And Not Anti-Realism Either

As my title suggests, this paper is another episode in a continuing story. In the last episode the body of realism was examined, the causes of its death identified, and then the project of constructing a suitable successor for these post-realist times was begun ([3]). I called that successor the "natural ontological attitude" or NOA, for short, and I shall return to it below. In today's episode, however, the subject of criticism becomes anti-realism, and this is a live and, therefore, a shiftier target. For the death of realism has revived interest in several anti-realist positions and, appropriately enough, recent philosophical work has explored modifications of these antirealisms to see whether they can be refurbished in order to take over, from realism, as the philosophy-of-science "of choice." My first object here will be to show that just as realism will not do for this choice position, neither will anti-realism. That job accomplished, I shall then sing some more in praise of NOA. To understand anti-realism we have first to backtrack a bit and re-examine realism. Given the diverse array of philosophical positions that have sought the "realist" label, it is probably not possible to give a sketch of realism that will encompass them all. Indeed, it may be hopeless to try, even, to capture the essential features of realism. Yet, that is indeed what I hope to do in identifying the core of realism with the following ideas. First, realism holds that