Aberrations of the Realism Debate*

This chapter begins by arguing that contrary to received opinion, the issue of realism about the physical world has almost nothing to do with semantic issues about truth. It follows that it is an aberration to identify the two issues (Dummett), to dismiss the realism issue out of hostility to correspondence truth (Rorty, Fine), to think that the realism issue is one of interpretation, or to argue against realism by criticizing various claims about truth and reference (Putnam, Laudan). It is also an aberration to identify realism with nonskepticism (Margolis), truth-as-the-aim-of-science (van...

This chapter begins by arguing that contrary to received opinion, the issue of realism about the physical world has almost nothing to do with semantic issues about truth. It follows that it is an aberration to identify the two issues (Dummett), to dismiss the realism issue out of hostility to correspondence truth (Rorty, Fine), to think that the realism issue is one of interpretation, or to argue against realism by criticizing various claims about truth and reference (Putnam, Laudan). It is also an aberration to identify realism with nonskepticism (Margolis), truth-as-the-aim-of-science (van Fraassen), or scientific convergence (Blackburn). Realism is an overarching metaphysical issue which should be settled before any of these epistemological and semantic issues.