## 1. Preliminaries



Three preliminary comments are needed. Firstly, there has been a great
deal of debate in recent philosophy about the relationship between
realism, construed as a metaphysical doctrine, and doctrines in the
theory of meaning and philosophy of language concerning the nature of
truth and its role in accounts of linguistic understanding (see
Dummett 1978 and Devitt 1991a for radically different views on the
issue). Independent of the issue about the relationship between
metaphysics and the theory of meaning, the well-known disquotational
properties of the truth-predicate allow claims about objects,
properties, and facts to be framed as claims about the truth of
sentences. Since:



'The moon is spherical' is true if and only if the moon is
spherical,




the claim that the moon exists and is spherical independently of
anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices and conceptual schemes,
can be framed as the claim that the sentences 'The moon
exists' and 'The moon is spherical' are true
independently of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices,
conceptual schemes and so on. As Devitt points out (1991b: 46)
availing oneself of this way of talking does not entail that one sees
the metaphysical issue of realism as 'really' a semantic
issue about the nature of truth (if it did, any question about any
subject matter would turn out to be 'really' a semantic
issue).



Secondly, although in introducing the notion of realism above mention
is made of objects, properties, and facts, no theoretical weight is
attached to the notion of a 'fact', or the notions of
'object' and 'property'. To say that it is a
fact that the moon is spherical is just to say that the object, the
moon, instantiates the property of being spherical, which is just to
say that the moon is spherical. There are substantial metaphysical
issues about the nature of facts, objects, and properties, and the
relationships between them (see Mellor and Oliver 1997 and Lowe 2002,
part IV), but these are not of concern here.



Thirdly, as stated above, Generic Realism about the mental or the
intentional would strictly speaking appear to be ruled out *ab
initio*, since clearly Jones' believing that Cardiff is in
Wales is not independent of facts about belief: trivially, it is
dependent on the fact that Jones believes that Cardiff is in Wales.
However, such trivial dependencies are not what are at issue in
debates between realists and non-realists about the mental and the
intentional. A non-realist who objected to the independence dimension
of realism about the mental would claim that Jones' believing
that Cardiff is in Wales depends in some *non-trivial* sense on
facts about beliefs, etc.


## 2. Views Opposing the Existence Dimension (I): Error-Theory and Arithmetic



There are at least two distinct ways in which a non-realist can reject
the existence dimension of realism about a particular subject matter.
The first of these rejects the existence dimension by rejecting the
claim that the distinctive objects of that subject-matter exist, while
the second admits that those objects exist but denies that they
instantiate any of the properties distinctive of that subject-matter.
Non-realism of the first kind can be illustrated via Hartry
Field's error-theoretic account of arithmetic, and non-realism
of the second kind via J.L. Mackie's error-theoretic account of
morals. This will show how realism about a subject-matter can be
questioned on both epistemological and metaphysical grounds.



According to a *platonist* about arithmetic, the truth of the
sentence '7 is prime' entails the existence of an
*abstract object*, the number 7. This object is abstract
because it has no spatial or temporal location, and is causally inert.
A *platonic realist* about arithmetic will say that the number
7 exists and instantiates the property of being prime independently of
anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and
so on. A certain kind of nominalist rejects the existence claim which
the platonic realist makes: there are no abstract objects, so
sentences such as '7 is prime' are *false* (hence
the name 'error-theory'). Platonists divide on their
account of the epistemology of arithmetic: some claim that our
knowledge of arithmetical fact proceeds by way of some
quasi-perceptual encounter with the abstract realm (Godel 1983),
while others have attempted to resuscitate a qualified form of
Frege's *logicist* project of grounding knowledge of
arithmetical fact in knowledge of logic (Wright 1983, Hale 1987, Hale
and Wright 2001).



The main arguments against platonic realism turn on the idea that the
platonist position precludes a satisfactory epistemology of
arithmetic. For the classic exposition of the doubt that platonism can
square its claims to accommodate knowledge of arithmetical truth with
its conception of the subject matter of arithmetic as causally inert,
see Benacerraf (1973). Benacerraf argued that platonism faces
difficulties in squaring its conception of the subject-matter of
arithmetic with a general causal constraint on knowledge (roughly,
that a subject can be said to know that *P* only if she stands
in some causal relation to the subject matter of *P*). In
response, platonists have attacked the idea that a plausible causal
constraint on ascriptions of knowledge can be formulated (Wright 1983
Ch.2, Hale 1987 Ch.4). In response, Hartry Field, on the side of the
anti-platonists, has developed a new variant of Benacerraf's
epistemological challenge which does not depend for its force on
maintaining a generalised causal constraint on ascriptions of
knowledge. Rather, Field argues that 'we should view with
suspicion any claim to know facts about a certain domain if we believe
it impossible to explain the reliability of our beliefs about that
domain' (Field 1989: 232-3). Field's challenge to
the platonist is to offer an account of what such a platonist should
regard as a datum--i.e. that when '*p*' is
replaced by a mathematical sentence, the following schema holds in
most instances:



If mathematicians accept '*p*' then *p*.
(1989: 230)




Field's point is not simply, echoing Benacerraf, that no causal
account of reliability will be available to the platonist, and
therefore to the platonic realist. Rather, Field suggests that not
only has the platonic realist no recourse to any explanation of
reliability that is causal in character, but that she has no recourse
to any explanation that is non-causal in character either. 



> 
> (T)here seems prima facie to be a difficulty in principle in
> explaining the regularity. The problem arises in part from the fact
> that mathematical entities as the [platonic realist] conceives them,
> do not causally interact with mathematicians, or indeed with anything
> else. This means we cannot explain the mathematicians beliefs and
> utterances on the basis of the mathematical facts being causally
> involved in the production of those beliefs and utterances; or on the
> basis of the beliefs or utterances causally producing the mathematical
> facts; or on the basis of some common cause producing both. Perhaps
> then some sort of non-causal explanation of the correlation is
> possible? Perhaps; but it is very hard to see what this supposed
> non-causal explanation could be. Recall that on the usual platonist
> picture [i.e. platonic realism], mathematical objects are supposed to
> be mind- and language-independent; they are supposed to bear no
> spatiotemporal relations to anything, etc. The problem is that the
> claims that the [platonic realist] makes about mathematical objects
> appears to rule out any reasonable strategy for explaining the
> systematic correlation in question. (1989: 230-1)
> 



This suggests the following dilemma for the platonic realist:


1. Platonic realism is committed to the existence of acausal objects
and to the claim that these objects, and facts about them, are
independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices,
conceptual schemes, and so on (in short to the claim that these
objects, and facts about them, are language- and
mind-independent).
2. Any causal explanation of reliability is incompatible with the
acausality of mathematical objects.
3. Any non-causal explanation of reliability is incompatible with the
language- and mind-independence of mathematical objects.
4. Any explanation of reliability must be causal or non-causal.
5. There is no explanation of reliability that is compatible with
both the acausality and language- and mind-independence of
mathematical objects.


Therefore,
6. There is no explanation of reliability that is compatible with
platonic realism.



