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The Anti-Realist Boogeyman (And How To Avoid Him)

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Abstract

I distinguish Local Constructivism (humans play a constitutive role in constructing some of the objects we have epistemic access to) from Global Constructivism (humans play a constitutive role in constructing all of the objects we have epistemic access to). I explicate and clarify Local Constructivism and show how the metaphysical concerns which motivate endorsing Local Constructivism about some objects (e.g. social objects, modal objects) differ from the epistemic and semantic concerns which motive endorsing Global Constructivism. I, then, examine the criticisms Realists typically present against Constructivism. I argue that, although these criticisms undermine Global Constructivism, Local Constructivism is immune to them. If one has anti-Realist inclinations, but wishes to avoid the morass anti-Realism usually falls into (aka: anti-Realist Boogeyman), one should endorse Local, rather than Global, Constructivism.

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Notes

  1. For philosophers that are non-constructivist, see Quine (1960), Lewis (1986), and Jubien (2001).

  2. See Baker (2004, 2007) and Thomasson (2003, 2007, 2015). See, also, Searle (1995).

  3. See Einheuser (2011) and Sidelle 1989, 2010). See, also, Goswick (2018a, b).

  4. See Devitt (1984)

  5. See Goswick (2019)

  6. See Baker (2004), Jenkins (2005), Miller (2005), Page (2006), Pettit (1991), Railton and Rosen (2009), Thomasson (2003), and Vinueza (2001).

  7. See Evnine (2016) and Korman (2016) for further examples of Local Constructivism about social objects.

  8. Local Constructivism about social objects isn't inevitable, i.e. doesn't follow from the definition of "social object". Quine, Jubien, and Lewis, for example, take dollar bills, cars, houses, paintings, etc. to exist, but do not endorse a constructivist view of them.

  9. This definition isn't perfect, but it's sufficient for the purposes at hand. See Goswick (2018b) for a detailed discussion of each clause of the definition.

  10. Sidelle's "conventionalism" and Einheuser's "conceptualism" are the same view. Both mean that modality requires humans to have certain conventions and to conceive of the world in a certain way.

  11. Einheuser on why modal property conceptualism won't work: "There is the view that our concepts project modal properties onto otherwise modally unvested objects. This view appears to imply that objects have their modal properties merely contingently. [The piece of alloy may be necessarily physical] but that is just a contingent fact about [it] for our concepts might have projected a different modal property [on to it]. That seems tantamount to giving up on the idea of de re necessity.... The conceptualist considered here maintains conceptualism not merely about modal properties but about objects: Concepts don't project modal properties onto objects. Objects themselves are, in a sense to be clarified, projections of concepts" (302).

  12. Baker takes physical aggregates and natural objects to differ from social objects in that social objects do, and the other two do not, depend on humans. However, unlike everyone else discussed, Baker takes this to be a fact of no ontological significance. In other words, she takes constructed objects to be just as ontologically real, important, etc. as are non-constructed objects. See Baker 2007.

  13. See Devitt (1984).

  14. For attempts to, see Baker (2004), Jenkins (2005), Miller (2005), Page (2006), Pettit (1991), Railton and Rosen (2009), Thomasson (2003), and Vinueza (2001).

  15. See Goswick (2018c) for a detailed description of the nature and properties of nonmodal stuff.

  16. Or energy or permutations of the quantum field or whatever it is that our best science will ultimate show is the basic building block of the physical world.

  17. To take as our starting point the claim that it's crazy to say that e.g. stars depend on humans is to privilege brute intuition over philosophical investigation which is far crazier than pursuing such questions and seeing where they lead.

  18. For what it's worth, I think there is only one argument against Local Constructivism that has any teeth. Namely, the argument that Constructivism about x gets the nature of x wrong. Local Constructivism about social objects is widely accepted because it's widely accept that it's part of the nature of e.g. money that to be money, x must be embedded in a financial system and humans are the originators of financial systems. In other words, we tend to think Local Constructivism gets the nature of social objects right. Local Constructivism about modal objects isn't widely accepted because it isn't widely accepted that it's part of the nature of e.g. rocks that to be a rock, x must have non-trivial de re modal properties and humans are the originators of these properties. In other words, we tend to think Local Constructivism about modal objects gets the nature of modal objects wrong. The Realist who disagrees with Local Constructivism about x disagrees because she thinks Local Constructivism gets the nature of x wrong, i.e. x isn't a constructed object. This is the point at which to locate criticisms of Local Constructivism.

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Acknowledgements

Thanks to the participants in my Metaphysics WIP Reading Circle who have commented on earlier versions of this paper: Sam Baron, Ben Blumson, Ant Eagle, Dan Korman, Irem Kurstal, Kris McDaniel, Kristie Miller, Alex Sandgren Talia Sellars, Jon Simon, Jenn Wang, and Al Wilson. As well as to Frank Jackson and Paul Teller.

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  1. Philosophy, Arts West, University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, 3010, Australia

    Dana Goswick

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Goswick, D. The Anti-Realist Boogeyman (And How To Avoid Him). Philosophia 51, 189–204 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-022-00531-x

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