them false. We can thus construe the error-theory as follows:

Conceptual Claim: our concept of a moral fact is a concept of an objectively prescriptive fact, so that the truth of an atomic, declarative moral sentence would require the existence of objectively and categorically prescriptive facts. Ontological Claim: there are no objectively and categorically prescriptive facts. So, Conclusion: there are no moral facts; atomic, declarative moral sentences are systematically and uniformly false.

This argument is clearly valid, so the question facing those who wish to defend at least the existence dimension of realism in the case of morals is whether the premises are true. (Note that strictly speaking the conclusion of the argument is that there are no moral facts as-we-conceive-of-them. Thus, it may be possible to block the argument by advocating a revisionary approach to our moral concepts).

Mackie's conceptual claim is that our concept of a moral requirement is the concept of an objectively, categorically prescriptive requirement. What does this mean? To say that moral requirements are prescriptive is to say that they tell us how we ought to act, to say that they give us reasons for acting. Thus, to say that something is morally good is to say that we ought to pursue it, that we have reason to pursue it. To say that something is morally bad is to say that we ought not to pursue it, that we have reason not to pursue it. To say that moral requirements are categorically prescriptive is to say that these reasons are categorical in the sense of Kant's categorical imperatives. The reasons for action that moral requirements furnish are not contingent upon the possession of any desires or wants on the part of the agent to whom they are addressed: I cannot release myself from the requirement imposed by the claim that torturing the innocent is wrong by citing some desire or inclination that I have. This contrasts, for example, with the requirement imposed by the claim that perpetual lateness at work is likely to result in one losing one's job: I can release myself from the requirement imposed by this claim by citing my desire to lose my job (perhaps because I find it unfulfilling, or whatever). Reasons for action which are contingent in this way on desires and inclinations are furnished by what Kant called hypothetical imperatives.

So our concept of a moral requirement is a concept of a categorically prescriptive requirement. But Mackie claims further that our concept of a moral requirement is a concept of an objectively categorically prescriptive requirement. What does it mean to say that a requirement is objective? Mackie says a lot of different-sounding things about this, and the following is by no means a comprehensive list (references are to Ch. 1 of Mackie 1977). To call a requirement objective is to say that it can be an object of knowledge (24, 31, 33), that it can be true or false (26, 33), that it can be perceived (31, 33), that it can be recognised (42), that it is prior to and independent of our preferences and choices (30, 43), that it is a source of authority external to our preferences and choices (32, 34, 43), that it is part of the fabric of the world (12), that it backs up and validates some of our preferences and choices (22), that it is capable of being simply true (30) or valid as a matter of general logic (30), that it is not constituted by our choosing or deciding to think in a certain way (30), that it is extra-mental (23), that it is something of which we can be aware (38), that it is something that can be introspected (39), that it is something that can figure as a premise in an explanatory hypothesis or inference (39), and so on. Mackie plainly does not take these to be individually necessary: facts about subatomic particles, for example, may qualify as objective in virtue of figuring in explanatory hypotheses even though they cannot be objects of perceptual acquaintance. But his intention is plain enough: these are the sorts of conditions whose satisfaction by a fact renders it objective as opposed to subjective. Mackie's conceptual claim about morality is thus that our concept of a moral requirement is a concept of a fact which is objective in at least some of the senses just listed, while his ontological claim will be that the world does not contain any facts which are both candidates for being moral facts and yet which play even some of the roles distinctive of objective facts.

How plausible is Mackie's conceptual claim? This issue cannot be discussed in detail here, except to note that while it seems plausible to claim that if our concept of a moral fact is a concept of a reason for action then that concept must be a concept of a categorical reason for action, it is not so clear why we have to say that our concept of a moral fact is a concept of a reason for action at all. If we deny this, we can concede the conditional claim whilst resisting Mackie's conceptual claim. One way to do this would be to question the assumption, implicit in the exposition of Mackie's argument for the conceptual claim above, that an ‘ought’-statement that binds an agent A provides that agent with a reason for action. For an example of a version of moral realism that attempts to block Mackie's conceptual claim in this way, see Railton (1986). For defence of Mackie's conceptual claim, see Smith (1994), Ch.3. For exposition and critical discussion, see Miller (2013a), Ch.9.

What is Mackie's argument for his ontological claim? This is set out in his ‘argument from queerness’ (Mackie has another argument, the ‘argument from relativity’ (or ‘argument from disagreement’) (1977: 36–38), but this argument cannot be discussed here for reasons of space. For a useful discussion, see Brink (1984)).The argument from queerness has both metaphysical and epistemological components. The metaphysical problem with objective values concerns ‘the metaphysical peculiarity of the supposed objective values, in that they would have to be intrinsically action-guiding and motivating’ (49). The epistemological problem concerns ‘the difficulty of accounting for our knowledge of value entities or features and of their links with the features on which they would be consequential’ (49). Let's look at each type of worry more closely in turn.

Expounding the metaphysical part of the argument from queerness, Mackie writes: “If there were objective values, then they would be entities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different from anything else in the universe.” (38) What is so strange about them? Mackie says that Plato's Forms (and for that matter, Moore's non-natural qualities) give us a ‘dramatic picture’ of what objective values would be, if there were any:

The Form of the Good is such that knowledge of it provides the knower with both a direction and an overriding motive; something's being good both tells the person who knows this to pursue it and makes him pursue it. An objective good would be sought by anyone who was acquainted with it, not because of any contingent fact that this person, or every person, is so constituted that he desires this end, but just because the end has to-be-pursuedness somehow built into it. Similarly, if there were objective principles of right and wrong, any wrong (possible) course of action would have not-to-be-doneness somehow built into it. Or we should have something like Clarke's necessary relations of fitness between situations and actions, so that a situation would have a demand for such-and-such an action somehow built into it (40).

The obtaining of a moral state of affairs would be the obtaining of a situation ‘with a demand for such and such an action somehow built into it’; the states of affairs which we find in the world do not have such demands built into them, they are ‘normatively inert’, as it were. Thus, the world contains no moral states of affairs, situations which consist in the instantiation of a moral quality.

Mackie now backs up this metaphysical argument with an epistemological argument:

If we were aware [of objective values], it would have to be by some special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different from our ways of knowing everything else. These points were recognised by Moore when he spoke of non-natural qualities, and by the intuitionists in their talk about a faculty of moral intuition. Intuitionism has long been out of favour, and it is indeed easy to point out its implausibilities. What is not so often stressed, but is more important, is that the central thesis of intuitionism is one to which any objectivist view of values is in the end committed: intuitionism merely makes unpalatably plain what other forms of objectivism wrap up (38).

In short, our ordinary conceptions of how we might come into cognitive contact with states of affairs, and thereby acquire knowledge of them, cannot cope with the idea that the states of affairs are objective values. So we are forced to expand that ordinary conception to include forms of moral perception and intuition. But these are completely unexplanatory: they are really just placeholders for our capacity to form correct moral judgements (the reader should here hear an echo of the complaints Benacerraf and Field raise against arithmetical platonism).