Whether there is a version of platonic realism with the resources to
see off Field's epistemological challenge is very much a live
issue (see Hale 1994, Divers and Miller 1999. For replies to Divers
and Miller see Sosa 2002, Shapiro 2007 and Piazza 2011, Paseau
2012).



Field's alternative proposal to platonic realism (1980, 1989) is
that although mathematical sentences such as '7 is prime'
are false, the utility of mathematical theories can be explained
otherwise than in terms of their truth. For Field, the utility of
mathematical theories resides not in their truth but in their
*conservativeness*, where a mathematical theory *S* is
conservative if and only if for any nominalistically respectable
statement *A* (i.e. a statement whose truth does not imply the
existence of abstract objects) and any body of such statements
*N*, *A* is not a consequence of the conjunction of
*N* and *S* unless *A* is a consequence of
*N* alone (Field 1989: 125). In short, mathematics is useful,
not because it allows you to derive conclusions that you
couldn't have derived from nominalistically respectable premises
alone, but rather because it makes the derivation of those
(nominalistically respectable) conclusions easier than it might
otherwise have been. Whether or not Field's particular brand of
error-theory about arithmetic is plausible is a topic of some debate,
which unfortunately cannot be pursued further here (see Hale and
Wright 2001).


## 3. Views Opposing the Existence Dimension (II): Error-Theory and Morality



According to Field's error-theory of arithmetic, the objects
distinctive of arithmetic do not exist, and it is this which leads to
the rejection of the existence dimension of arithmetical realism, at
least as platonistically conceived (for a non-platonistic view of
arithmetic which is at least potentially realist, see Benacerraf 1965;
for incisive discussion, see Wright 1983, Ch.3). J. L. Mackie, on the
other hand, proposes an error-theoretic account of morals, not because
there are no objects or entities that could form the subject matter of
ethics (it is no part of Mackie's brief to deny the existence of
persons and their actions and so on), but because it is implausible to
suppose that the sorts of properties that moral properties would have
to be are ever instantiated in the world (Mackie 1977, Ch.1). Like
Field on arithmetic, then, Mackie's central claim about the
atomic, declarative sentences of ethics (such as 'Napoleon was
evil') is that they are systematically and uniformly false. How
might one argue for such a radical-sounding thesis? The clearest way
to view Mackie's argument for the error-theory is as a
conjunction of a conceptual claim with an ontological claim (following
Smith 1994, pp. 63-66). The conceptual claim is that moral facts
are objective and categorically prescriptive facts, or, equivalently,
that our concept of a moral property is a concept of an objective and
categorically prescriptive quality (what Mackie means by this is
explained below). The ontological claim is simply that there are no
objective and categorically prescriptive facts, that objective and
categorically prescriptive properties are nowhere instantiated. The
conclusion is that there is nothing in the world answering to our
moral concepts, no facts or properties which render the judgements
formed via those moral concepts true. Our moral (atomic) moral
judgements are systematically false. We can thus construe the argument
for the error-theory as follows:


1. **Conceptual Claim:** Moral facts are objective and
categorically prescriptive facts.
2. If there are moral facts, then there are objective and
categorically prescriptive facts (Definitional consequence of the
Conceptual Claim)
3. If there are true, atomic, declarative moral sentences, then there
are objective and categorically prescriptive facts.
4. **Ontological Claim:** there are no objectively and
categorically prescriptive facts.



So,


5. There are no moral facts.



So,


6. **Conclusion:** There are no true, atomic, declarative
moral sentences.



The conclusion of this argument clearly follows from its premises, so
the question facing those who wish to defend at least the existence
dimension of realism in the case of morals is whether the premises are
true. (Note that strictly speaking what the argument purports to
establish is that there are no moral facts as-we-conceive-of-them.
Thus, it may be possible to block the argument by advocating a
revisionary approach to our moral concepts; or by deploying a
Ramsey-Carnap-Lewis conception of theoretical terms and arguing that
there are moral facts, just ones that do not answer to our concept but
which (coming closer than other candidates) would best deserve the
"moral fact" label (see Smith 1994), section 2.10 for a
good explanation of the application of the Ramsey-Lewis-Carnap
conception in the moral case).



Mackie's conceptual claim in effect amounts to the claim that
our concept of a moral requirement is the concept of an objectively,
categorically prescriptive requirement. What does this mean? To say
that moral requirements are prescriptive is to say that they tell us
how we ought to act, to say that they give us reasons for acting.
Thus, to say that something is morally good is to say that we ought to
pursue it, that we have reason to pursue it. To say that something is
morally bad is to say that we ought not to pursue it, that we have
reason not to pursue it. To say that moral requirements are
categorically prescriptive is to say that these reasons are
categorical in the sense of Kant's categorical imperatives. The
reasons for action that moral requirements furnish are not contingent
upon the possession of any desires or wants on the part of the agent
to whom they are addressed: I cannot release myself from the
requirement imposed by the claim that torturing the innocent is wrong
by citing some desire or inclination that I have. This contrasts, for
example, with the requirement imposed by the claim that perpetual
lateness at work is likely to result in one losing one's job: I
can release myself from the requirement imposed by this claim by
citing my desire to lose my job (perhaps because I find it
unfulfilling, or whatever). Reasons for action which are contingent in
this way on desires and inclinations are furnished by what Kant called
hypothetical imperatives.



So our concept of a moral requirement is a concept of a categorically
prescriptive requirement. But Mackie claims further that our concept
of a moral requirement is a concept of an objective and categorically
prescriptive requirement. What does it mean to say that a requirement
is objective? Mackie says a lot of different-sounding things about
this, and the following (as outlined in Miller 2013a) is by no means a
comprehensive list (references are to Ch. 1 of Mackie 1977). To call a
requirement objective is to say that it can be an object of knowledge
(24, 31, 33), that it can be true or false (26, 33), that it can be
perceived (31, 33), that it can be recognised (42), that it is prior
to and independent of our preferences and choices (30, 43), that it is
a source of authority external to our preferences and choices (32, 34,
43), that it is part of the fabric of the world (12), that it backs up
and validates some of our preferences and choices (22), that it is
capable of being simply true (30) or valid as a matter of general
logic (30), that it is not constituted by our choosing or deciding to
think in a certain way (30), that it is extra-mental (23), that it is
something of which we can be aware (38), that it is something that can
be introspected (39), that it is something that can figure as a
premise in an explanatory hypothesis or inference (39), and so on.
Mackie plainly does not take these to be individually necessary: facts
about subatomic particles, for example, may qualify as objective in
virtue of figuring in explanatory hypotheses even though they cannot
be objects of perceptual acquaintance. But his intention is plain
enough: these are the sorts of conditions whose satisfaction by a fact
renders it objective as opposed to subjective. Mackie's
conceptual claim about morality is thus that our concept of a moral
requirement is a concept of a fact which is objective in at least some
of the senses just listed, while his ontological claim will be that
the world does not contain any facts which are both candidates for
being moral facts and yet which play even some of the roles
distinctive of objective facts.



