| 5953 | For the Cyrenaics experience was not enough to give certainty about reality [Aristippus young, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: The Cyrenaics, placing all experience within themselves, thought such evidence was insufficient warrant for certainty about reality, and withdrew as in a siege from the world, admitting that objects 'appear', but refusing to pronounce the word 'are'. | |
| From: report of Aristippus the younger (fragments/reports [c.335 BCE]) by Plutarch - 74: Reply to Colotes §1120 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the most extreme position found in ancient thought. It accompanies their extreme hedonism, based on the reality of experience and lack of interest in anything external. A bit daft, really. |
| 18876 | Berkeley does believe in trees, but is confused about what trees are [Berkeley, by Cameron] |
| Full Idea: I think that we should consider Berkeley as believing in trees; we should simply claim that he has false beliefs about what trees are. | |
| From: report of George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]) by Ross P. Cameron - Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology 'Realism' | |
| A reaction: I can be realist about spots before my eyes, or a ringing in my ears, but be (quite sensibly) unsure about what they are, so Cameron's suggestion sounds plausible. |
| 19386 | Without the subject or the senses, space and time vanish, as their appearances disappear [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If we remove our own subject or even ....the senses in general, then all the constitution, all relations of objects in space and time, indeed space and time themselves would disappear, and as appearances they cannot exist in themselves, but only in us. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B059/A42) | |
| A reaction: This is as clear a statement of anti-realist idealism as I have ever found in Kant. You can interpret him as a thorough scientific realist, but you have to put a tricky spin on passages like this. Or maybe only the 'appearances' of space and time vanish? |
| 21445 | Even the most perfect intuition gets no closer to things in themselves [Kant] |
| Full Idea: Even if we could bring this intuition of ours to the highest degree of distinctiveness we would not thereby come any closer to the constitution of objects in themselves. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B060/A43) | |
| A reaction: Either slightly ridiculous anti-realism, or a self-evident platitude. Personally I think I know the reality of trees pretty well, but to totally embrace their constitution I would have to become a tree (an Ent). My experience of me is only partial. |
| 4167 | The knowing subject and the crude matter of the world are both in themselves unknowable [Schopenhauer] |
| Full Idea: The world has two poles - the knowing subject and crude matter, which are both completely unknowable, the former because it is the knower, the latter because without form and quality it cannot be perceived. | |
| From: Arthur Schopenhauer (The World as Will and Idea [1819], I Supp) | |
| A reaction: A nice concept, that all of reality comes from their relationship, but the two components are intrinsically unknowable. Does God the Knower know his own mind? |
| 6949 | If someone doubted reality, they would not actually feel dissatisfaction [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: Nobody can really doubt that there are Reals, for, if he did, doubt would not be a source of dissatisfaction. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (The Fixation of Belief [1877], p.19) | |
| A reaction: This rests on Peirce's view that all that really matters is a sense of genuine dissatisfaction, rather than a theoretical idea. So even at the end of Meditation One, Descartes isn't actually worried about whether his furniture exists. |
| 18316 | The grounds for an assertion that the world is only apparent actually establish its reality [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: The grounds upon which 'this' world has been designated as apparent establish rather its reality - another kind of reality is absolutely undemonstrable. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols [1889], 2.6) |
| 22213 | Absolute reality is an absurdity [Husserl] |
| Full Idea: An absolute reality is just as valid as a round square. | |
| From: Edmund Husserl (Ideas: intro to pure phenomenology [1913], II.3.055) | |
| A reaction: Husserl distances himself from 'Berkeleyian' idealism, but his discussion keeps flirting with, perhaps in some sort of have-your-cake-and-eat-it Hegelian way. Perhaps it is close to Dummett's Anti-Realism. |
| 20730 | If objects are doubted because their appearances change, that presupposes one object [Colvin] |
| Full Idea: If objects are doubted because the same object appears differently at different times and circumstances, in order that this judgement shall have weight it must be assumed that the object under question is the same in its different presentations. | |