Evaluating the argument from queerness is well outwith the scope of the present entry. While Railton's version of moral realism attempts to block Mackie's overall argument by conceding his ontological claim whilst rejecting his conceptual claim, other versions of moral realism agree with Mackie's conceptual claim but reject his ontological claim. Examples of the latter version, and attempts to provide the owed response to the argument from queerness, can be found in Smith (1994), Ch.6, and McDowell (1998a), Chs 4–10.

There are two main ways in which one might respond to Mackie's argument for the error-theory: directly, via contesting one of its premises or inferences, or indirectly, pointing to some internal tension within the error-theory itself. Some possible direct responses have already been mentioned, responses which reject either the conceptual or ontological claims that feature as premises in Mackie's argument for the error-theory. An indirect argument against the error-theory has been developed in recent writings by Crispin Wright (this argument is intended to apply also to Field's error-theory of arithmetic).

Mackie claims that the error-theory of moral judgement is a second-order theory, which does not necessarily have implications for the first order practice of making moral judgements (1977: 16). Wright's argument against the error-theory takes off with the forceful presentation of the opposing suspicion:

The great discomfort with [Mackie's] view is that, unless more is said, it simply relegates moral discourse to bad faith. Whatever we may once have thought, as soon as philosophy has taught us that the world is unsuited to confer truth on any of our claims about what is right, or wrong, or obligatory, etc., the reasonable response ought surely to be to forgo the right to making any such claims …. If it is of the essence of moral judgement to aim at the truth, and if philosophy teaches us that there is no moral truth to hit, how are we supposed to take ourselves seriously in thinking the way we do about any issue which we regard as of major moral importance? (1996: 2; see also 1992: 9).

Wright realises that the error-theorist is likely to have a story to tell about the point of moral discourse, about “some norm of appraisal besides truth, at which its statements can be seen as aimed, and which they can satisfy.” (1996: 2) And Mackie has such a story: the point of moral discourse is—to simplify—to secure the benefits of social co-operation (1973: chapter 5 passim; note that this is the analogue in Mackie's theory of Field's notion of the conservativeness of mathematical theories). Suppose we can extract from this story some subsidiary norm distinct from truth, which governs the practice of forming moral judgements. Then, for example, ‘Honesty is good’ and ‘Dishonesty is good’, although both false, will not be on a par in point of their contribution to the satisfaction of the subsidiary norm: if accepted widely enough, the former will presumably facilitate the satisfaction of the subsidiary norm, while the latter, if accepted widely enough, will frustrate it. Wright questions whether Mackie's moral sceptic can plausibly combine such a story about the benefits of the practice of moral judgement with the central negative claim of the error-theory:

[I]f, among the welter of falsehoods which we enunciate in moral discourse, there is a good distinction to be drawn between those which are acceptable in the light of some such subsidiary norm and those which are not—a distinction which actually informs ordinary discussion and criticism of moral claims—then why insist on construing truth for moral discourse in terms which motivate a charge of global error, rather than explicate it in terms of the satisfaction of the putative subsidiary norm, whatever it is? The question may have a good answer. The error-theorist may be able to argue that the superstition that he finds in ordinary moral thought goes too deep to permit of any construction of moral truth which avoids it to be acceptable as an account of moral truth. But I do not know of promising argument in that direction (1996: 3; see also 1992: 10).

Wright thus argues that even if we concede to the error-theorist that his original scepticism about moral truth is well-founded, the error-theorist's own positive proposal will be inherently unstable. For an attempt to respond to Wright's argument on behalf of the error-theorist, see Miller 2002. In recent years, inspired by error-theory, philosophers have developed forms of moral fictionalism, according to which moral claims either are or ought to be “useful fictions”. See Kalderon 2005 and Joyce 2001 for examples. For a book-length treatment of moral error-theory, see Olson 2014.

The error-theories proposed by Mackie and Field are non-eliminativist error-theories, and should be contrasted with the kind of eliminativist error-theory proposed by e.g. Paul Churchland concerning folk-psychological propositional attitudes (see Churchland 1981). Churchland argues that our everyday talk of propositional attitudes such as beliefs, desires and intentions should eventually be abandoned given developments in neuroscience. Mackie and Field make no analogous claims concerning morality and arithmetic: no claim, that is, to the effect that they will one day be in principle replaceable by philosophically hygienic counterparts.

Although some commentators (e.g. Pettit 1991) require that a realistic view of a subject matter be non-reductionist about the distinctive objects, properties, and facts of that subject matter, the reductionist/non-reductionist issue is really orthogonal to the various debates about realism. There are a number of reasons for this, with the reasons varying depending on the type of reduction proposed.

Suppose, first of all, that one wished to deny the existence claim which is a component of platonic realism about arithmetic. One way to do this would be to propose an analytic reduction of talk seemingly involving abstract entities to talk concerning only concrete entities. This can be illustrated by considering a language the truth of whose sentences seemingly entails the existence of a type of abstract object, directions. Suppose there is a first order language L, containing a range of proper names ‘ a ’, ‘ b ’, ‘ c ’, and so on, where these denote straight lines conceived as concrete inscriptions. There are also predicates and relations defined on straight lines, including ‘ … is parallel to …’. ‘ D ( )’ is a singular term forming operator on lines, so that inserting the name of a concrete line, as in ‘ D ( a )’, produces a singular term standing for an abstract object, the direction of a . A number of contextual definitions are now introduced:

(A) ‘ D ( a ) = D ( b )’ is true if and only if a is parallel to b . (B) ‘Π D ( x )’ is true if and only if ‘ Fx ’ is true, where ‘… is parallel to …’ is a congruence for ‘ F ( )’. (To say that ‘… is parallel to …’ is a congruence for ‘ F ( )’ is to say that if a is parallel to b and Fa , then it follows that Fb ). (C) ‘(∃ x )Π x ’ is true if and only if ‘(∃ x ) Fx ’ is true, where ‘Π’ and ‘ F ’ are as in (B).

According to a platonic realist, directions exist and have a nature which is independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on. But doesn't the availability of (A), (B), and (C) undermine the existence claim at the heart of platonic realism? After all, (A), (B), and (C) allow us to paraphrase any sentence whose truth appears to entail the existence of abstract objects into a sentence whose truth involves only the existence of concrete inscriptions. Doesn't this show that an analytic reduction can aid someone wishing to question the existence claim involved in a particular form of realism? There is a powerful argument, first developed by William Alston (1958), and recently resuscitated to great effect by Crispin Wright (1983, Ch.1), that suggests not. The analytic reductionist who wishes to wield the contextual definitions against the existence claim at the heart of platonic realism takes them to show that the apparent reference to abstract objects on the left-hand sides of the definitions is merely apparent: in fact, the truth of the relevant sentences entails only the existence of a range of concrete inscriptions. But the platonic realist can retort: what the contextual definitions show is that the apparent lack of reference to abstract objects on the right-hand sides is merely apparent. In fact, the platonic realist can say, the truth of the sentences figuring on the right-hand sides implicitly involves reference to abstract objects. If there is no way to break this deadlock the existence of the analytic reductive paraphrases will leave the existence claim at the heart of the relevant form of realism untouched. So the issue of this style of reductionism appears to be orthogonal to debates between realists and non-realists.