How plausible is Mackie's conceptual claim? This issue cannot be
discussed in detail here, except to note that while it seems plausible
to claim that *if* our concept of a moral fact is a concept of
a reason for action *then* that concept must be a concept of a
categorical reason for action, it is not so clear why we have to say
that our concept of a moral fact is a concept of a reason for action
at all. If we deny this, we can concede the conditional claim whilst
resisting Mackie's conceptual claim. One way to do this would be
to question the assumption, implicit in the exposition of
Mackie's argument for the conceptual claim above, that an
'ought'-statement that binds an agent A provides that
agent with a reason for action. For an example of a version of moral
realism that attempts to block Mackie's conceptual claim in this
way, see Railton (1986). For defence of Mackie's conceptual
claim, see Smith (1994), Ch.3 and Joyce (2001). For exposition and
critical discussion, see Miller (2013a), Ch.9.



What is Mackie's argument for his ontological claim? This is set
out in his 'argument from queerness' (Mackie has another
argument, the 'argument from relativity' (or
'argument from disagreement') (1977: 36-38), but
this argument cannot be discussed here for reasons of space. For a
useful discussion, see Brink (1984)).The argument from queerness has
both metaphysical and epistemological components. The metaphysical
problem with objective values concerns 'the metaphysical
peculiarity of the supposed objective values, in that they would have
to be intrinsically action-guiding and motivating' (49). The
epistemological problem concerns 'the difficulty of accounting
for our knowledge of value entities or features and of their links
with the features on which they would be consequential' (49).
Let's look at each type of worry more closely in turn.



Expounding the metaphysical part of the argument from queerness,
Mackie writes: "If there were objective values, then they would
be entities or relations of a very strange sort, utterly different
from anything else in the universe." (38) What is so strange
about them? Mackie says that Plato's Forms (and for that matter,
Moore's non-natural qualities) give us a 'dramatic
picture' of what objective values would be, if there were
any:



> 
> The Form of the Good is such that knowledge of it provides the knower
> with both a direction and an overriding motive; something's
> being good both tells the person who knows this to pursue it and makes
> him pursue it. An objective good would be sought by anyone who was
> acquainted with it, not because of any contingent fact that this
> person, or every person, is so constituted that he desires this end,
> but just because the end has to-be-pursuedness somehow built into it.
> Similarly, if there were objective principles of right and wrong, any
> wrong (possible) course of action would have not-to-be-doneness
> somehow built into it. Or we should have something like Clarke's
> necessary relations of fitness between situations and actions, so that
> a situation would have a demand for such-and-such an action somehow
> built into it (40).
> 



The obtaining of a moral state of affairs would be the obtaining of a
situation 'with a demand for such and such an action somehow
built into it'; the states of affairs which we find in the world
do not have such demands built into them, they are 'normatively
inert', as it were. Thus, the world contains no moral states of
affairs, situations which consist in the instantiation of a moral
quality.



Mackie now backs up this metaphysical argument with an epistemological
argument:



> 
> If we were aware [of objective values], it would have to be by some
> special faculty of moral perception or intuition, utterly different
> from our ways of knowing everything else. These points were recognised
> by Moore when he spoke of non-natural qualities, and by the
> intuitionists in their talk about a faculty of moral intuition.
> Intuitionism has long been out of favour, and it is indeed easy to
> point out its implausibilities. What is not so often stressed, but is
> more important, is that the central thesis of intuitionism is one to
> which any objectivist view of values is in the end committed:
> intuitionism merely makes unpalatably plain what other forms of
> objectivism wrap up (38).
> 



In short, our ordinary conceptions of how we might come into cognitive
contact with states of affairs, and thereby acquire knowledge of them,
cannot cope with the idea that the states of affairs are objective
values. So we are forced to expand that ordinary conception to include
forms of moral perception and intuition. But these are completely
unexplanatory: they are really just placeholders for our capacity to
form correct moral judgements (the reader should here hear an echo of
the complaints Benacerraf and Field raise against arithmetical
platonism).



Evaluating the argument from queerness is well outwith the scope of
the present entry. While Railton's version of moral realism
attempts to block Mackie's overall argument by conceding his
ontological claim whilst rejecting his conceptual claim, other
versions of moral realism agree with Mackie's conceptual claim
but reject his ontological claim. Examples of the latter version, and
attempts to provide the owed response to the argument from queerness,
can be found in Smith (1994), Ch.6, and McDowell (1998), Chs
4-10."Companions in Guilt" style responses attempt
to undermine Mackie's argument by suggesting that if it were
sound, it would undermine much more than moral realism. For an example
of such a strategy, see Cuneo (2007). For a general discussion, see
Lillehammer (2010). 



There are two main ways in which one might respond to Mackie's
argument for the error-theory: directly, via contesting one of its
premises or inferences, or indirectly, pointing to some internal
tension within the error-theory itself. Some possible direct responses
have already been mentioned, responses which reject either the
conceptual or ontological claims that feature as premises in
Mackie's argument for the error-theory. An indirect argument
against the error-theory has been developed in recent writings by
Crispin Wright (this argument is intended to apply also to
Field's error-theory of arithmetic).



Mackie claims that the error-theory of moral judgement is a
second-order theory, which does not necessarily have implications for
the first order practice of making moral judgements (1977: 16).
Wright's argument against the error-theory begins by suggesting
otherwise:



> 
> The great discomfort with [Mackie's] view is that, unless more
> is said, it simply relegates moral discourse to bad faith. Whatever we
> may once have thought, as soon as philosophy has taught us that the
> world is unsuited to confer truth on any of our claims about what is
> right, or wrong, or obligatory, etc., the reasonable response ought
> surely to be to forgo the right to making any such claims .... If
> it is of the essence of moral judgement to aim at the truth, and if
> philosophy teaches us that there is no moral truth to hit, how are we
> supposed to take ourselves seriously in thinking the way we do about
> any issue which we regard as of major moral importance? (1996: 2; see
> also 1992: 9).
> 



Wright realises that the error-theorist is likely to have a story to
tell about the point of moral discourse, about "some norm of
appraisal besides truth, at which its statements can be seen as aimed,
and which they can satisfy." (1996: 2) And Mackie has such a
story: the point of moral discourse is--to simplify--to
secure the benefits of social co-operation (1973: chapter 5 passim;
note that this is the analogue in Mackie's theory of
Field's notion of the conservativeness of mathematical
theories). Suppose we can extract from this story some subsidiary norm
distinct from truth, which governs the practice of forming moral
judgements. Then, for example, 'Honesty is good' and
'Dishonesty is good', although both false, will not be on
a par in point of their contribution to the satisfaction of the
subsidiary norm: if accepted widely enough, the former will presumably
facilitate the satisfaction of the subsidiary norm, while the latter,
if accepted widely enough, will frustrate it. Wright questions whether
Mackie's moral sceptic can plausibly combine such a story about
the benefits of the practice of moral judgement with the central
negative claim of the error-theory:



> 
> [I]f, among the welter of falsehoods which we enunciate in moral
> discourse, there is a good distinction to be drawn between those which
> are acceptable in the light of some such subsidiary norm and those
> which are not--a distinction which actually informs ordinary
> discussion and criticism of moral claims--then why insist on
> construing *truth* for moral discourse in terms which motivate
> a charge of global error, rather than explicate it in terms of the
> satisfaction of the putative subsidiary norm, whatever it is? The
> question may have a good answer. The error-theorist may be able to
> argue that the superstition that he finds in ordinary moral thought
> goes too deep to permit of any construction of *moral* truth
> which avoids it to be acceptable as an account of moral truth. But I
> do not know of promising argument in that direction (1996: 3; see also
> 1992: 10).
> 



Wright thus argues that even if we concede to the error-theorist that
his original scepticism about moral truth is well-founded, the
error-theorist's own positive proposal will be inherently
unstable. In recent years, inspired by error-theory, philosophers have
developed forms of moral fictionalism, according to which moral claims
either are or ought to be "useful fictions". See Kalderon
2005 and Joyce 2001 for examples. For a book-length treatment of moral
error-theory, see Olson 2014.



