Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T06:05:24.247Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Horwich on ‘Semantic’ and ‘Metaphysical’ Realism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 April 2022

David Davies
David Davies*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Western Ontario
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Horwich argues that we should reject metaphysical realism, but that we can preserve semantic realism by adhering to a redundancy theory of truth and a confirmationist account of linguistic understanding. But the latter will give us semantic realism only if it allows that the truth-values of sentences may transcend our recognitional capacities, and this is possible only insofar as we covertly reintroduce metaphysical realism. In spite of its intuitive appeal, we should not endorse semantic realism, but this need not bear upon the tenability of scientific realism.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 54 , Issue 4 , December 1987 , pp. 539 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © 1987 by the Philosophy of Science Association

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

†

I wish to thank Robert Butts, William Demopoulos, William Harper, Kathleen Okruhlik, and two anonymous referees for Philosophy of Science for most helpful discussions of these issues and criticisms of earlier incarnations of this paper.

References

Dummett, M. (1976), “What is a Theory of Meaning? (II)”, in Evans, G. and McDowell, J. (eds.), Truth and Meaning. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 67–137.Google Scholar
Goodman, N. (1978), Ways of Worldmaking. Indianapolis: Hackett.Google Scholar
Horwich, P. (1982), “Three Forms of Realism”, Synthese 51: 181–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, D. (1984), “Putnam's Paradox”, Australasian Journal of Philosophy 62: 221–236.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (1978), Meaning and the Moral Sciences. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Putnam, H. (1982a), “Three Kinds of Scientific Realism”, Philosophical Quarterly 128: 195–200.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, H. (1982b), “Why There Isn't a Ready-Made World”, Synthese 51: 141–167.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wright, C. (1976), “Truth Conditions and Criteria”, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume: 217–245.Google Scholar
Wright, C. (1985), Review of S. Blackburn, Spreading the Word, Mind 374: 310–319.Google Scholar