Replies to essays

Michael Dummett

pp. 219-330

in: Barry M. Taylor (ed), Michael Dummett, Berlin, Springer, 1987

Abstract

Crispin Wright" interesting essay examines, and throws useful light on, fundamental issues concerning realism. What first interested me in this subject was a perception of strong analogies between a variety of metaphysical disputes, each of which could be regarded as a dispute over the correctness of a realist view of a certain subject-matter. Often one may say, "of certain things' (metal processes, material objects, mathematical entities); but disputes concerning the reality of the future or the past could harldly be so described, and it thus seemed better to say "of certain statements". I never supposed that a precise analogy obtained between any two of these disputes, only that there was a sufficient analogy to make a comparative study of them fruitful. One of the points of analogy was the salient role that the principle of bivalence frequently played. The colourless term "anti-realism" was deliberately chosen because, although there was a family resemblance between the arguments employed by the opponents of realism concerning different subject-matters - different classes of statments - the metaphysical character of their conclusions different markedly. The phenomenalist opponent of realism concerning the physical universe adopted a form of idealism; the behaviourist opponent of realism concerning mental states and processes gave comfort to materialism.

Cited authors

Wright Crispin