Internal realism

Synthese ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 76 (3) ◽  
pp. 409-434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian Ellis
Keyword(s):  
Internal Realism

scholarly journals Edgar Wind on Experiment and Metaphysics

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Brigitte Falkenburg
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Art History ◽  
Philosophy Of Physics ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
American Pragmatism ◽  
Theory Formation ◽  
Internal Realism ◽  
Detailed Interpretation ◽  
Holistic Theory ◽  
Central Claim

Abstract The paper presents a detailed interpretation of Edgar Wind’s Experiment and Metaphysics (1934), a unique work on the philosophy of physics which broke with the Neo-Kantian tradition under the influence of American pragmatism. Taking up Cassirer’s interpretation of physics, Wind develops a holistic theory of the experiment and a constructivist account of empirical facts. Based on the concept of embodiment which plays a key role in Wind’s later writings on art history, he argues, however, that the outcomes of measurements are contingent. He then proposes an anti-Kantian conception of a metaphysics of nature. For him, nature is an unknown totality which manifests itself in discrepancies between theories and experiment, and hence the theory formation of physics can increasingly approximate the structure of nature. It is shown that this view is ambiguous between a transcendental, metaphysical realism in Kant’s sense and an internal realism in Putnam’s sense. Wind’s central claim is that twentieth century physics offers new options for resolving Kant’s cosmological antinomies. In particular, he connected quantum indeterminism with the possibility of human freedom, a connection that Cassirer sharply opposed.

A Traveller's Guide to Putnam's “Narrow Path”

Dialogue ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 117-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Davies
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Relativism ◽  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
Internal Realism ◽  
Present Volume ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Many

It is now over 15 years since Hilary Putnam first urged that we take the “narrow path” of internal realism as a way of navigating between “the swamps of metaphysics and the quicksands of cultural relativism and historicism” (1983, p. 226). In the opening lines of the Preface to Realism with a Human Face, a collection of Putnam's recent papers edited by James Conant, Putnam reaffirms his allegiance to this narrow path, unmoved by Realist murmurings from the swamps and laconic Rortian suggestions that only the quicksands are a proper metaphilosophical abode for those willing to confront our lack of epistemological and metaphysical foundations. If there are changes to be discerned in these writings, Putnam avers, they pertain only to the burden allotted to different considerations in the overall economy of his argument: “It might be said that the difference between the present volume and my work prior to The Many Faces of Realism is a shift in emphasis: a shift from emphasizing model-theoretic arguments against metaphysical realism to emphasizing conceptual relativity” (p. xi).

Naturalism, Realism, and Normativity

2015 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
HILARY PUTNAM
Keyword(s):  
Detailed Analysis ◽  
Metaphysical Realism ◽  
Internal Realism ◽  
The World ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Liberal Naturalism ◽  
Normative Judgments

ABSTRACT:This essay describes three commitments that have become central to the author's philosophical outlook, namely, to liberal naturalism, to metaphysical realism, and to the epistemic and ontological objectivity of normative judgments.Liberal naturalismis contrasted with familiar scientistic versions of naturalism and their project of forcing explanations in every field into models derived from one or another particular science. The form ofmetaphysical realismthat the author endorses rejects every form of verificationism, including the author's one-time ‘internal realism’, and insists that our claims about the world are true or false and not just epistemically successful or unsuccessful and that the terms they contain typically refer to real entities. ‘Representationalism is no sin’. The central part of the essay is an account oftruthbased on a detailed analysis of Tarski's theory of truth and of the insights we can get from it as well as of the respects in which Tarski is misleading. (This part goes beyond what the author has previously published on the subject.) The account ofthe objectivity of the normativein this essay draws on insights from Dewey as well as Scanlon.

A dilemma for internal realism

1990 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-106 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul K. Moser
Keyword(s):  
Internal Realism

scholarly journals Internal Realism: Transcendental Idealism?

1988 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 145-155
Author(s):  
Curtis Brown ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Transcendental Idealism ◽  
Internal Realism

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document