| dc.description.abstract | This chapter presents an overview of the debate between metaphysical realism and anti-realism, as it has been carried out during the last decades. Metaphysical realism is characterized as a combination of metaphysical, semantic, and epistemic theses: first, the world consists (mostly) of mind-independent things and properties; second, truth involves a correspondence between words and the world; third, even an ideal theory could be radically false. Arguments against metaphysical realism typically aim to show that this combination of views is internally incoherent or unstable; that the metaphysical realist “cannot say what he or she wants to say” (as recently put by Tim Button). The main challenges to metaphysical realism are reviewed: Hilary Putnam’s model-theoretic argument and his “brains in a vat” argument, as well as Philip Pettit’s theory of global response-dependence of concepts. Finally, the content of metaphysical anti-realism is discussed. Critics of metaphysical realism typically want to defend common-sense realism, and the anti-realist should therefore reject either the semantic or the epistemic component of metaphysical realism (or both). However, it has turned out to be difficult to give clear positive content to such a view. | en_US |