Can the same be said about non-analytic styles of reductionism? Again, there is no straightforward connection between the issue of reductionism and the issue of realism. The problem is that, to borrow some terminology and examples from Railton 1989, some reductions will be vindicative whilst others will be eliminativist . For example, the reduction of water to H 2 0 is vindicative: it vindicates our belief that there is such a thing as water, rather than overturning it. On the other hand:

… the reduction of ‘polywater’—a peculiar form of water thought to have been observed in laboratories in the 1960's—to ordinary-water-containing-some-impurities-from-improperly-washed-glassware contributed to the conclusion that there really is no such substance as polywater (1989: 161).

Thus, a non-analytic reduction may or may not have implications for the existence dimension of a realistic view of a particular subject matter. And even if the existence dimension is vindicated, there is still the further question whether the objects and properties vindicated are independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, and so on. Again, there is no straightforward relationship between the issue of reductionism and the issue of realism.

We saw above that for the subject-matter in question the error-theorist agrees with the realist that the truth of the atomic, declarative sentences of that area requires the existence of the relevant type of objects, or the instantiation of the relevant sorts of properties. Although the realist and the error-theorist agree on this much, they of course disagree on the question of whether the relevant type of objects exist, or on whether the relevant sorts of properties are instantiated: the error-theorist claims that they don't, so that the atomic, declarative sentences of the area are systematically and uniformly false, the realist claims that at least in some instances the relevant objects exist or the relevant properties are instantiated, so that the atomic, declarative sentences of the area are at least in some instances true. We also saw that an error-theory about a particular area could be motivated by epistemological worries (Field) or by a combination of epistemological and metaphysical worries (Mackie).

Another way in which the existence dimension of realism can be resisted is via expressivism. Whereas the realist and the error-theorist agree that the sentences of the relevant area are truth-apt , apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity, the realist and the expressivist (alternatively non-cognitivist, projectivist) disagree about the truth-aptness of those sentences. It is a fact about English that sentences in the declarative mood (‘The beer is in the fridge’) are conventionally used for making assertions, and assertions are true or false depending on whether or not the fact that is asserted to obtain actually obtains. But there are other grammatical moods that are conventionally associated with different types of speech-act. For example, sentences in the imperatival mood (‘Put the beer in the fridge’) are conventionally used for giving orders, and sentences in the interrogative mood (‘Is the beer in the fridge?’) are conventionally used for asking questions. Note that we would not ordinarily think of orders or questions as even apt for assessment in terms of truth and falsity: they are not truth-apt. Now the conventions mentioned here are not exceptionless: for example, one can use sentences in the declarative mood (‘My favourite drink is Belhaven 60 shilling’) to give an order (for some Belhaven 60 shilling), one can use sentences in the interrogative mood (‘Is the Pope a Catholic?’) to make an assertion (of whatever fact was the subject of the discussion), and so on. The expressivist about a particular area will claim that the realist is misled by the syntax of the sentences of that area into thinking that they are truth-apt: she will say that this is a case where the conventional association of the declarative mood with assertoric force breaks down. In the moral case the expressivist can claim that ‘Stealing is wrong’ is no more truth-apt than ‘Put the beer in the fridge’: it is just that the lack of truth-aptness of the latter is worn on its sleeve, while the lack of truth-aptness of the former is veiled by its surface syntax.(There are some important issues concerning the relationship between minimalism about truth-aptitude and expressivism that we cannot go into here. See Divers and Miller (1995)and Miller (2013b) for some pointers. There are also some important differences between e.g. Ayer's emotivism and more modern forms of expressivism (such as those developed by Blackburn and Gibbard) that we gloss over here. For a useful account, see Schroeder 2009).

So, if moral sentences are not conventionally used for the making of assertions, what are they conventionally used for? According to one classical form of expressivism, emotivism , they are conventionally used for the expression of emotion, feeling, or sentiment. Thus, A.J. Ayer writes:

If I say to someone, ‘You acted wrongly in stealing that money’, I am not stating anything more than if I had simply said, ‘You stole that money’. In adding that this action is wrong, I am not making any further statement about it. I am simply evincing my moral disapproval about it. It is as if I had said, ‘You stole that money’, in a peculiar tone of horror, or written with the addition of some special exclamation marks. The tone, or the exclamation marks, adds nothing to the literal meaning of the sentence. It merely serves to show that the expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the speaker (Ayer 1946: 107, emphases added).

It follows from this that:

If I now generalise my previous statement and say, ‘Stealing money is wrong,’ I produce a sentence which has no factual meaning—that is, expresses no proposition that can be either true or false (1946: 107).

Emotivism faces many problems, discussion of which is not possible here (for a survey, see Miller 2003a Ch.3). One problem that has been the bugbear of all expressivist versions of non-realism, the ‘Frege-Geach Problem’, is so-called because the classic modern formulation is by Peter Geach (1960), who attributes the original point to Frege.

According to emotivism, when I sincerely utter the sentence ‘Murder is wrong’ I am not expressing a belief or making an assertion, but rather expressing some non-cognitive sentiment or feeling, incapable of being true or false. Thus, the emotivist claims that in contexts where ‘Murder is wrong’ is apparently being used to assert that murder is wrong it is in fact being used to express a sentiment or feeling of disapproval towards murder. But what about contexts in which it is not even apparently the case that ‘Murder is wrong’ is being used to make an assertion? An example of such a sentence would be ‘If murder is wrong, then getting little brother to murder people is wrong’. In the antecedent of this ‘Murder is wrong’ is clearly not even apparently being used to make an assertion. So what account can the emotivist give of the use of ‘Murder is wrong’ within ‘unasserted contexts’, such as the antecedent of the conditional above? Since it is not there used to express disapproval of murder, the account of its semantic function must be different from that given for the apparently straightforward assertion expressed by ‘Murder is wrong’. But now there is a problem in accounting for the following apparently valid inference:

(1) Murder is wrong. (2) If Murder is wrong, then getting your little brother to murder people is wrong. Therefore: (3) Getting your little brother to murder people is wrong.

If the semantic function of ‘Murder is wrong’ as it occurs within an asserted context in (1) is different from its semantic function as it occurs within an unasserted context in (2), isn't someone arguing in this way simply guilty of equivocation? In order for the argument to be valid, the occurrence of ‘Murder is wrong’ in (1) has to mean the same thing as the occurrence of ‘Murder is wrong’ in (2). But if ‘Murder is wrong’ has a different semantic function in (1) and (2), then it certainly doesn't mean the same thing in (1) and (2). So the above argument is apparently no more valid than:

(4) My beer has a head on it. (5) If something has a head on it, then it must have eyes and ears. Therefore: (6) My beer must have eyes and ears.