The error-theories proposed by Mackie and Field are non-eliminativist
error-theories, and should be contrasted with the kind of
eliminativist error-theory proposed by e.g. Paul Churchland concerning
folk-psychological propositional attitudes (see Churchland 1981).
Churchland argues that our everyday talk of propositional attitudes
such as beliefs, desires and intentions should eventually be abandoned
given developments in neuroscience. Mackie and Field make no analogous
claims concerning morality and arithmetic: no claim, that is, to the
effect that they will one day be in principle replaceable by
philosophically hygienic counterparts. For some discussion of the
contrast between eliminativist and non-eliminativist error theories,
see Miller (2015). 


## 4. Reductionism and Non-Reductionism



Although some commentators (e.g. Pettit 1991) require that a realistic
view of a subject matter be non-reductionist about the distinctive
objects, properties, and facts of that subject matter, the
reductionist/non-reductionist issue is really orthogonal to the
various debates about realism. There are a number of reasons for this,
with the reasons varying depending on the type of reduction
proposed.



Suppose, first of all, that one wished to deny the existence claim
which is a component of platonic realism about arithmetic. One way to
do this would be to propose an *analytic reduction* of talk
seemingly involving abstract entities to talk concerning only concrete
entities. This can be illustrated by considering a language the truth
of whose sentences seemingly entails the existence of a type of
abstract object, directions. Suppose there is a first order language
L, containing a range of proper names '*a*',
'*b*', '*c*', and so on, where
these denote straight lines conceived as concrete inscriptions. There
are also predicates and relations defined on straight lines, including
' ... is parallel to ...'. '*D*(
)' is a singular term forming operator on lines, so that
inserting the name of a concrete line, as in
'*D*(*a*)', produces a singular term
standing for an abstract object, the direction of *a*. A number
of contextual definitions are now introduced:


1. '*D*(*a*) = *D*(*b*)' is
true if and only if *a* is parallel to *b*.
2. 'P*D*(*x*)' is true if and only if
'*Fx*' is true, where '... is parallel
to ...' is a congruence for '*F*(
)'.



(To say that '... is parallel to ...' is a
congruence for '*F*( )' is to say that if
*a* is parallel to *b* and *Fa*, then it follows
that *Fb*).


3. '([?]*x*)P*x*' is true if and
only if '([?]*x*)*Fx*' is true, where
'P' and '*F*' are as in (B).



According to a platonic realist, directions exist and have a nature
which is independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic practices,
conceptual schemes, and so on. But doesn't the availability of
(A), (B), and (C) undermine the existence claim at the heart of
platonic realism? After all, (A), (B), and (C) allow us to paraphrase
any sentence whose truth appears to entail the existence of abstract
objects into a sentence whose truth involves only the existence of
concrete inscriptions. Doesn't this show that an analytic
reduction can aid someone wishing to question the existence claim
involved in a particular form of realism? There is a powerful
argument, first developed by William Alston (1958), and convincingly
resuscitated by Crispin Wright (1983, Ch.1), that suggests not. The
analytic reductionist who wishes to wield the contextual definitions
against the existence claim at the heart of platonic realism takes
them to show that the apparent reference to abstract objects on the
left-hand sides of the definitions is *merely* apparent: in
fact, the truth of the relevant sentences entails only the existence
of a range of concrete inscriptions. But the platonic realist can
retort: what the contextual definitions show is that the apparent
*lack* of reference to abstract objects on the
*right-hand* sides is merely apparent. In fact, the platonic
realist can say, the truth of the sentences figuring on the right-hand
sides implicitly involves reference to abstract objects. If there is
no way to break this deadlock the existence of the analytic reductive
paraphrases will leave the existence claim at the heart of the
relevant form of realism untouched. So the issue of this style of
reductionism appears to be orthogonal to debates between realists and
non-realists.



Can the same be said about non-analytic styles of reductionism? Again,
there is no straightforward connection between the issue of
reductionism and the issue of realism. The problem is that, to borrow
some terminology and examples from Railton 1989, some reductions will
be *vindicative* whilst others will be *eliminativist*.
For example, the reduction of water to H20 is vindicative:
it vindicates our belief that there is such a thing as water, rather
than overturning it. On the other hand:



> 
> ... the reduction of 'polywater'--a peculiar
> form of water thought to have been observed in laboratories in the
> 1960s--to
> ordinary-water-containing-some-impurities-from-improperly-washed-glassware
> contributed to the conclusion that there really is no such substance
> as polywater (1989: 161).
> 



Thus, a non-analytic reduction may or may not have implications for
the existence dimension of a realistic view of a particular subject
matter. And even if the existence dimension is vindicated, there is
still the further question whether the objects and properties
vindicated are independent of anyone's beliefs, linguistic
practices, and so on. Again, there is no straightforward relationship
between the issue of reductionism and the issue of realism.


## 5. Views Opposing the Existence Dimension (III): Expressivism about Morals



We saw above that for the subject-matter in question the
error-theorist *agrees* with the realist that the truth of the
atomic, declarative sentences of that area requires the existence of
the relevant type of objects, or the instantiation of the relevant
sorts of properties. Although the realist and the error-theorist agree
on this much, they of course disagree on the question of whether the
relevant type of objects exist, or on whether the relevant sorts of
properties are instantiated: the error-theorist claims that they
don't, so that the atomic, declarative sentences of the area are
systematically and uniformly false, the realist claims that at least
in some instances the relevant objects exist or the relevant
properties are instantiated, so that the atomic, declarative sentences
of the area are at least in some instances true. We also saw that an
error-theory about a particular area could be motivated by
epistemological worries (Field) or by a combination of epistemological
and metaphysical worries (Mackie).



