Three forms of realism

Abstract

The debate surrounding realism is hampered by an aversion to expli cit formulation of the doctrine. The literature is certainly replete with resounding one-liners: There are objective facts', Truth is cor respondence with reality', 'Reality is mind-independent', 'Statements are determinately either true or false', Truth may transcend our capacity to recognize it'. But such slogans are rarely elaborated upon. All too often the arguments, for or against, will proceed as though the nature of realism were so well-understood that no careful statement of the position is required. Consequently, several distinct and in dependent positions have at various times been identified with real ism, and the debate is marked by confusion, equivocation and arguments at cross-purposes to one another. I think it is worth distinguishing the following three doctrines, each deserving to be regarded as a separate form of realism. For the sake of definiteness I shall write mainly about theoretical entities in science. But the points are intended to apply more generally to issues surrounding realism in other areas, concerning, for example, numbers, mental states, values, and ordinary material objects. First, there is what might be called epistemological realism. This consists in the commonplace claim concerning some specified class of postulated entities that they really do exist. In this sense we are almost all realists about prime numbers and bacteria, but not about dragons and tachyons. No particular conception of truth is involved, nor any commitment to what the existence of the supposed entities would have to consist in. However, this brand of realism is not without philosophical interest. Concerning material things and the entities proposed by established scientific theories, the view will be opposed only by the rare sceptic with the courage of his convictions, who denies that our beliefs may be justified and is able to confine his own convictions accordingly. Thus, epistemological realists about X's are opposed to those who, for either philosophical or non-philoso phical reasons, deny that there are such things.1 Secondly, there is what I'll call semantic realism. By this I mean the