This argument is obviously invalid, because it relies on an equivocation on two senses of ‘head’, in (4) and (5) respectively.

It is perhaps worth stressing why the Frege-Geach problem doesn't afflict ethical theories which see ‘Murder is wrong’ as truth-apt, and sincere utterances of ‘Murder is wrong’ as capable of expressing straightforwardly truth-assessable beliefs. According to theories like these, moral modus ponens arguments such as the argument above from (1) and (2) to (3) are just like non-moral cases of modus ponens such as

(7) It is raining; (8) If it is raining then the streets are wet; Therefore, (9) the streets are wet.

Why is this non-moral case of modus ponens not similarly invalid in virtue of the fact that ‘It is raining’ is asserted in (7), but not in (8)? The answer is of course that the state of affairs asserted to obtain by ‘It is raining’ in (7) is the same as that whose obtaining is merely entertained in the antecedent of (8). In (7) ‘It is raining’ is used to assert that a state of affairs obtains (it's raining), and in (8) it is asserted that if that state of affairs obtains, so does another (the streets being wet). Throughout, the semantic function of the sentences concerned is given in terms of the states of affairs asserted to obtain in simple assertoric contexts. And it is difficult to see how an emotivist can say anything analogous to this with respect to the argument from (1) and (2) to (3): it is difficult to see how the semantic function of ‘Murder is wrong’ in the antecedent of (2) could be given in terms of the sentiment it allegedly expresses in (1).

The Frege-Geach challenge to the emotivist is thus to answer the following question: how can you give an emotivist account of the occurrence of moral sentences in ‘unasserted contexts’—such as the antecedents of conditionals—without jeopardising the intuitively valid patterns of inference in which those sentences figure? Philosophers wishing to develop an expressivistic alternative to moral realism have expended a great deal of energy and ingenuity in devising responses to this challenge. See in particular Blackburn's development of ‘quasi-realism’, in his (1984) Chs 5 and 6, (1993) Ch.10, (1998) Ch.3 and Gibbard's ‘norm-expressivism’, in his (1990) Ch.5, and further refined in his (2003). For criticism see Hale (1993) and (2002), and Kölbel (2002) Ch.4. For an overview, see Schroeder (2008) and Miller (2013a), Chs 4 and 5. For very useful surveys of recent work on expressivism, see Schroeder (2009) and Sinclair (2009).

Challenges to the existence dimension of realism have been outlined in previous sections. In this section some forms of non-realism that are neither error-theoretic nor expressivist will be briefly introduced. The forms of non-realism view the sentences of the relevant area as (against the expressivist) truth-apt, and (against the error-theorist) at least sometimes true. The existence dimension of realism is thus left intact. What is challenged is the independence dimension of realism, the claim that the objects distinctive of the area exist, or that the properties distinctive of the area are instantiated, independently of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on.

Classically, opposition to the independence dimension of realism about the everyday world of macroscopic objects took the form of idealism , the view that the objects of the everyday world of macroscopic objects are in some sense mental . As Berkeley famously claimed, tables, chairs, cats, the moons of Jupiter and so on, are nothing but ideas in the minds of spirits:

All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind (Berkeley 1710: §6).

Idealism has long been out of favour in contemporary philosophy, but those who doubt the independence dimension of realism have sought more sophisticated ways of opposing it. One such philosopher, Michael Dummett, has suggested that in some cases it may be appropriate to reject the independence dimension of realism via the rejection of semantic realism about the area in question (see Dummett 1978 and 1993). This section contains a brief explanation of semantic realism, as characterised by Dummett, Dummett's views on the relationship between semantic realism and realism construed as a metaphysical thesis, and an outline of some of the arguments in the philosophy of language that Dummett has suggested might be wielded against semantic realism.

It is easiest to characterise semantic realism for a mathematical domain. It is a feature of arithmetic that there are some arithmetical sentences for which the following holds true: we know of no method that will guarantee us a proof of the sentence, and we know of no method that will guarantee us a disproof or a counterexample either. One such is Goldbach's Conjecture:

(G) Every even number is the sum of two primes.

It is possible that we may come across a proof, or a counterexample, but the key point is that we do not know a method, or methods, the application of which is guaranteed to yield one or the other. A semantic realist, in Dummett's sense, is one who holds that our understanding of a sentence like (G) consists in knowledge of its truth-condition, where the notion of truth involved is potentially recognition-transcendent or bivalent . To say that the notion of truth involved is potentially recognition-transcendent is to say that (G) may be true (or false) even though there is no guarantee that we will be able, in principle, to recognise that that is so. To say that the notion of truth involved is bivalent is to accept the unrestricted applicability of the law of bivalence, that every meaningful sentence is determinately either true or false. Thus the semantic realist is prepared to assert that (G) is determinately either true or false, regardless of the fact that we have no guaranteed method of ascertaining which. (Note that the precise relationship between the characterisation in terms of bivalence and that in terms of potentially recognition-transcendent truth is a delicate matter that will not concern us here. See the Introduction to Wright 1993 for some excellent discussion. It is also important to note that in introducing the idea that a speaker's understanding of a sentence consists in her knowledge of its truth-condition, Dummett is packing more into the notion of truth than the disquotational properties made use of in §1 above. See Dummett's essay ‘Truth’, in his 1978).

Dummett makes two main claims about semantic realism. First, there is what Devitt (1991a) has termed the metaphor thesis : This denies that we can even have a literal, austerely metaphysical characterisation of realism of the sort attempted above with Generic Realism. Dummett writes, of the attempt to give an austere metaphysical characterisation of realism about mathematics (platonic realism) and what stands opposed to it (intuitionism):

How [are] we to decide this dispute over the ontological status of mathematical objects[?] As I have remarked, we have here two metaphors: the platonist compares the mathematician with the astronomer, the geographer or the explorer, the intuitionist compares him with the sculptor or the imaginative writer; and neither comparison seems very apt. The disagreement evidently relates to the amount of freedom that the mathematician has. Put this way, however, both seem partly right and partly wrong: the mathematician has great freedom in devising the concepts he introduces and in delineating the structure he chooses to study, but he cannot prove just whatever he decides it would be attractive to prove. How are we to make the disagreement into a definite one, and how can we then resolve it? (1978: xxv).

According to the constitution thesis , the literal content of realism consists in the content of semantic realism. Thus, the literal content of realism about the external world is constituted by the claim that our understanding of at least some sentences concerning the external world consists in our grasp of their potentially recognition-transcendent truth-conditions. The spurious ‘debate’ in metaphysics between realism and non-realism can thus become a genuine debate within the theory of meaning: should we characterise speakers' understanding in terms of grasp of potentially recognition-transcendent truth-conditions? As Dummett puts it:

The dispute [between realism and its opponents] concerns the notion of truth appropriate for statements of the disputed class; and this means that it is a dispute concerning the kind of meaning which these statements have (1978: 146).