Another way in which the existence dimension of realism can be
resisted is via expressivism. Whereas the realist and the
error-theorist agree that the sentences of the relevant area are
*truth-apt*, apt to be assessed in terms of truth and falsity,
the realist and the expressivist (alternatively non-cognitivist,
projectivist) disagree about the truth-aptness of those sentences. It
is a fact about English that sentences in the declarative mood
('The beer is in the fridge') are conventionally used for
making assertions, and assertions are true or false depending on
whether or not the fact that is asserted to obtain actually obtains.
But there are other grammatical moods that are conventionally
associated with different types of speech-act. For example, sentences
in the imperatival mood ('Put the beer in the fridge') are
conventionally used for giving orders, and sentences in the
interrogative mood ('Is the beer in the fridge?') are
conventionally used for asking questions. Note that we would not
ordinarily think of orders or questions as even apt for assessment in
terms of truth and falsity: they are not truth-apt. Now the
conventions mentioned here are not exceptionless: for example, one can
use sentences in the declarative mood ('My favourite drink is
Belhaven 60 shilling') to give an order (for some Belhaven 60
shilling), one can use sentences in the interrogative mood ('Is
the Pope a Catholic?') to make an assertion (of whatever fact
was the subject of the discussion), and so on. The expressivist about
a particular area will claim that the realist is misled by the syntax
of the sentences of that area into thinking that they are truth-apt:
she will say that this is a case where the conventional association of
the declarative mood with assertoric force breaks down. In the moral
case the expressivist can claim that 'Stealing is wrong'
is no more truth-apt than 'Put the beer in the fridge': it
is just that the lack of truth-aptness of the latter is worn on its
sleeve, while the lack of truth-aptness of the former is veiled by its
surface syntax.(There are some very important issues concerning the
relationship between minimalism about truth-aptitude and expressivism
that we cannot go into here. See Divers and Miller (1995)and Miller
(2013b) for some pointers. There are also some important differences
between e.g. Ayer's emotivism and more modern forms of
expressivism (such as those developed by Blackburn and Gibbard) that
we gloss over here. For a useful account, see Schroeder 2009). 



So, if moral sentences are not conventionally used for the making of
assertions, what are they conventionally used for? According to one
classical form of expressivism, *emotivism*, they are
conventionally used for the expression of emotion, feeling, or
sentiment. Thus, A.J. Ayer writes:



> 
> If I say to someone, 'You acted wrongly in stealing that
> money', I am not stating anything more than if I had simply
> said, 'You stole that money'. In adding that this action
> is wrong, *I am not making any further statement about it. I am
> simply evincing my moral disapproval about it.* It is as if I had
> said, 'You stole that money', in a peculiar tone of
> horror, or written with the addition of some special exclamation
> marks. The tone, or the exclamation marks, adds nothing to the literal
> meaning of the sentence. *It merely serves to show that the
> expression of it is attended by certain feelings in the speaker*
> (Ayer 1946: 107, emphases added).
> 



It follows from this that:



> 
> If I now generalise my previous statement and say, 'Stealing
> money is wrong,' I produce a sentence which has no factual
> meaning--that is, expresses no proposition that can be either
> true or false (1946: 107).
> 



Emotivism faces many problems, discussion of which is not possible
here (for a survey, see Miller 2003a Ch.3). One problem that has been
the bugbear of all expressivist versions of non-realism, the
'Frege-Geach Problem', is so-called because the classic
modern formulation is by Peter Geach (1965), who attributes the
original point to Frege.



According to emotivism, when I sincerely utter the sentence
'Murder is wrong' I am not expressing a belief or making
an assertion, but rather expressing some non-cognitive sentiment or
feeling, incapable of being true or false. Thus, the emotivist claims
that in contexts where 'is wrong' is being applied to an
action-type it is being used to express a sentiment or feeling of
disapproval towards actions of that type. But what about contexts in
which it is not being applied to an action type? An example of such a
sentence would be 'If murder is wrong, then getting little
brother to murder people is wrong'. In the antecedent of this
'is wrong' is clearly not being applied to anything
(compare: in uttering 'If snow is black then it is not
white' I am not applying 'is black' to snow). So
what account can the emotivist give of the use of 'Murder is
wrong' within 'unasserted contexts', such as the
antecedent of the conditional above? Since it is not there used to
express disapproval of murder, the account of its semantic function
must be different from that given for the apparently straightforward
assertion expressed by 'Murder is wrong'. But now there is
a problem in accounting for the following valid inference:


1. Murder is wrong.
2. If Murder is wrong, then getting your little brother to murder
people is wrong.



Therefore:


3. Getting your little brother to murder people is wrong.



If the semantic function of 'is wrong' as it occurs within
an asserted context in (1) is different from its semantic function as
it occurs within an unasserted context in (2), isn't someone
arguing in this way simply guilty of equivocation? In order for the
argument to be valid, the occurrence of 'Murder is wrong'
in (1) has to *mean the same thing* as the occurrence of
'Murder is wrong' in (2). But if 'is wrong'
has a different semantic function in (1) and (2), then it certainly
doesn't mean the same thing in (1) and (2), and so neither do
the sentences in which it appears. So the above argument is apparently
no more valid than:


4. My beer has a head on it.
5. If my beer has a head on it, then it must have eyes and ears.



Therefore:


6. My beer must have eyes and ears.



This argument is obviously invalid, because it relies on an
equivocation on two senses of 'head', in (4) and (5)
respectively.



It is perhaps worth stressing why the Frege-Geach problem
doesn't afflict ethical theories which see 'Murder is
wrong' as truth-apt, and sincere utterances of 'Murder is
wrong' as capable of expressing straightforwardly
truth-assessable beliefs. According to theories like these, moral
*modus ponens* arguments such as the argument above from (1)
and (2) to (3) are just like non-moral cases of *modus ponens*
such as


7. Smith is in Glasgow;
8. If Smith is in Glasgow then Smith is in Scotland;



Therefore,


9. Smith is in Scotland.



Why is this non-moral case of *modus ponens* not similarly
invalid in virtue of the fact that 'Smith is in Glasgow'
is asserted in (7), but not in (8)? The answer is of course that the
state of affairs asserted to obtain by 'Smith is in
Glasgow' in (7) is the same as that whose obtaining is merely
entertained in the antecedent of (8). In (7) 'Smith is in
Glasgow' is used to assert that a state of affairs obtains
(Smith's being in Glasgow), and in (8) it is asserted that if
that state of affairs obtains, so does another (Smith's being in
Scotland). Throughout, the semantic function of the sentences
concerned is given in terms of the states of affairs asserted to
obtain in simple assertoric contexts. And it is difficult to see how
an emotivist can say anything analogous to this with respect to the
argument from (1) and (2) to (3): it is difficult to see how the
semantic function of 'Murder is wrong' in the antecedent
of (2) could be given in terms of the sentiment it allegedly expresses
in (1).



The Frege-Geach challenge to the emotivist is thus to answer the
following question: how can you give an emotivist account of the
occurrence of moral sentences in 'unasserted
contexts'--such as the antecedents of
conditionals--without jeopardising the intuitively valid patterns
of inference in which those sentences figure? Philosophers wishing to
develop an expressivistic alternative to moral realism have expended a
great deal of energy and ingenuity in devising responses to this
challenge. See in particular Blackburn's development of
'quasi-realism', in his (1984) Chs 5 and 6, (1993) Ch.10,
(1998) Ch.3 and Gibbard's 'norm-expressivism', in
his (1990) Ch.5, and further refined in his (2003). For criticism see
Hale (1993) and (2002), and Kolbel (2002) Ch.4. For an overview,
see Schroeder (2008) and Miller (2013a), Chs 4 and 5. For very useful
surveys of recent work on expressivism, see Schroeder (2009) and
Sinclair (2009).


