Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Putnam's Paradox' and 'Representation and Reality'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Realists believe truth is correspondence, independent of humans, is bivalent, and is unique [Putnam]
     Full Idea: Metaphysical realism about truth is a bundle of ideas: that it is a matter of Correspondence, that it exhibits Independence (of humans), Bivalence, and Uniqueness (there is only one ultimate truth).
     From: Hilary Putnam (Representation and Reality [1988], §7 p.107)
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
Anti-realists see the world as imaginary, or lacking joints, or beyond reference, or beyond truth [Lewis]
     Full Idea: Anti-realists say the only world is imaginary, or only has the parts or classes or relations we divide it into, or doubt that reference to the world is possible, or doubt that our interpretations can achieve truth.
     From: David Lewis (Putnam's Paradox [1984], 'Why Anti-R')
     A reaction: [compression of a paragraph on anti-realism] Lewis is a thoroughgoing realist. A nice example of the rhetorical device of ridiculing an opponent by suggesting that they don't even know what they themselves believe.