Few have been convinced by either the metaphor thesis or the constitution thesis. Consider Generic Realism in the case of the world of everyday macroscopic objects and properties:

(GR1) Tables, rocks, mountains, seas, and so on exist, and the fact that they exist and have properties such as mass, size, shape, colour, and so on, is (apart from mundane empirical dependencies of the sort sometimes encountered in everyday life) independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on.

Dummett may well call for some non-metaphorical characterisation of the independence claim which this involves, but it is relatively easy to provide one such characterisation by utilising Dummett's own notion of recognition-transcendence:

(GR2) Tables, rocks, mountains, seas, and so on exist, and the fact that they exist and have properties such as mass, size, shape,colour, and so on, is (apart from mundane empirical dependencies of the sort sometimes encountered in everyday life) independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on. Tables, rocks, mountains, seas, and so on exist, and in general there is no guarantee that we will be able, even in principle, to recognise the fact that they exist and have properties such as mass, size, shape, colour, and so on.

On the face of it, there is nothing metaphorical in (GR2) or, at least if there is, some argument from Dummett to that effect is required. This throws some doubt on the metaphor thesis. And there is nothing distinctively semantic about (GR2), and this throws some doubt on the constitution thesis. Whereas for Dummett, the essential realist thesis is the meaning-theoretic claim that our understanding of a sentence like (G) consists in knowledge of its potentially recognition-transcendent truth-condition, for Devitt:

What has truth to do with Realism? On the face of it, nothing at all. Indeed, Realism says nothing semantic at all beyond … making the negative point that our semantic capacities do not constitute the world. (1991a: 39)

Devitt's main criticism of the constitution thesis is this: the literal content of realism about the external world is not given by semantic realism, since semantic realism is consistent with an idealist metaphysics of the external world. He writes:

Does [semantic realism] entail Realism? It does not. Realism … requires the objective independent existence of common-sense physical entities. Semantic Realism concerns physical statements and has no such requirement: it says nothing about the nature of the reality that makes those statements true or false , except that it is [at least in part potentially beyond the reach of our best investigative efforts]. An idealist who believed in the … existence of a purely mental realm of sense-data could subscribe to [semantic realism]. He could believe that physical statements are true or false according as they do or do not correspond to the realm of sense-data, whatever anyone's opinion on the matter: we have no ‘incorrigible knowledge’ of sense-data. … In sum, mere talk of truth will not yield any particular ontology. (1983: 77)

Suppose that Dummett's metaphor and constitution theses are both implausible. Would it follow that the arguments Dummett develops against semantic realism have no relevance to debates about the plausibility of realism about everyday macroscopic objects (say), construed as a purely metaphysical thesis as in (GR2)? It can be argued that Dummett's arguments can retain their relevance to a metaphysical debate even if the metaphor and constitution theses are false, and, indeed, even if Dummett's view (1973: 669) that the theory of meaning is the foundation of all philosophy is rejected. For a full development of this line of argument, see Miller 2003b and 2006.

Dummett has two main lines of argument against semantic realism, the acquisition argument and the manifestation argument . Here is the acquisition argument:

Suppose that we are considering some region of discourse D , the sentences of which we intuitively understand. Suppose, for reductio , that the sentences of D have potentially recognition-transcendent truth-conditions. Thus,

(1) We understand the sentences of D . (2) The sentences of D have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions.

Now, from (1) together with the Fregean thesis that to understand a sentence is to know its truth-conditions (see Miller 2007, Chs 1 and 2), we have:

(3) We know the truth-conditions of the sentences of D .

We now add the apparently reasonable constraint on ascriptions of knowledge:

(4) If a piece of knowledge is ascribed to a speaker, then it must be at least in principle possible for that speaker to have acquired that knowledge.

(5) It must be at least in principle possible for us to have acquired knowledge of the recognition-transcendent truth-conditions of D .

(6) We could not have acquired knowledge of recognition-transcendent truth-conditions.

So, by reductio , we reject (2) to get:

(7) The sentences of D do not have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions, so semantic realism about the subject matter of D must be rejected.

The crucial premise here is obviously (6). Wright suggests that there is no plausible story to be told about how we could have acquired knowledge of recognition-transcendent truth-conditions:

How are we supposed to be able to form any understanding of what it is for a particular statement to be true if the kind of state of affairs which it would take to make it true is conceived, ex hypothesi , as something beyond our experience, something which we cannot confirm and which is insulated from any distinctive impact on our consciousness? (1993: 13).

However, Wright then more or less concedes that the acquisition argument can be neutralised by invoking the compositionality of meaning and understanding:

[T]he realist seems to have a very simple answer. Given that the understanding of statements in general is to be viewed as consisting in possession of a concept of their truth-conditions, acquiring a concept of an evidence-transcendent state of affairs is simply a matter of acquiring an understanding of a statement for which that state of affairs would constitute the truth-condition. And such an understanding is acquired, like the understanding of any previously unheard sentence in the language, by understanding the constituent words and the significance of their mode of combination. (1993: 16)

Dummett's challenge to semantic realism, then, turns on his second argument, the manifestation argument . Suppose that we are considering region of discourse D as before. Then:

(1) We understand the sentences of D .

Suppose, for reductio , that

(2) The sentences of D have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions.

From (1) and the Fregean thesis that to understand a sentence is to know its truth-conditions, we have:

We then add the following premise, which stems from the Wittgensteinian insight that understanding does not consist in the possession of an inner state, but rather in the possession of some practical ability (see Wittgenstein 1958):

(4) If speakers possess a piece of knowledge which is constitutive of linguistic understanding, then that knowledge should be manifested in speakers' use of the language i.e. in their exercise of the practical abilities which constitute linguistic understanding.

For example, in the case of a simple language consisting of demonstratives and taste predicates (such as "bitter" and "sweet"), applied to foodstuffs within reach of the speaker, a speaker's understanding consists in his ability to determine whether "this is bitter" is true, by putting the relevant foodstuff in his mouth and tasting it (Wright 1993).

It now follows from (1), (2), (3) and (4) that:

(5) Our knowledge of the recognition-transcendent truth-conditions of the sentences of D should be manifested in our use of those sentences, i.e. in our exercise of the practical abilities which constitute our understanding of D . Since (6) Such knowledge is never manifested in the exercise of the practical abilities which constitute our understanding of D ,

It follows that

(7) We do not possess knowledge of the truth-conditions of D .

(7) and (3) together give us a contradiction, whence, by reductio , we reject (2) to obtain:

(8) The sentences of D do not have recognition-transcendent truth-conditions, so semantic realism about the subject matter of D must be rejected.