## 6. Views Opposing the Independence Dimension (I): Semantic Realism



Examples of challenges to the existence dimension of realism have been
described in previous sections. In this section some forms of
non-realism that are neither error-theoretic nor expressivist will be
briefly introduced. The forms of non-realism view the sentences of the
relevant area as (against the expressivist) truth-apt, and (against
the error-theorist) at least sometimes true. The existence dimension
of realism is thus left intact. What is challenged is the independence
dimension of realism, the claim that the objects distinctive of the
area exist, or that the properties distinctive of the area are
instantiated, independently of anyone's beliefs, linguistic
practices, conceptual schemes, and so on.



Classically, opposition to the independence dimension of realism about
the everyday world of macroscopic objects took the form of
*idealism*, the view that the objects of the everyday world of
macroscopic objects are in some sense *mental*. As Berkeley
famously claimed, tables, chairs, cats, the moons of Jupiter and so
on, are nothing but ideas in the minds of spirits:



> 
> All the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all
> those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any
> subsistence without a mind (Berkeley 1710: SS6).
> 



Idealism has long been out of favour in contemporary philosophy
(though see Goldschmidt & Pearce 2017 for some recent discussion),
but those who doubt the independence dimension of realism have sought
more sophisticated ways of opposing it. One such philosopher, Michael
Dummett, has suggested that in some cases it may be appropriate to
reject the independence dimension of realism via the rejection of
semantic realism about the area in question (see Dummett 1978 and
1993). This section contains a brief explanation of semantic realism,
as characterised by Dummett, Dummett's views on the relationship
between semantic realism and realism construed as a metaphysical
thesis, and an outline of some of the arguments in the philosophy of
language that Dummett has suggested might be wielded against semantic
realism.



It is easiest to characterise semantic realism for a mathematical
domain. It is a feature of arithmetic that there are some arithmetical
sentences for which the following holds true: we know of no method
that will guarantee us a proof of the sentence, and we know of no
method that will guarantee us a disproof or a counterexample either.
One such is Goldbach's Conjecture:



(G) Every even number is the sum of two primes. 



It is possible that we may come across a proof, or a counterexample,
but the key point is that we do not know a method, or methods, the
application of which is guaranteed to yield one or the other. A
semantic realist, in Dummett's sense, is one who holds that our
understanding of a sentence like (G) consists in knowledge of its
truth-condition, where the notion of truth involved is *potentially
recognition-transcendent* or *bivalent*. To say that the
notion of truth involved is potentially recognition-transcendent is to
say that (G) may be true (or false) even though there is no guarantee
that we will be able, in principle, to recognise that that is so. To
say that the notion of truth involved is bivalent is to accept the
unrestricted applicability of the law of bivalence, that every
meaningful sentence is determinately either true or false. Thus the
semantic realist is prepared to assert that (G) is determinately
either true or false, regardless of the fact that we have no
guaranteed method of ascertaining which. (Note that the precise
relationship between the characterisation in terms of bivalence and
that in terms of potentially recognition-transcendent truth is a
delicate matter that will not concern us here. See the Introduction to
Wright 1993 for some excellent discussion. It is also important to
note that in introducing the idea that a speaker's understanding
of a sentence consists in her knowledge of its truth-condition,
Dummett is packing more into the notion of truth than the
disquotational properties made use of in SS1 above. See
Dummett's essay 'Truth', in his 1978).



Dummett makes two main claims about semantic realism. First, there is
what Devitt (1991a) has termed the *metaphor thesis*: This
denies that we can even *have* a literal, austerely
metaphysical characterisation of realism of the sort attempted above
with Generic Realism. Dummett writes, of the attempt to give an
austere metaphysical characterisation of realism about mathematics
(platonic realism) and what stands opposed to it (intuitionism):



> 
> How [are] we to decide this dispute over the ontological status of
> mathematical objects[?] As I have remarked, we have here two
> metaphors: the platonist compares the mathematician with the
> astronomer, the geographer or the explorer, the intuitionist compares
> him with the sculptor or the imaginative writer; and neither
> comparison seems very apt. The disagreement evidently relates to the
> amount of freedom that the mathematician has. Put this way, however,
> both seem partly right and partly wrong: the mathematician has great
> freedom in devising the concepts he introduces and in delineating the
> structure he chooses to study, but he cannot prove just whatever he
> decides it would be attractive to prove. How are we to make the
> disagreement into a definite one, and how can we then resolve it?
> (1978: xxv).
> 



According to the *constitution thesis*, the literal content of
realism *consists in* the content of semantic realism. Thus,
the literal content of realism about the external world is constituted
by the claim that our understanding of at least some sentences
concerning the external world consists in our grasp of their
potentially recognition-transcendent truth-conditions. The spurious
'debate' in metaphysics between realism and non-realism
can thus become a genuine *debate* within the theory of
meaning: should we characterise speakers' understanding in terms
of grasp of potentially recognition-transcendent truth-conditions? As
Dummett puts it:



> 
> The dispute [between realism and its opponents] concerns the notion of
> truth appropriate for statements of the disputed class; and this means
> that it is a dispute concerning the kind of *meaning* which
> these statements have (1978: 146).
> 



Few have been convinced by either the metaphor thesis or the
constitution thesis. Consider Generic Realism in the case of the world
of everyday macroscopic objects and properties:



(GR1) Tables, rocks, mountains, seas, and so on exist, and the fact
that they exist and have properties such as mass, size, shape, colour,
and so on, is (apart from mundane empirical dependencies of the sort
sometimes encountered in everyday life) independent of anyone's
beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on. 



Dummett may well call for some non-metaphorical characterisation of
the independence claim which this involves, but it is relatively easy
to provide one such characterisation by utilising Dummett's own
notion of recognition-transcendence:



(GR2) Tables, rocks, mountains, seas, and so on exist, and the fact
that they exist and have properties such as mass, size, shape,colour,
and so on, is (apart from mundane empirical dependencies of the sort
sometimes encountered in everyday life) independent of anyone's
beliefs, linguistic practices, conceptual schemes, and so on. Tables,
rocks, mountains, seas, and so on exist, and in general there is no
guarantee that we will be able, even in principle, to recognise the
fact that they exist and have properties such as mass, size, shape,
colour, and so on.



On the face of it, there is nothing metaphorical in (GR2) or, at least
if there is, some argument from Dummett to that effect is required.
This throws some doubt on the metaphor thesis. Moreover there is
nothing distinctively semantic about (GR2), and this throws some doubt
on the constitution thesis. Whereas for Dummett, the essential realist
thesis is the meaning-theoretic claim that our understanding of a
sentence like (G) consists in knowledge of its potentially
recognition-transcendent truth-condition, for Devitt:



> 
> What has truth to do with Realism? On the face of it, nothing at all.
> Indeed, *Realism says nothing semantic at all* beyond ...
> making the negative point that our semantic capacities do *not*
> constitute the world. (1991a: 39)
> 



Devitt's main criticism of the constitution thesis is this: the
literal content of realism about the external world is not given by
semantic realism, since semantic realism is consistent with an
*idealist* metaphysics of the external world. He writes:



> 
> Does [semantic realism] entail Realism? It does not. Realism ...
> requires the objective independent existence of common-sense physical
> entities. Semantic Realism concerns physical *statements* and
> has no such requirement: *it says nothing about the nature of the
> reality that makes those statements true or false*, except that it
> is [at least in part potentially beyond the reach of our best
> investigative efforts]. An idealist who believed in the ...
> existence of a purely mental realm of sense-data could subscribe to
> [semantic realism]. He could believe that physical statements are true
> or false according as they do or do not correspond to the realm of
> sense-data, whatever anyone's opinion on the matter: we have no
> 'incorrigible knowledge' of sense-data. ... In sum,
> mere talk of truth will not yield any particular ontology. (1983: 77)
> 



Suppose that Dummett's metaphor and constitution theses are both
implausible. Would it follow that the arguments Dummett develops
against semantic realism have no relevance to debates about the
plausibility of realism about everyday macroscopic objects (say),
construed as a purely metaphysical thesis as in (GR2)? It can be
argued that Dummett's arguments can retain their relevance to a
metaphysical debate even if the metaphor and constitution theses are
false, and, indeed, even if Dummett's view (1973: 669) that the
theory of meaning is the foundation of all philosophy is rejected. For
a full development of this line of argument, see Miller 2003a and
2006.