| From: Stephen S. Colvin (The Common-Sense View of Reality [1902], p.145) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Scepticism could eat into the underlying object as well. Is the underlying object a 'substrate'? If so, what's that? Is the object just a bundle of a properties? If so, there is no underlying object. |
| 20729 | Arguments that objects are unknowable or non-existent assume the knower's existence [Colvin] |
| Full Idea: Arguments for the absolute unknowability or non-existence of an external object only works by assuming that another external object, an individual, is known completely in so far as that individual expresses a judgement about an external object. | |
| From: Stephen S. Colvin (The Common-Sense View of Reality [1902], p.145) | |
| A reaction: Anti-realism is a decay that eats into everything. You can't doubt all the externals without doubting all the internals as well. |
| 20731 | The idea that everything is relations is contradictory; relations are part of the concept of things [Colvin] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine [that all we can know is the relations between subject and object] is in its essence self-contradictory, since our very idea of thing implies that it is something in relation either actually or potentially. | |
| From: Stephen S. Colvin (The Common-Sense View of Reality [1902], p.150) | |
| A reaction: Ladyman and Ross try to defend an account of reality based entirely on relations. I'm with Colvin on this one. All accounts of reality based either on pure relations or pure functions have a huge hole in their theory. |
| 7545 | Visible things are physical and external, but only exist when viewed [Russell] |
| Full Idea: I believe that common sense is right in regarding what we see as physical and (in one of several possible senses) outside the mind, but is probably wrong in supposing that it continues to exist when we are no longer looking at it. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.123) | |
| A reaction: This remark (in 1915) is a bit startling from a philosopher well known for his robustly realist stance. Just one of his phases! It seems very counterintuitive - that objects really exist externally, but only when viewed. Schrödinger's Cat? |
| 17538 | Quantum theory does not introduce minds into atomic events [Heisenberg] |
| Full Idea: Certainly quantum theory does not contain genuine subjective features, it does not introduce the mind of the physicist as a part of the atomic event. | |
| From: Werner Heisenberg (Physics and Philosophy [1958], 03) | |
| A reaction: This should be digested by anyone who wants to erect some dodgy anti-realist, idealist, subjective metaphysics on the basis of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. |
| 23068 | People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it [Cioran] |
| Full Idea: When you know quite absolutely that everything is unreal, you then cannot see why you should take the trouble to prove it. | |
| From: E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 02) | |
| A reaction: Does the same apply to realists? There are at least genuine arguments in both directions. Presumably the thought is that realists have something they care about, but true anti-realists don't. |
| 17657 | We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit [Goodman] |
| Full Idea: We dismiss as illusory or negligible what cannot be fitted into the architecture of the world we are building. | |
| From: Nelson Goodman (Ways of Worldmaking [1978], 1.4d) | |
| A reaction: I'm trying to think of an example of this, but can't. Maybe poor people are invisible to the rich? |
| 9943 | You can't deny a hypothesis a truth-value simply because we may never know it! [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: Surely the mere fact that we may never know whether the continuum hypothesis is true or false is by itself just no reason to think that it doesn't have a truth value! | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Mathematics without Foundations [1967]) | |
| A reaction: This is Putnam in 1967. Things changed later. Personally I am with the younger man all they way, but I reserve the right to totally change my mind. |
| 17648 | It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a coherent theory of the noumena; consistent, systematic, and arrived at by 'the scientific method' seems to me to be chimerical. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Why there isn't a ready-made world [1981], 'Failure') | |
| A reaction: I sort of agree with this, but it definitely doesn't make me an anti-realist. |
| 14214 | If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory' [Putnam, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: If we try to base determinate reference on natural causal connection, Putnam says this is just more theory, as subject as any theory to overabundant, conflicting intended interpretations. | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981]) by David Lewis - Putnam's Paradox 'Why Are' | |
| A reaction: This is the 1981 Putnam, moving away from the realism that was implicit in the original causal theory of reference developed by himself and Kripke. His 'just more theory' is the slogan of Putnam's later anti-realism. |
| 14205 | The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree [Putnam] |