The key claim here is (6). So far as an account of speakers' understanding goes, the ascription of knowledge of recognition-transcendent truth-conditions is simply redundant : there is no good reason for ascribing it. Consider one of the sentences introduced earlier as a candidate for possessing recognition-transcendent truth-conditions ‘Every even number greater than two is the sum of two primes’. The semantic realist views our understanding of sentences like this as consisting in our knowledge of a potentially recognition-transcendent truth-condition. But:

How can that account be viewed as a description of any practical ability of use? No doubt someone who understands such a statement can be expected to have many relevant practical abilities. He will be able to appraise evidence for or against it, should any be available, or to recognize that no information in his possession bears on it. He will be able to recognize at least some of its logical consequences, and to identify beliefs from which commitment to it would follow. And he will, presumably, show himself sensitive to conditions under which it is appropriate to ascribe propositional attitudes embedding the statement to himself and to others, and sensitive to the explanatory significance of such ascriptions. In short: in these and perhaps other important respects, he will show himself competent to use the sentence. But the headings under which his practical abilities fall so far involve no mention of evidence-transcendent truth-conditions (Wright 1993: 17).

This establishes (6), and the conclusion follows swiftly.

A detailed assessment of the plausibility of Dummett's arguments is impossible here. For a full response to the manifestation argument, see Miller 2002. See also Byrne 2005. For the acquisition argument, see Miller 2003c. Wright develops a couple of additional arguments against semantic realism. For these—the argument from rule-following and the argument from normativity—see the Introduction to Wright 1993. For an excellent survey of the literature on Dummett's arguments against semantic realism, see Hale 1997. For an excellent book-length introduction to Dummett's philosophy, see Weiss 2002.

7. Against the Independence Dimension (II): More Forms of Anti-Realism

Suppose that one wished to develop a non-realist alternative to, say, moral realism. Suppose also that one is persuaded of the unattractiveness of both error-theoretic and expressivist forms of non-realism. That is to say, one accepts that moral sentences are truth-apt, and, at least in some cases, true. Then the only option available would be to deny the independence dimension of moral realism. But so far we have only seen one way of doing this: by admitting that the relevant sentences are truth-apt, sometimes true, and possessed of truth-conditions which are not potentially recognition-transcendent. But this seems weak: it seems implausible to suggest that a moral realist must be committed to the potential recognition-transcendence of moral truth. It therefore seems implausible to suggest that a non-expressivistic and non-error-theoretic form of opposition to realism must be committed to simply denying the potential recognition-transcendence of moral truth, since many who style themselves moral realists will deny this too. As Wright puts it:

There are, no doubt, kinds of moral realism which do have the consequence that moral reality may transcend all possibility of detection. But it is surely not essential to any view worth regarding as realist about morals that it incorporate a commitment to that idea. (1992: 9)

So, if the debate between a realist and a non-realist about the independence dimension doesn't concern the plausibility of semantic realism as characterised by Dummett, what does it concern? (Henceforth a non-error-theoretic, non-expressivist style of non-realist is referred to as an anti-realist). Wright attempts to develop some points of contention, (or ‘realism-relevant cruces’ as he calls them) over which a realist and anti-realist could disagree. Wright's development of this idea is subtle and sophisticated and only a crude exposition of a couple of his realism-relevant cruces can be given here.

The first of Wright's realism-relevant cruces to be considered here concerns the capacity of states of affairs to figure ineliminably in the explanation of features of our experience. The idea that the explanatory efficacy of the states of affairs in some area has something to do with the plausibility of a realist view of that area is familiar from the debates in meta-ethics between philosophers such as Nicholas Sturgeon (1988), who believe that irreducibly moral states of affairs do figure ineliminably in the best explanation of certain aspects of experience, and opponents such as Gilbert Harman (1977), who believe that moral states of affairs have no such explanatory role. This suggests a ‘best explanation test’ which, crudely put, states that realism about a subject matter can be secured if its distinctive states of affairs figure ineliminably in the best explanation of aspects of experience. One could then be a non-expressivist, non-error-theoretic, anti-realist about a particular subject matter by denying that the distinctive states of affairs of that subject matter do have a genuine role in best explanations of aspects of our experience. And the debate between this style of anti-realist and his realist opponent could proceed independently of any questions concerning the capacity of sentences in the relevant area to have potentially recognition-transcendent truth values.

For reasons that needn't detain us here, Wright suggests that this ‘best explanation test’ should be superseded by questions concerning what he calls width of cosmological role (1992, Ch.5). The states of affairs in a given area have narrow cosmological role if it is a priori that they do not contribute to the explanation of things other than our beliefs about that subject-matter (or other than via explaining our beliefs about that subject matter). This will be an anti-realist position. One style of realist about that subject matter will say that its states of affairs have wide cosmological role: they do contribute to the explanation of things other than our beliefs about the subject matter in question (or other than via explaining our beliefs about that subject matter). It is relatively easy to see why width of cosmological role could be a bone of contention between realist and anti-realist views of a given subject matter: it is precisely the width of cosmological role of a class of states of affairs—their capacity to explain things other than, or other than via, our beliefs, in which their independence from our beliefs, linguistic practices, and so on, consists. Again, the debate between someone attributing a narrow cosmological role to a class of states of affairs and someone attributing a wide cosmological role could proceed independently of any questions concerning the capacity of sentences in the relevant area to have potentially recognition-transcendent truth values.

Wright thinks that it is arguable that moral discourse does not satisfy width-of-cosmological role. Whereas a physical fact—such as a pond's being frozen over—can contribute to the explanation of cognitive effects (someone's believing that the pond is frozen over), effects on sentient, but non-conceptual creatures (the tendency of goldfish to cluster towards the bottom of the pond), effects on us as physically interactive agents (someone's slipping on the ice), and effects on inanimate matter (the tendency of a thermometer to read zero when placed on the surface), moral facts can only to contribute to the explanation of the first sort of effect:

[I]t is hard to think of anything which is true of sentient but non-conceptual creatures, or of mobile organisms, or of inanimate matter, which is true because a … moral fact obtains and in whose explanation it is unnecessary to advert to anyone's appreciation of that moral fact (1996: 16).

Thus, we have a version of anti-realism about morals that is non-expressivist and non-error-theoretic and can be framed independently of considerations about the potential of moral sentences to have recognition-transcendent truth-values: moral sentences are truth-apt, sometimes true, and moral states of affairs have narrow cosmological role.

The second of Wright's realism-relevant cruces concerns judgement-dependence. Suppose that we are considering a region of discourse D in which ‘ P ’ is a representative central predicate. Consider the opinions formed by the practitioners of that discourse, formed under cognitively ideal conditions: call such opinions best opinions , and the cognitively ideal conditions the C-conditions. Suppose that the best opinions covary with the facts about the instantiation of ‘ P ’. Then there are two ways in which we can explain this covariance. First, we might take best opinions to be playing at most a tracking role: best opinions are just extremely good at tracking independently constituted truth-conferring states of affairs. In this case, best opinion plays only an extension-reflecting role, merely reflecting the independently determined extensions of the central predicates of D . Alternatively, we might try to explain the covariance of best opinion and fact by viewing best opinion as playing a different sort of role. Rather than viewing best opinion as merely tracking the facts about the extensions of the central predicates of D , we can view them as themselves determining those extensions. Best opinions, on this sort of view, do not just track independently constituted states of affairs which determine the extensions of the central predicates of D : rather, they determine those extensions and so to play an extension-determining role. When we have this latter sort of explanation of the covariance of best opinion and fact, the predicates of that region are said to be judgement-dependent ; when we have only the former sort of explanation, the predicates are said to be judgement-independent .