Dummett's main line of argument against semantic realism is the
*manifestation argument*. Here is the argument (See Dummett
1978 and the summary in Miller 2018, chapter 9):



Suppose that we are considering region of discourse *D*.
Then:


1. We understand the sentences of *D*.



Suppose, for *reductio*, that


2. The sentences of *D* have recognition-transcendent
truth-conditions.



Now, given


3. To understand a sentence is to know its truth-conditions (Frege
1892, cf. Miller 2018 chapters 1 and 2).



We can conclude


4. We know the (recognition-transcendent) truth-conditions of the
sentences of *D*.



We then add the following premise, which stems from the
Wittgensteinian insight that understanding does not consist in the
possession of an inner state, but rather in the possession of some
practical ability (see Wittgenstein 1958):


5. To understand a sentence is to manifest the practical abilities
that constitute our understanding of that sentence



For example, in the case of a simple language consisting of
demonstratives and taste predicates (such as "bitter" and
"sweet"), applied to foodstuffs within reach of the
speaker, a speaker's understanding consists in his ability to
determine whether "this is bitter" is true, by putting the
relevant foodstuff in his mouth and tasting it (Wright 1993).



It now follows that:


6. To know the truth-conditions of a sentence is to manifest the
practical abilities that constitute our understanding of that
sentence.



So:


7. Our knowledge of the (recognition-transcendent) truth-conditions
of the sentences of *D* is manifested in our exercise of the
practical abilities that constitute our understanding of the sentences
of *D*.



Since


8. Knowledge of recognition-transcendent truth-conditions is never
manifested in the exercise of practical abilities



It follows that


9. Knowledge of the (recognition-transcendent) truth-conditions of
the sentences of *D* is never manifested in the exercise of
practical abilities.



So


10. We cannot exercise practical abilities that constitute our
understanding of *D*.



So


11. (11) We do not understand the sentences of *D*.



This yields a contradiction with (1), whence, by *reductio*, we
reject (2) to obtain:


12. The sentences of *D* do not have recognition-transcendent
truth-conditions, so that semantic realism about the subject matter of
*D* must be rejected.



The key claim here is (8). So far as an account of speakers'
understanding goes, the ascription of knowledge of
recognition-transcendent truth-conditions is simply
*redundant*: there is no good reason for ascribing it. Consider
one of the sentences introduced earlier as a candidate for possessing
recognition-transcendent truth-conditions 'Every even number
greater than two is the sum of two primes'. The semantic realist
views our understanding of sentences like this as consisting in our
knowledge of a potentially recognition-transcendent truth-condition.
But:



How can that account be viewed as a description of any
*practical* ability of use? No doubt someone who understands
such a statement can be expected to have many relevant practical
abilities. He will be able to appraise evidence for or against it,
should any be available, or to recognize that no information in his
possession bears on it. He will be able to recognize at least some of
its logical consequences, and to identify beliefs from which
commitment to it would follow. And he will, presumably, show himself
sensitive to conditions under which it is appropriate to ascribe
propositional attitudes embedding the statement to himself and to
others, and sensitive to the explanatory significance of such
ascriptions. In short: in these and perhaps other important respects,
he will show himself competent to use the sentence. But the headings
under which his practical abilities fall so far involve no mention of
evidence-transcendent truth-conditions (Wright 1993: 17).



This establishes (8), and the conclusion (12) follows
straightforwardly.



A detailed assessment of the plausibility of Dummett's arguments
is impossible here. For a full response to the manifestation argument,
see Miller 2002. See also Byrne 2005. For Dummett's other
argument, the acquisition argument, see Miller 2003b. Wright develops
a couple of additional arguments against semantic realism. For
these--the argument from rule-following and the argument from
normativity--see the Introduction to Wright 1993. For an
excellent survey of the literature on Dummett's arguments
against semantic realism, see Hale 2017. For an excellent book-length
introduction to Dummett's philosophy, see Weiss 2002. For a
robust defence of keeping issues in metaphysics sharply separate from
issues about language, see Dyke (2008)


## 7. Views Opposing the Independence Dimension (II): More Forms of Anti-Realism



Suppose that one wished to develop a non-realist alternative to, say,
moral realism. Suppose also that one is persuaded of the
unattractiveness of both error-theoretic and expressivist forms of
non-realism. That is to say, one accepts that moral sentences are
truth-apt, and, at least in some cases, true. Then the only option
available would be to deny the independence dimension of moral
realism. But so far we have only seen one way of doing this: by
admitting that the relevant sentences are truth-apt, sometimes true,
and possessed of truth-conditions which are not potentially
recognition-transcendent. But this seems weak: it seems implausible to
suggest that a moral realist must be committed to the potential
recognition-transcendence of moral truth. It therefore seems
implausible to suggest that a non-expressivistic and
non-error-theoretic form of opposition to realism must be committed to
simply denying the potential recognition-transcendence of moral truth,
since many who style themselves moral realists will deny this too. As
Wright puts it:



> 
> There are, no doubt, kinds of moral realism which do have the
> consequence that moral reality may transcend all possibility of
> detection. But it is surely not essential to any view worth regarding
> as realist about morals that it incorporate a commitment to that idea.
> (1992: 9)
> 



So, if the debate between a realist and a non-realist about the
independence dimension doesn't concern the plausibility of
semantic realism as characterised by Dummett, what does it concern?
(Henceforth a non-error-theoretic, non-expressivist style of
non-realist is referred to as an anti-realist). Wright attempts to
develop some points of contention, (or 'realism-relevant
cruces' as he calls them) over which a realist and anti-realist
could disagree. Wright's development of this idea is subtle and
sophisticated and only a crude exposition of a couple of his
realism-relevant cruces can be given here.



