Online research in philosophy

A recent account of the meaning of 'real' leads to a view of what anti-realism should be that resembles fictionalism, while not being committed to fictionalism as such or being subject to some of the more obvious objections to that view. This account of anti-realism explains how we might 'make up' what is true in areas such as mathematics or ethics, and yet these made-up truths are resistant to alterations, even by our collective decisions. Finally it is argued that the sort of anti-realism suggested explains the appearance that the ethical domain supervenes on the naturalistic.

Around the beginning of the twentieth century, John Dewey began his struggle to pave a way out of the impasses generated by the contending schools of realism and idealism. In the early twenty-first century, claims have been made that his thought can also help philosophy move beyond the contemporary realism/anti-realism debate. Dewey scholar David Hildebrand asserts that John Dewey's philosophy provides "a defensible alternative to both realism and idealism" and to contemporary realism and anti-realism in the philosophy of history (Hildebrand 2000, p. 2). This is part of Hildebrand's larger project to demonstrate that "classical pragmatism—and any careful derivation of it" should be able to move beyond the ..

Idealism is an ontological view, a view about what sorts of things there are in the universe. Idealism holds that what there is depends on our own mental structure and activity. Berkeley of course held that everything was mental; Kant held the more complex view that there was an important distinction between the mental and the physical, but that the structure of the empirical world depended on the activities of minds. Despite radical differences, idealists like Berkeley and Kant share what Ralph Barton Perry called "the cardinal principle of idealism," namely, the principle that "being is dependent on the knowing of it."1 I believe that Hilary Putnam intends his "internal realism" to be a version of idealism in this broad sense; although many of his arguments concern semantic notions like truth and reference, he takes these semantic arguments to have ontological consequences. This is strongly suggested, for instance, by his claim that "'objects' themselves are as much made as discovered, as much products of our conceptual invention as of the 'objective' factor in experience."2 Or again there is this rather Kantian metaphor: "the mind and the world jointly make up the mind and the world."3 But just what is Putnam's ontology?

Legal Realism Regained presents a comparison between the legal realists, a group of pragmatic legal theorists from the 1920s and 1930s, and critical legal studies, a movement of postmodern legal theory during the end of the twentieth century. The book argues for a return to legal realism and the classical pragmatism of John Dewey and William James and for a rejection of the postmodern critique of critical legal studies. It discusses the two movements with respect to three topics: their view of history, their view of social science, and their view of language. Rejecting the claim that critical legal studies can be seen as the heir of legal realism, Legal Realism Regained argues that, with respect to each of these three topics, the realists still present a stronger argument than their more radical descendants.

Although the opposition between realism and idealism is exhibited in their different assumptions on objectivity, in the field of social theory, John Anderson's social realism and Jürgen Habermas's social idealism are united in their rejection of positivism's separation of theory from praxis. Social realism's agreement with social idealism's critique of Popper's ?positivism?, on logical, methodological, ethical and ontological grounds, does not mean, however, a dissolution of the conflict between these two traditions. Indeed, social idealism's and social realism's rejection of the fact/value dichotomy and synthesis of theory and praxis take different forms. Accordingly, social idealism advances a prescriptive ethic and rejects objectivity whilst social realism advances a descriptive ethic, and accepts objectivity. The strength of social realism, as an objective basis upon which positivist sociology might be reconstructed, lies in its refutation of social idealism. Through immanent critique, social idealism is shown to rest on an ontological mistake, a mistake of synthesis, a subjective mistake, and a substantive mistake.

According to scientific realism, the aim of science is to discover the truth about both observable and unobservable aspects of the mind-independent, objective reality, which we inhabit. It has been objected by Putnam and others that such a metaphysically realist position presupposes a God’s Eye point of view, of which no coherent sense can be made. In this paper, I will argue for two claims. First, scientific realism does not require the adoption of a God’s Eye point of view. Instead, scientific realism is a hypothesis about the relationship between scientific theory and reality which may be proposed from within our human perspective. Second, even if scientific realism did require a God’s Eye point of view, this would not necessarily be to the detriment of realism. For it is possible to develop an intelligible external perspective on human epistemic relations to our environing reality.

Beginning with the paradoxes of zombie twins, we present an argument that dualism is both true and false. We show that avoiding this contradiction is impossible. Our diagnosis is that consciousness itself engenders this contradiction by producing contradictory points of view. This result has a large effect on the realism/anti-realism debate, namely, it suggests that this debate is intractable, and furthermore, it explains why this debate is intractable. We close with some comments on what our results mean for metaphysics and philosophy, in general.

In the following, the author argues that Hegel’s speculative idealism attempts to reconcile the competing philosophical positions of idealism and realism.Through an examination, first, of current scholarship and, second, of Hegel’s critique of the “Ideal of Pure Reason” in Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, the author shows that one of Hegel’s main criticisms is that the exclusion of the thing-in-itself denies realism. The author argues that Hegel’s response to the problem of the thing-in-itself is to affirm realism. The author concludes by demonstrating how Hegel’s concept of Geist reconciles idealism and realism.

We analyse Berkeley's argument that realism cannot be defined, and show that his epistemological assumptions lead to the inevitable conclusion that solipsism is the only definable metaphysics. We conclude with a discussion of what this means for the realism/idealism debate, and also with a discussion of the possibility for apodictic evidence in this matter.

This paper concerns the relation of Heidegger’s thought to the traditionally opposed positions of realism and idealism: a dilemma that Heidegger explicitly addresses in Section 43 of Being and Time. Heidegger’s attempt to forge a position ‘between’ realism and idealism has recently been interpreted in a number of ways, depending on whether Heidegger’s affinity with realism or his affinity with idealism is prioritized. My contention is that Heidegger’s realist and idealist dimensions are equally essential to his thought in view of the re-interpretation of subjectivity as ‘ahead of itself,’ which follows from his phenomenological analysis of immediate, everyday experience.