How do we determine whether the central predicates of a region of discourse are judgement-dependent? Wright's discussion proceeds by reference to what he terms provisional equations . These have the following form:

(PE) ∀ x [ C → (A suitable subject s judges that Px ↔ Px )]

where ‘ C ’ denotes the conditions (the C -conditions) which are cognitively ideal for forming the judgement that x is P . The predicate ‘P’ is then said to be judgement-dependent if and only if the provisional equation meets the following four conditions:

The A Prioricity Condition: The provisional equation must be a priori true: there must be a priori covariance of best opinions and truth. (Justification: ‘the truth, if it is true, that the extensions of [a class of concept] are constrained by idealised human response—best opinion—ought to be available purely by analytic reflection on those concepts, and hence available as knowledge a priori ’ (Wright 1992: 117)). This is because the thesis of judgement-dependence is the claim that, for the region of discourse concerned, best opinion is the conceptual ground of truth). The Substantiality Condition The C -conditions must be specifiable non-trivially : they cannot simply be described as conditions under which the subject has ‘whatever it takes' to form the right opinion concerning the subject matter at hand.(Justification: without this condition, any predicate will turn out to be judgement-dependent, since for any predicate Q it is going to be an a priori truth that our judgements about whether x is Q , formed under conditions which have ‘whatever it takes' to ensure their correctness, will covary with the facts about the instantiation of Q -ness. We thus require this condition on pain of losing the distinction between judgement-dependent and judgement-independent predicates altogether). The Independence Condition : The question as to whether the C -conditions obtain in a given instance must be logically independent of the class of truths for which we are attempting to give an extension-determining account: for specifying what makes an opinion best must not presuppose some logically prior determination of the extensions putatively determined by best opinions. (Justification: if we have to assume, say, certain facts about the extension of P in the determination of the conditions under which opinions about P count as best, then we cannot view best opinions as somehow constituting those facts, since specifying whether a given opinion is best would then presuppose some logically prior determination of the very facts allegedly constituted by best opinions). The Extremal Condition : There must be no better way of accounting for the a priori covariance: no better account, other than according best opinion an extension-determining role, of which the satisfaction of the foregoing three conditions is a consequence. (Justification: without this condition, the satisfaction of the foregoing conditions would be consistent with the thought that certain states of affairs are judgement-independent even though infallibly detectable, 'states of affairs in whose determination facts about the deliverances of best opinions are in no way implicated although there is, a priori, no possibility of their misrepresentation’ (Wright 1992: 123)).

When all of the above conditions can be shown to be satisfied, we can accord best opinion an extension-determining role, and describe the subject matter as judgement-dependent. If these conditions cannot collectively be satisfied, best opinion can be assigned, at best, a merely extension-reflecting role.

Two points are worth making. First, it is again relatively easy to see why the question of judgement-dependence can mark a bone of contention between realism and anti-realism. If a subject matter is judgement-dependent we have a concrete sense in which the independence dimension of realism fails for that subject matter: there is a sense in which that subject matter is not entirely independent of our beliefs, linguistic practices, and so on. Second, the debate about the judgement-dependence of a subject matter is, on the face of it at least, independent of the debate about the possibility of recognition-transcendent truth in that area.

Wright argues (1989) that facts about colours and intentions are judgement-dependent, so that we can formulate a version of anti-realism about colours (intentions) that views ascriptions of colours (intentions) as truth-apt and sometimes true, and truth in those areas as judgement-dependent. In contrast to this, Wright argues (1988) that morals cannot plausibly be viewed as judgement-dependent, so that a thesis of judgement-dependence is not a suitable vehicle for the expression of a non-expressivistic, non-error-theoretic, version of anti-realism about morality.

For discussion of further allegedly realism-relevant cruces, such as cognitive command, see Wright 1992 and 2003. For critical discussion of Wright on cognitive command, see Shapiro and Taschek 1996. See also Miller 2004.It is the availability of these various realism-relevant cruces that makes it possible to be more-or-less realist about a given area: at one end of the spectrum there will be areas that fall on the realist side of all of the cruces and at the opposite end areas that fall on the non-realist side of all of the cruces, but in between there will be a range of intermediate cases in which some-but-not-all of the cruces are satisfied on the realist side.

Some of the ways in which non-realist theses about a particular subject matter can be formulated and motivated have been described above. Quietism is the view that significant metaphysical debate between realism and non-realism is impossible. Gideon Rosen nicely articulates the basic quietist thought:

We sense that there is a heady metaphysical thesis at stake in these debates over realism—a question on a par with the issues Kant first raised about the status of nature. But after a point, when every attempt to say just what the issue is has come up empty, we have no real choice but to conclude that despite all the wonderful, suggestive imagery, there is ultimately nothing in the neighborhood to discuss (1994: 279).

Quietism about the ‘debate’ between realists and their opponents can take a number of forms. One form might claim that the idea of a significant debate is generated by unsupported or unsupportable philosophical theses about the relationship of the experiencing and minded subject to their world, and that once these theses are exorcised the ‘debate’ will gradually wither away. This form of quietism is often associated with the work of the later Wittgenstein, and receives perhaps its most forceful development in the work of John McDowell (see in particular McDowell 1994). Other forms of quietism may proceed in a more piecemeal fashion, taking constraints such as Wright's realism-relevant Cruces and arguing on a case-by-case basis that their satisfaction or non-satisfaction is of no metaphysical consequence. This is in fact the strategy pursued in Rosen 1994. He makes the following points regarding the two realism-relevant Cruces considered in the previous section.

Suppose that:

(F) It is a priori that: x is funny if and only if we would judge x funny under conditions of full information about x s relevant extra-comedic features

and suppose that (F) satisfies (in addition to a prioricity) the various other constraints that Wright imposes on his provisional equations ((F) is actually not of the form of a provisional equation, but this is not relevant to our purposes here). Rosen questions whether this would be enough to establish that the facts about the funny are in some metaphysically interesting sense ‘less real’ or ‘less objective’ than facts (such as, arguably, facts about shape) for which a suitable equation cannot be constructed.

In a nutshell, Rosen's argument proceeds by inviting us to assume the perspective of an anthropologist who is studying us and who ‘has gotten to the point where he can reliably determine which jokes we will judge funny under conditions of full relevant information’ (1994: 302). Rosen writes:

[T]he important point is that from [the anthropologist's] point of view, the facts about the distribution of [the property denoted by our use of ‘funny’] are ‘mind-dependent’ only in the sense that they supervene directly on facts about our minds. But again, this has no tendency to undermine their objectivity … [since] we have been given no reason to think that the facts about what a certain group of people would think after a certain sort of investigation are anything but robustly objective (1994: composed from 300 and 302).

