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Single Idea 10410
[filed under theme 7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
]
Full Idea
Anti-realists theories of measurement (like operationalism) cannot explain how we can use different methods to measure the same thing (e.g. lengths and distances in cosmology, geology, histology and atomic physics).
Clarification
'Histology' studies microscopic biological structures
Gist of Idea
Anti-realists can't explain different methods to measure distance
Source
Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2)
Book Ref
'Stanford Online Encyclopaedia of Philosophy', ed/tr. Stanford University [plato.stanford.edu], p.28
A Reaction
Swoyer says that the explanation is that measurement aims at objective properties, the same in each of these areas. Quite good.
The
36 ideas
with the same theme
[either denial of external reality, or of its having knowable structure]:
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5953
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For the Cyrenaics experience was not enough to give certainty about reality
[Aristippus young, by Plutarch]
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18876
|
Berkeley does believe in trees, but is confused about what trees are
[Berkeley, by Cameron]
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19386
|
Without the subject or the senses, space and time vanish, as their appearances disappear
[Kant]
|
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21445
|
Even the most perfect intuition gets no closer to things in themselves
[Kant]
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4167
|
The knowing subject and the crude matter of the world are both in themselves unknowable
[Schopenhauer]
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6949
|
If someone doubted reality, they would not actually feel dissatisfaction
[Peirce]
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18316
|
The grounds for an assertion that the world is only apparent actually establish its reality
[Nietzsche]
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22213
|
Absolute reality is an absurdity
[Husserl]
|
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20730
|
If objects are doubted because their appearances change, that presupposes one object
[Colvin]
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20729
|
Arguments that objects are unknowable or non-existent assume the knower's existence
[Colvin]
|
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20731
|
The idea that everything is relations is contradictory; relations are part of the concept of things
[Colvin]
|
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7545
|
Visible things are physical and external, but only exist when viewed
[Russell]
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17538
|
Quantum theory does not introduce minds into atomic events
[Heisenberg]
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23068
|
People who really believe anti-realism don't bother to prove it
[Cioran]
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17657
|
We build our world, and ignore anything that won't fit
[Goodman]
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9943
|
You can't deny a hypothesis a truth-value simply because we may never know it!
[Putnam]
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17648
|
It is an illusion to think there could be one good scientific theory of reality
[Putnam]
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14214
|
If we try to cure the abundance of theories with causal links, this is 'just more theory'
[Putnam, by Lewis]
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14205
|
The sentence 'A cat is on a mat' remains always true when 'cat' means cherry and 'mat' means tree
[Putnam]
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22181
|
Putnam says anti-realism is a bad explanation of accurate predictions
[Putnam, by Okasha]
|
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8185
|
We can't make sense of a world not apprehended by a mind
[Dummett]
|
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8192
|
I no longer think what a statement about the past says is just what can justify it
[Dummett]
|
|
3303
|
For anti-realists there are no natural distinctions between objects
[Dummett, by Benardete,JA]
|
|
8596
|
Inability to measure equality doesn't make all lengths unequal
[Shoemaker]
|
|
8597
|
We couldn't verify the earth's rotation if everyone simultaneously fell asleep
[Shoemaker]
|
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14213
|
Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth
[Lewis]
|
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7065
|
Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language
[Heil]
|
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9601
|
The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless
[Williamson]
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|
10410
|
Anti-realists can't explain different methods to measure distance
[Swoyer]
|
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14306
|
Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable
[Mumford]
|
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4711
|
Anti-realists say our theories (such as wave-particle duality) give reality incompatible properties
[O'Grady]
|
|
6780
|
Anti-realism is more plausible about laws than about entities and theories
[Bird]
|
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18693
|
Indeterminacy arguments say if a theory can be made true, it has multiple versions
[Button]
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18695
|
An ideal theory can't be wholly false, because its consistency implies a true model
[Button]
|
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19109
|
The anti-realism debate concerns whether indefeasibility is a plausible aim of inquiry
[Misak]
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12397
|
Said Plato: 'The things that we feel...
[Sommers,W]
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