Internal Realism
Edited by Tim Button (University College London)
About this topic
Summary | Internal realism was a position held between approximately 1977--90 by Hilary Putnam. This involved rejecting the "God's Eye Point of View" that Putnam thought was characteristic of metaphysical realism. For Putnam, internal realism always involved a commitment to the idea that truth is (somehow) epistemically constrained, and to (some version of) conceptual relativism. Certain positions adopted by other authors, which involve some commitment to one or both of these ideas, are sometimes also characterised as varities of internal realism. |
Key works | Putnam's first statement of internal realism is in 'Realism and Reason' (1977, his address to the APA). Here he presented his model-theoretic arguments against metaphysical realism, a thumbnail of the brain-in-vat argument, and various reflections on conceptual relativism. Both this work and the (more technical) 'Models and Reality' (1980) emphasised the importance of "verificationist semantics". In Reason Truth and History (1981), Putnam developed internal realism in great detail, and probed the significance of his viewpoint for ethics and the philosophy of mind. This drew several famous reactions: Devitt 1983 maintained that internal realism was a version of idealism; and Lewis 1984 maintained that "realism needs realism". Putnam's subsequent defences of internal realism -- including The Many Faces of Realism (1987) and many essays in his Realism with a Human Face (1990) -- suggested a somewhat looser epistemic constraint, and placed the focus more squarely on conceptual relativism. By 1990 Putnam had abandoned internal realism (though not conceptual relativism) in favour of natural realism, a transition he describes in his 'Sense, nonsense, and the senses' (1994). Many of these themes -- including the transitions, and the legacy of internal realism -- are discussed in Button 2013. |
Introductions | Putnam 1977; Putnam 1980; Putnam 1981 (esp. chs.1-3) |
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Related categories
Siblings:
- Metaphysical Realism (190)
- The Model-Theoretic Argument (108)
- Moral Realism and Irrealism (3,801 | 280)
- Ontological Realism (230)
- Quasi-Realism (107)
- Scientific Realism (4,264 | 4)
- Semantic Anti-Realism (193)
- Realism and Anti-Realism, Misc (261)
- Aesthetic Realism and Anti-Realism (252 | 39)
- Eliminativism (2 | 1)
- Reality (35)
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