by Michele Marsonet (University of Genoa, Italy)

There are many problems involved in the realism/anti-realism debate, and I would like to stress that the central topic is ‘realism’ as such, which explains why issues connected to both metaphysical and scientific realism play an important role. This, of course, assuming that scientific realism can be clearly distinguished from metaphysical realism in Hilary Putnam’s sense of the word, a thesis that some, nowadays, do not feel inclined to endorse. The following are the essential points.
It is often stated that forming a ‘conception of reality’ is something dependent upon language. If a subject is to have a view about ‘reality’, he must have access to an inter-subjective standard provided by a social-linguistic world. It is only in learning a language that one gains the ability to respond conceptually to the world, because only then can a person have responses assessed by social norms.
It follows – some philosophers add – that our conception of reality depends upon factors that are not totally describable by science. That is to say, we should accept the fact that there can be no completely neuro-computational or mechanical account of how we come to have a conception of the ‘real’. This seems to jeopardize attempts to base realism on naturalism. As we know, many reject this kind of story, and insist instead on the possibility of a straight naturalistic approach. The debate on this issue is as open as ever, as the contributions by Michael Devitt clearly show.
Another important point to be made about the nature of realism as such is that, according to some authors, what basically differentiates it is the epistemological thesis that the entities to which ontological commitment is made (by human beings) exist independently of any knowledge of them. But, then, it looks possible (some even say easy) to turn the metaphysical thesis related to the existence of such entities, into an epistemological one. If so, what is at stake in the realism/anti-realism debate, is neither a question of metaphysics nor of semantics, but of epistemology. Michael Dummett, instead, believes that the true nature of metaphysical disputes about realism is that ‘they are disputes about the kind of meaning to be attached to various types of sentences’. We all know that the ‘independence thesis’ plays a key role in metaphysical realism. As Putnam remarks:

On this perspective, the world consists of some fixed totality of mind-independent objects. There is exactly one true and complete description of ‘the way the world is. Truth involves some sort of correspondence relation between words or thought-signs and external things and sets of things. I shall call this perspective the externalist perspective, because its favorite point of view is a God’s Eye point of view.

However, the use of the term ‘independence’ implies ‘independence from something’, namely the mind. Thus, according to this trend of thought, it looks as if we cannot avoid reference to minds even resorting to the most basic tenet of metaphysical realism.
Putnam in fact writes:

What the metaphysical realist holds is that we can think and talk about things as they are, independently of our minds, and that we can do this by virtue of a ‘correspondence’ relation between the terms in our language and some sorts of mind-independent entities.

The third point to be raised is the following. It is usually held that a very important issue in the general problem of realism – and in the realism/anti-realism debate as well – is anti-realism about the physical world. But to what extent is this assertion true? Sometimes philosophers charged with being anti-realists or idealists turn out not to be clearly so if one reads their works carefully. Think of the alleged ‘linguistic idealism’ in Wittgenstein’s thought: from several points of view, it is questionable to interpret Wittgenstein in this way.
The fact is that it seems wrong to equate ‘anti-realism’ and ‘idealism’. One thing is to claim that entities are made up of mental items, like classical idealists do; quite another is to say that our access to reality is always mediated by epistemic and mind-involving constraints. What distinguishes such a view from a realist one is that, unlike the realist, the antirealist can make no sense of metaphysical claims without resorting to some kind of supporting epistemology. The important point, in sum, is that to reject metaphysical realism (at least in Putnam’s sense of the term) is not the same as endorsing the view that there are ‘no mind-independent objects in the world’.
The fourth point is that it may turn out to be difficult to be realists about both common sense objects and scientific entities. According to some authors they belong, in fact, to two different conceptual schemes (as Sellars, for example, claims and van Fraassen denies). But it is true that any attempt at reconciling the two schemes, or at reducing them to one, gives rise to problems which admit no easy solution. It has often been claimed, in fact, that the ontology of the two schemes seems to be incompatible under many respects, and that one scheme (usually common sense) is fated to be replaced by the other (science). A scientifically oriented philosopher might at this point be tempted to state the absolute superiority of the scientific world-view, but there are many doubts about the possibility of attributing to science such a primary role in assessing any kind of conceptual scheme.
Strictly connected to these remarks is the issue of the relations between metaphysics and epistemology. Many realists claim that metaphysical questions should be kept separate from epistemological issues. But can we really do this? And what does the expression ‘straightforwardly metaphysical’ mean? After all, any kind of ontology is characterized by the fact that the things of nature are seen by us in terms of a conceptual apparatus that is always – and substantially – influenced by mind-involving elements. It might be stated that ontology’s task is to discover what kinds of entities make up the world, while epistemology’s job is to find out what are the principles by which we get to know reality. It is obvious, however, that if our conceptual apparatus is at work even when we try to pave our way towards an unconceptualized reality, our access to it entails anyhow the involvement of the mind. Naturalization of the mind – and of its activities – is an obvious answer to this problem but, as I said at the beginning, the agreement on naturalization cannot be taken for granted.
We must thus face the question of ‘ontological pluralism’, a basic tenet of contemporary neopragmatism. Ontological pluralism is in turn connected to the existence of possible alternative ways of conceptualizing the world. It has, in fact, been noted that our world view can never be absolute, and that intelligent creatures whose experiential modes are substantially different from our own are bound to conceptualize reality in a diverse way. If so, it would seem to follow that any objective ontology should be left in the background.
The seventh and last point is the following. We are confronted, eventually, by a crucial question: what kind of realism – if any – are we allowed to endorse? It is often stated that, in order to provide realism with a solid foundation, we need having recourse to a reality that is totally independent of thought (and let alone of language). This is taken to be the key thesis of realism. But many philosophers reply that, even when we imagine a world totally devoid of human presence, we must use human concepts. From this point of view, conceptualization does not seem to be an optional we can get rid of, but rather a built-in component of the nature of human beings.
However, such remarks do not necessarily lead towards some form of anti-realism. It is possible to state that, due to our cognitive position in the world and its limitations, the perspective provided by the conceptual framework we employ cannot be transcended. This amounts to saying that, although the world does not need our participation in order to be, our epistemic access to the world is given by such participation. Any description, thus, is bound to be determined by our operational perspectives.
Nothing prevents us from claiming that objective reality – a reality which does not depend on our cognitive capacities – is there. But, of course, a strong realist is not likely to be satisfied with such an answer, because this position corresponds, more or less, to what Micheal Devitt defines as ‘Weak, or Fig-Leaf, Realism’, that is to say, a commitment to there being just something independent of us.
In the last analysis, it may turn out that realism still is an arguable and defendable position. If one asks what difference it makes, the answer is that realism is likely to undermine the largely diffused anthropocentric stance which identifies reality with our (limited) knowledge of it. As I said, a strong realist cannot be satisfied with this, but the question to be asked is: are we in a position to say anything more? A commitment to there just being something independent of us is enough for establishing, at least, the basic tenet of metaphysical realism in Putnam’s sense. On the other hand, to say more than this means to get involved in disputes which stem not only from the philosophical field, but also from science itself (quantum theory being a paradigmatic example).