How plausible is this attempt to deflate the significance of the discovery that the subject matter of a particular area is, in Wright's sense, judgement-dependent? Argument—as opposed to the trading of intuitions—at this level is difficult, but Rosen's claim here is very implausible. Suppose we found out that facts about the distribution of gases on the moons of Jupiter supervened directly on facts about our minds. Would the threat we then felt to the objectivity of facts about the distribution of gases on the moons of Jupiter be at all assuaged by the reflection that facts about the mental might themselves be susceptible to realistic treatment? It seems doubtful. Fodor's Psychosemantics would not offer much solace to realists in the world described in Berkeley's Principles. Rosen's claim derives some of its plausibility from the fact that he uses examples, such as the funny and the constitutional, where our pre-theoretical attachment to a realist view is very weak: it may be that the judgement-dependence of the funny doesn't undermine our sense of the objectivity of humour simply because the level of objectivity we pretheoretically expect of comedy is quite low. So although there is no knock-down argument to Rosen's claim, it is much more counterintuitive than he would be willing to admit.

Rosen also questions whether there is any intuitive connection between considerations of width of cosmological role and issues of realism and non-realism. Rosen doubts in particular that there is any tight connection between facts of a certain class having only narrow cosmological role and mind-dependence in any sense relevant to the plausibility of realism. He writes:

It is possible to imagine a subtle physical property Q which, though intuitively thoroughly objective, is nonetheless nomically connected in the first instance only with brain state B —where this happens to be the belief that things are Q . This peculiar discovery would not undermine our confidence that Q was an objective feature of things, as it should if [a feature of objects is less than fully objective if it has narrow cosmological role] (1994: 312).

However it seems that, at least in the first instance, Wright has a relatively quick response to this point at his disposal. Waiving the point that in any case the width of cosmological role constraint applies to classes of properties and facts, he can point out that in the example constructed by Rosen the narrowness of Q's cosmological role is an a posteriori matter. Whereas what we want is that the narrowness of cosmological role is an a priori matter: one does not need to conduct an empirical investigation to convince oneself that facts about the funny fail to have wide cosmological role.

Wright thus has the beginnings of answers to Rosen's quietist attack on his use of the notions of judgement-dependence and width of cosmological role. It is not possible to deal fully with these arguments here, let alone with the other quietist arguments in Rosen's paper, or the arguments of other quietists such as McDowell, beyond giving a flavour of how quietism might be motivated and how those active in the debates between realists and their opponents might start to respond. For a further discussion of quietism by Wright, see Wright 2007.

This discussion of realism and of the forms that non-realist opposition may take is far from exhaustive, and aims only to give the reader a sense of what to expect if they delve deeper into the issues. In particular, nothing has been mentioned about the work of Hilary Putnam, his characterisation of ‘metaphysical realism’, and his so-called ‘model-theoretic’ argument against it. Putnam's writings are extensive, but one could begin with Putnam 1981 and 1983. For critical discussion, see Hale and Wright 1997 and Wright 2001; see also the entries on scientific realism and challenges to metaphysical realism . Nor have issues about the metaphysics of modality and possible worlds been discussed. The locus classicus in this area is Lewis 1986. For commentary, see Divers 2002 and Melia 2003; see also the entries on David Lewis's metaphysics and the epistemology of modality . And the very important topic of scientific realism has not been touched upon. For an introductory treatment and suggestions for further reading, see Bird 1998 Ch. 4; see also, the entries on scientific realism and structural realism . Finally, it has not been possible to include any discussion of realism about intentionality and meaning (but see the entries on intentionality and theories of meaning .) The locus classicus in recent philosophy is Kripke 1982. For a robustly realistic view of the intentional, see Fodor 1987. For a collection of some of the central secondary literature, see Miller and Wright 2002, and for a robust defence of Kripke's interpretation of Wittgenstein, see Kusch (2006). For an entertaining defence of metaphysical realism, see Musgrave 2001 (exercise for the reader: do any of the forms of opposition to realism described in this entry rely on what Musgrave calls word-magic?). For an alternative approach to mapping the debates about realism, see Fine (2001). For good introductory book length treatments of realism, see Kirk 1999 and Brock and Mares 2006. Greenough and Lynch (2006) is a useful collection of papers by many of the leading lights in the various debates about realism.

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cognitivism vs. non-cognitivism, moral | dependence, ontological | fictionalism | fictionalism: modal | intentionality | Lewis, David: metaphysics | meaning, theories of | metaethics | modality: epistemology of | moral anti-realism | moral realism | nominalism: in metaphysics | Platonism: in metaphysics | possible worlds | realism: challenges to metaphysical | relativism | structural realism | truth

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William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy

Evidence, explanation, and realism: essays in philosophy of science.

• Peter Achinstein (author)
• Oxford University Press , 2010
• Purchase Online

The essays in this volume address three fundamental questions in the philosophy of science: What is required for some fact to be evidence for a scientific hypothesis? What does it mean to say that a scientist or a theory explains a phenomenon? Should scientific theories that postulate “unobservable” entities such as electrons be construed realistically as aiming to correctly describe a world underlying what is directly observable, or should such theories be understood as aiming to correctly describe only the observable world?

Distinguished philosopher of science Peter Achinstein provides answers to each of these questions in essays written over a period of more than 40 years. The present volume brings together his important previously published essays, allowing the reader to confront some of the most basic and challenging issues in the philosophy of science, and to consider Achinstein’s many influential contributions to the solution of these issues.

He presents a theory of evidence that relates this concept to probability and explanation; a theory of explanation that relates this concept to an explaining act as well as to the different ways in which explanations are to be evaluated; and an empirical defense of scientific realism that invokes both the concept of evidence and that of explanation.

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Essays on realism.

by Georg Lukács

Edited by Rodney Livingstone

ISBN: 9780262620420

Pub date: May 10, 1983

• Publisher: The MIT Press

256 pp. , 6 x 9 in ,

ISBN: 9780262120883

Pub date: May 5, 1981

• 9780262620420
• Published: May 1983
• 9780262120883
• Published: May 1981

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• Description

Originally published in the 1930s, these essays on realism, expressionism, and modernism in literature present Lukacs's side of the controversy among Marxist writers and critics now known as the Lukacs-Brecht debate. The book also includes an exchange of letters between Lukács, writing in exile in the Soviet Union, and the German Communist novelist, Anna Seghers, in which they discuss realism, the European literary heritage, and the situation of the artist in capitalist culture.

Georg Lukács was a Hungarian Marxist philosopher, aesthetician, literary historian, and critic.

Rodney Livingstone, Reader in German at the University of Southampton, has edited and translated numerous works by Lukács, Theodor Adorno, and others.

Considering [his] capacity for historical intervention and personal survival, the least one can say is that Lukács was the most successful Marxist intellectual of the 20th century.... The six essays and one public exchange of letters that David Fernbach's translation makes available to English readers were all written between 1931 and 1940, a period during which Lukács served the Comintern as one of its most formidable (and certainly its most erudite) critical hitmen. J. Hoberman The Village Voice

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