Antirealism and the Roles of Truth

Abstract

The position indicated by the term “antirealism” has come to the fore in philosophical discussion during the last thirty years, largely as a result of the writings of Michael Dummett.¹ Prima facie one would expect an antirealist critique of realism to comprise two parts: a negative part (as the name indicates) criticising the realist view, and a positive part setting out a constructive alternative to the realist position. The tradition starting with Dummett, it is fair to say, has mainly been concerned with the negative part of antirealism. Here, however, the antirealist appears to have a large, and definite, disadvantage in his perennial discussion with the realist, purely in virtue of the chosen label; his position is laid down negatively in opposition to a prior realist position. Accordingly, the antirealist’s campaign will be fought on a field determined by his opponent, and in terms chosen by him. Therefore, in this Chapter, I do not take the views of Dummett as my point of departure, especially since the need for a survey of antirealism from this perspective has been excellently met by Hale (1997). Furthermore, in a Handbook of Epistemology, this manner of proceeding (that is, not taking Dummett’s views as the point of departure) is quite appropriate, since one of Dummett’s main tenets is the primacy of the theory of meaning over the theory of knowledge. Instead, I discuss a number of traditional epistemological notions and theories from an antirealist standpoint, and I also treat of the early work in modern mathematical intuitionism that provided the inspiration for much of the current work on semantical antirealism. Thus the present Chapter can be seen as providing an epistemological and philosophico-mathematical background to the modern semantical versions of antirealism.