| Full Idea: The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' can be reinterpreted so that in the actual world 'cat' refers to cherries and 'mat' refers to trees, without affecting the truth-value of the sentence in any possible world. | |
| From: Hilary Putnam (Reason, Truth and History [1981], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This simple suggestion is the basis of a notorious argument in favour of anti-realism. See D.Lewis's 'Putnam's Paradox'. It tracks back to Skolem's doubts about whether infinitary mathematics is possible. Putnam's conclusion sounds daft. |
| 22181 | Putnam says anti-realism is a bad explanation of accurate predictions [Putnam, by Okasha] |
| Full Idea: Putnam's 'no miracle' argument says that being an anti-realist is akin to believing in miracles (because of the accurate predictons). …It is a plausibility argument - an inference to the best explanation. | |
| From: report of Hilary Putnam (works [1980]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 4 | |
| A reaction: [not sure of ref] Putnam later backs off from this argument, but my personal realism rests on best explanation. Does anyone want to prefer an inferior explanation? The objection is that successful theories can turn out to be false. Phlogiston, ether. |
| 8185 | We can't make sense of a world not apprehended by a mind [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: We can make no clear sense of there being a world that is not apprehended by any mind. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Thought and Reality [1997], 8) | |
| A reaction: I find Dummett's view quite baffling. It is no coincidence that Dummett is a theist, along (it seems) Berkeleian lines. I see no more problem with imagining such worlds than with imagining ships sunken long ago which will never be found. |
| 8192 | I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it [Dummett] |
| Full Idea: In distinguishing between what can establish a statement about the past as true and what it is that that statement says, we are repudiating antirealism about the past. | |
| From: Michael Dummett (Truth and the Past [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is a late shift of ground from the champion of antirealism. If Dummett's whole position is based on a 'justificationist' theory of meaning, he must surely have a different theory of meaning now for statements about the past? |
| 3303 | For anti-realists there are no natural distinctions between objects [Dummett, by Benardete,JA] |
| Full Idea: Dummett says that anti-realism offers us a picture of reality as an amorphous lump not yet articulated into discrete objects. | |
| From: report of Michael Dummett (works [1970]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This might be called 'weak' anti-realism, where 'strong' anti-realism is the view that reality is quite unknowable, and possibly non-existent. |
| 8596 | Inability to measure equality doesn't make all lengths unequal [Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: It is not plausible to argue from the fact (if it is one) that it is impossible to verify that two things are exactly equal in length to the conclusion that any two things necessarily differ in length. | |
| From: Sydney Shoemaker (Time Without Change [1969], p.58) | |
| A reaction: A beautifully simple point against anti-realist or verificationist views of the measurement of length. In any case where we can approach perfect precision, but not quite get there, the anti-realist view looks wildly implausible. |
| 8597 | We couldn't verify the earth's rotation if everyone simultaneously fell asleep [Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: It would be impossible to verify directly that the rotation of the earth would continue if everyone in the universe were sound asleep, yet it is clearly possible that everyone in the universe should at some time be sound asleep. | |
| From: Sydney Shoemaker (Time Without Change [1969], p.59) | |
| A reaction: Another beautifully simple argument from Shoemaker against anti-realism (cf. Ideas 8595, 8956). This one is nice because it is so obviously possible, given that everyone able to know of the earth's rotation also seems to need sleep. |
| 14213 | Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Anti-realists say the only world is imaginary, or only has the parts or classes or relations we divide it into, or doubt that reference to the world is possible, or doubt that our interpretations can achieve truth. | |
| From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Why Anti-R') | |
| A reaction: [compression of a paragraph on anti-realism] Lewis is a thoroughgoing realist. A nice example of the rhetorical device of ridiculing an opponent by suggesting that they don't even know what they themselves believe. |
| 7065 | Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Anti-realist philosophers, and those who hope to reduce metaphysics to (or replace it with) the philosophy of language, owe the rest of us an account of the ontology of language. | |
| From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.6) | |
