Abstract
The true realist is not the philosopher who endorses, in the name (for example) of a Russellian project of analysis, the task of displaying the furniture of the world in some kind of idealized “list of entities.” Instead, within realist projects, full weight should be given to reality in the way it is actually talked or thought about in the context of our actual concerns and practical lives. The claim here is not that our talk or thought determines reality, but rather that this thought and talk nevertheless essentially leaves its imprint, in some way, on any coherent conception of what this reality is like. To address reality, therefore, is not just to list entities, but rather, to consider and focus on actual uses that come to grips with reality in diverse ways.
