Talk:Anti-realism

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Actually I would rather describe anti-realists as being agnostics toward "reality" and Irrealists as being open to all workable versions. e.g. Realism works some of the time.Joseane 15:24, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

Might want to make a clearer definition in the link to Goodmanian Irrealism... JB

I've outlined the beginnings of a page here, but there is much more to be said. We need to mention the different kinds of anti-realism, and the major proponents of an anti-realist position in a variety of different areas... MRC

Added some comments about the use of the term "anti-realism" in the arts with a warning that the term may not be used as precisely as in pure philosophy.

Daniel C. Boyer


I don't think Hacking believes electrons don't exist because they are unobservable. As such the statement may be misleading. I think Hacking's position (see Leplin "Scientific Realism") is that once an entity is used as a tool the reality is assumed to exist. By way of example, since electron microscopes are used as tools scientists have committed to their ontological reality.

We should also mention his non-philosophical activities: eg. his anti-racism, his work on election systems, his work on the history of Tarot.

Surely that is better served as an independent page on the guy himself? - Entsuropi

Contents

[edit] Beliefs of classical logicians (mathematical realists)

I have re-worded:

Similarly, intuitionistists object to the failure of the existence property for classical logic, where one can prove \exists x.\phi(x), without there being some term t for which φ(t) is provable.

to be

Similarly, intuitionistists object to the failure of the existence property for classical logic, where one can prove \exists x.\phi(x), without being able to produce any term t of which φ holds.

I think that classical logicians believe that there real mathematical things which they cannot construct (I used the unformal word `produce'), but which nonetheless exist. So when a classical logician gives a non-constructive proof of \exists x.\phi(x) he or she really does believe that there is some suitable term. But I confess I don't really understand what classical mathematicians mean when they say 'exists' Neil Leslie 10:54, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

The change is a good one. Classical logicians believe that one can have abstract grounds for believing in the existence of an entity without being able to produce it: the famous non-constructive proof of the existence of two irrationals that can be combined by the exponential operator to produce a rational shows what kind of grounds are indicated here. If you want to get philosophical, Michael Dummett's talk about verification transcendence cuts to the meat here. --- Charles Stewart 13:41, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Timothy Williamson's "Must Do Better"

I think it might be worth noting somewhere in this article Tim Williamson's paper "Must Do Better", which I think is available somewhere on his website, which criticizes anti-realism and made quite a stir when it was first given. Yesterdog 21:05, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] American Evangelicals are so special??

the material world, or even thought. Anti-realism, as a psychological construct, is most often found among American evangelical Christians.[citation needed]

This needs more than just a citation needed since:

1- It doesn't make much sense ( "As a psychological construct"?) 2- It is false.

Honestly I have a hard time believing that Evangelists are antirealists - if antirealism is "true" there is no objective reality and thus "God's view" is perspective and not actually "true". Please, please reference the American Evangelical bit! They might be anti-realists in one sense scientifcally (they don't believe electron's really exist, for example) but I thought if that happened they tended to believe God is there instead - "objectively" there, realistically there. Certain realists have given their POV that American Evangelists are anti-realist (and non-cognitive), but that doesn't mean they are. mr_happyhour

(I moved the last comments under this heading.) I agree; this line baffled me when I came across it. There's no other mention of a 'psychological construct', this article explores a philosophical one. And why should this particular group be singled out, anyway? Deleted.Eaglizard 07:38, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External World

The article is very limited. It implies that anti-realists deny the existence of the external world. This isn't necessarily the case, certainly in the most simple (and I think sensible) interpretation. External, 'objective' things clearly 'exist', the anti-realist position as I understand it is that the concepts that define those external things only exist in the minds of the perceiver. The 'classic' example being the table that is actually a 'bunch' or 'bundle' of energy arranged in a certain way. That is its 'objective reality'. Its existence as a 'real' table is entirely dependent on the minds of the subjects perceiving it. Thus no 'thing' is real except by having been defined as such by something perceiving it. If there were no-one around to see it as a table and put stuff on it, it wouldn't be a table, even though the 'bundle of energy' we call a table would still be there.

I've just noticed the American Evangelical point. Denying the existence of something is very different to being an anti-realist. American Evangelicals are the ultimate realists, everything is real in the external, objective world, whether you perceive it correctly or not, because of the existence of God. God is the basis of the underlying reality of all things, the guarantor of the external world. If you believe in God (certainly as that word is usually understood) then you're a realist. Denying the existence of electrons is simply on a par with denying evolution. 00Mike26 (talk) 22:26, 20 March 2008 (UTC)