| A reaction: A nice turning-the-tables question. In all accounts of relativism, x is usually said to be relative to y. You haven't got proper relativism if you haven't relativised both x and y. But relativised them to what? Nietzsche's 'perspectivism' (Idea 4420)? |
| 9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
| Full Idea: The debate between realism and anti-realism has become notorious in the rest of philosophy for its obscurity, convolution, and lack of progress. | |
| From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], After) | |
| A reaction: I find this reassuring, because fairly early on I decided that this problem was not of great interest, and quietly tiptoed away. I take the central issue to be whether nature has 'joints', to which the answer appears to be 'yes'. End of story. |
| 10410 | Anti-realists can't explain different methods to measure distance [Swoyer] |
| Full Idea: Anti-realists theories of measurement (like operationalism) cannot explain how we can use different methods to measure the same thing (e.g. lengths and distances in cosmology, geology, histology and atomic physics). | |
| From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: Swoyer says that the explanation is that measurement aims at objective properties, the same in each of these areas. Quite good. |
| 14306 | Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The anti-realist declines to permit that all statements have truth-values. ...The essence of the anti-realist position is that evidence and ontology cannot be separated. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.6) | |
| A reaction: [second half on p.51] The idea that evidence and ontology are 'inseparable' strikes me as an absurd idea. The proposal that you should not speculate about ontology without some sort of evidence is, of course, not unreasonable. |
| 4711 | Anti-realists say our theories (such as wave-particle duality) give reality incompatible properties [O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: The anti-realist says we have theories about the world that are incompatible with each other, and irreducible to each other. They often cite wave-particle duality, which postulate incompatible properties to reality. | |
| From: Paul O'Grady (Relativism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Most physicists, of course, hate this duality, precisely because they can't conceive how the two properties could be real. I say realism comes first, and the theories must try to accommodate that assumption. |
| 6780 | Anti-realism is more plausible about laws than about entities and theories [Bird] |
| Full Idea: There is anti-realism with regard to unobservable entities and the theories that purport to mention them, but the more plausible version attaches to theories concerning what laws of nature are. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds right. I certainly find anti-realism about the entities of science utterly implausible. I also doubt whether there is any such thing as a law, above and beyond the behaviour of matter. Theories float between the two. |
| 18693 | Indeterminacy arguments say if a theory can be made true, it has multiple versions [Button] |
| Full Idea: Indeterminacy arguments aim to show that if there is any way to make a theory true, then there are many ways to do so. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: Button says the simplest indeterminacy argument is Putnam's Permutation Argument - that you can shuffle the objects in a formal model, without affecting truth. But do we belief that metaphysics can be settled in this sort of way? |
| 18695 | An ideal theory can't be wholly false, because its consistency implies a true model [Button] |
| Full Idea: If realists think an ideal theory could be false, then the theory is consistent, and hence complete, and hence finitely modellable, and hence it is guaranteed that there is some way to make it true. | |
| From: Tim Button (The Limits of Reason [2013], 02.2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This challenges the realists' supposed claim that even the most ideal of theories could possibly be false. Presumably for a theory to be 'ideal' is not all-or-nothing. Are we capable of creating a fully ideal theory? [Löwenheim-Skolem] |
| 19109 | The anti-realism debate concerns whether indefeasibility is a plausible aim of inquiry [Misak] |
| Full Idea: If indefeasibility turns out to be something we can't sensibly aim at in a kind of inquiry, then the judgements that arise from that kind of 'inquiry' are not truth-apt. It is here that the realism/anti-realism debate resides. | |
| From: Cheryl Misak (Pragmatism and Deflationism [2007], 4) | |
| A reaction: A very interesting way of presenting the issue, one that makes the debate sound (to me) considerably more interesting than hitherto. I may start using the word 'indefeasible' rather a lot, in my chats with the anti-realist philosophical multitude. |
| 12397 | Said Plato: 'The things that we feel... [Sommers,W] |
| Full Idea: Said Plato: 'The things that we feel/ Are not ontologically real,/ But just the excrescence/ Of numinous essence/ Our senses can never reveal.' [Basil Ransome-Davis] | |
| From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |