Defending Realism

Ontological and Epistemological Investigations

Guido Bonino, Greg Jesson, Javier Cumpa, Guido Bonino, Greg Jesson, Javier Cumpa

• Publisher: De Gruyter
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN:
  9781614519300
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophical Metaphysics

The essays in this volume, first presented at an international conference held at the University of Urbino, Italy, in 2011, explore the different senses of realism, arguing both for and against its distinctive theses and considering these senses from a historical point of view. The first sense is the metaphysical thesis that whatever exists does so, and has the properties it has, independently of whether it is the object of a person's thought or perception. The second sense of realism is epistemological, wherein realism claims that, in some cases, it is possible to know the world as it exists in and of itself. A third sense, which has become known as ontological realism, states that universals exist as well as individuals. The essays collected here make new contributions to these fundamental philosophical issues, which have largely defined western analytic philosophy, from Plato and Aristotle to the present day.

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Two Arguments against Antirealism in Relation to Artefact Kinds
• Realism, Tense, and Context Sensitivity
• Proof of the Existence of Universals—from a Fallibilist
• Methodological Cartesianism
• The Transparency Objection against Modal Anti-Realism and the Paradox of Conceivability
• Temporal Realism and the R-Theory
• Was Frege a Realist? And, if so, in What Sense?
• Is Exemplification Absurd? A Note on Lowe’s Criticism
• Why Realism Needs Ontology
• The Impossibility of Philosophical Skepticism
• Metaphysical Realism and Castañeda’s Minimal Transcendental Realism
• Realism and Intentionality
• Defending Deployment Realism against Alleged Counterexamples
• Fiction in Science? Exploring the Reality of Theoretical Entities
• Does Bell’s Theorem Imply Metaphysical Realism?
• Semantic Antirealism: Last Gasp
• The Reality of Linguistic Norms or Linguistic Rules Rule
• On Russell’s Robust Sense of Reality
• Austrian Logical Realism? Brentano on States of Affairs
• Realism versus Idealism in the Nature-Nurture Dispute
• What Does Realism Entail for the Humanist?
• Name Index