The first of Wright's realism-relevant cruces to be considered
here concerns the capacity of states of affairs to figure ineliminably
in the explanation of features of our experience. The idea that the
explanatory efficacy of the states of affairs in some area has
something to do with the plausibility of a realist view of that area
is familiar from the debates in meta-ethics between philosophers such
as Nicholas Sturgeon (1988), who believe that irreducibly moral states
of affairs do figure ineliminably in the best explanation of certain
aspects of experience, and opponents such as Gilbert Harman (1977),
who believe that moral states of affairs have no such explanatory
role. This suggests a 'best explanation test' which,
crudely put, states that realism about a subject matter can be secured
if its distinctive states of affairs figure ineliminably in the best
explanation of aspects of experience. One could then be a
non-expressivist, non-error-theoretic, anti-realist about a particular
subject matter by denying that the distinctive states of affairs of
that subject matter do have a genuine role in best explanations of
aspects of our experience. And the debate between this style of
anti-realist and his realist opponent could proceed independently of
any questions concerning the capacity of sentences in the relevant
area to have potentially recognition-transcendent truth values.



For reasons that needn't detain us here, Wright suggests that
this 'best explanation test' should be superseded by
questions concerning what he calls *width of cosmological role*
(1992, Ch.5). The states of affairs in a given area have narrow
cosmological role if it is a priori that they do not contribute to the
explanation of things *other* than our beliefs about that
subject-matter (or other than *via* explaining our beliefs
about that subject matter). This will be an anti-realist position. One
style of realist about that subject matter will say that its states of
affairs have wide cosmological role: they do contribute to the
explanation of things other than our beliefs about the subject matter
in question (or other than via explaining our beliefs about that
subject matter). It is relatively easy to see why width of
cosmological role could be a bone of contention between realist and
anti-realist views of a given subject matter: it is precisely the
width of cosmological role of a class of states of affairs--their
capacity to explain things other than, or other than via, our beliefs,
in which their independence from our beliefs, linguistic practices,
and so on, consists. Again, the debate between someone attributing a
narrow cosmological role to a class of states of affairs and someone
attributing a wide cosmological role could proceed independently of
any questions concerning the capacity of sentences in the relevant
area to have potentially recognition-transcendent truth values.



Wright thinks that it is arguable that moral discourse does not
satisfy width-of-cosmological role. Whereas a physical fact--such
as a pond's being frozen over--can contribute to the
explanation of *cognitive effects* (someone's believing
that the pond is frozen over), *effects on sentient, but
non-conceptual creatures* (the tendency of goldfish to cluster
towards the bottom of the pond), *effects on us as physically
interactive agents* (someone's slipping on the ice), and
*effects on inanimate matter* (the tendency of a thermometer to
read zero when placed on the surface), moral facts can only to
contribute to the explanation of the first sort of effect:



> 
> [I]t is hard to think of anything which is true of sentient but
> non-conceptual creatures, or of mobile organisms, or of inanimate
> matter, which is true because a ... moral fact obtains and in
> whose explanation it is unnecessary to advert to anyone's
> appreciation of that moral fact (1996: 16).
> 



Thus, we have a version of anti-realism about morals that is
non-expressivist and non-error-theoretic and can be framed
independently of considerations about the potential of moral sentences
to have recognition-transcendent truth-values: moral sentences are
truth-apt, sometimes true, and moral states of affairs have narrow
cosmological role.



The second of Wright's realism-relevant cruces concerns
judgement-dependence. Suppose that we are considering a region of
discourse *D* in which *P* is a typical property.
Consider the opinions formed by the participants in that discourse
under cognitively ideal conditions: call such opinions *best
opinions*, and the cognitively ideal conditions the
*C-conditions.* Suppose that the best opinions covary with the
facts about the instantiation of *P*. Then there are two ways
in which we can explain this covariance. First, we might take best
opinions to be playing at most a *tracking* role: best opinions
are just extremely good at tracking independently constituted
truth-conferring states of affairs. In this case, best opinion plays
only an *extension-reflecting* role, merely reflecting the
independently determined extensions of the relevant properties.
Alternatively, rather than viewing best opinion as merely tracking the
facts about the extensions of the relevant properties, we can view
them as themselves *determining* those extensions. Best
opinions, on this sort of view, do not just track independently
constituted states of affairs which determine the extensions of the
the properties that form the subject matter of *D*: rather,
they determine those extensions and so to play an
*extension-determining* role. When we have this latter sort of
explanation of the covariance of best opinion and fact, we'll
say that the truth about the instantiation of the relevant properties
is *judgement-dependent*; when we have only the former sort of
explanation, we'll say that the truth about their instantiation
is *judgement-independent*.



How do we determine whether the truth about the instantiation of the
typical properties that form the subject matter of a region of
discourse are judgement-dependent? Wright's discussion proceeds
by reference to what he terms *provisional equations*. These
have the following form:



(PE) [?]*x*[*C* - (A suitable subject
*s* judges that *Px* -*Px*)] 



where '*C*' denotes the conditions (the
*C*-conditions) which are cognitively ideal for forming the
judgement that *x* is *P*. The property *P* is
then said to be judgement-dependent if and only if the provisional
equation meets the following four conditions:



*The A Prioricity Condition:* The provisional equation must be
*a priori* true: there must be *a priori* covariance of
best opinions and truth. (Justification: 'the truth, if it is
true, that the extensions of [a class of concept] are constrained by
idealised human response--best opinion--ought to be
available purely by analytic reflection on those concepts, and hence
available as knowledge *a priori*' (Wright 1992: 117)).
This is because the thesis of judgement-dependence is the claim that,
for the region of discourse concerned, best opinion is the
*conceptual ground* of truth).



*The Substantiality Condition* The *C*-conditions must
be specifiable *non-trivially*: they cannot simply be described
as conditions under which the subject has 'whatever it
takes' to form the right opinion concerning the subject matter
at hand.(Justification: without this condition, the truth about any
property will turn out to be judgement-dependent, since for any
property *Q* it is going to be an *a priori* truth that
our judgements about whether *x* is *Q*, formed under
conditions which have 'whatever it takes' to ensure their
correctness, will covary with the facts about the instantiation of
*Q*-ness. We thus require this condition on pain of losing the
distinction between judgement-dependent and judgement-independent
truth altogether).



*The Independence Condition*: The question as to whether the
*C*-conditions obtain in a given instance must be logically
independent of the class of truths for which we are attempting to give
an extension-determining account: what makes an opinion best must not
presuppose some logically prior determination of the extensions
putatively determined by best opinions. (Justification: if we have to
assume certain facts about the extension of *P* in the
determination of the conditions under which opinions about *P*
are best, then we cannot view best opinions as themselves constituting
those facts, since whether a given opinion is best would then
presuppose some logically *prior* determination of the very
facts the judgement-dependent account wishes to view as constituted by
best opinions).



*The Extremal Condition*: There must be no better way of
accounting for the *a priori* covariance: no better account,
other than according best opinion an extension-determining role, of
which the satisfaction of the foregoing three conditions is a
consequence. (Justification: without this condition, the satisfaction
of the foregoing conditions would be consistent with the thought that
certain states of affairs are judgement-independent even though
infallibly detectable, "states of affairs in whose determination
facts about the deliverances of best opinions are in no way implicated
although there is, *a priori,* no possibility of their
misrepresentation" (Wright 1992: 123).)



When all of the above conditions can be shown to be satisfied, we can
accord best opinion an extension-determining role, and describe the
truth about the subject matter as judgement-dependent. If these
conditions cannot collectively be satisfied, best opinion can be
assigned, at best, a merely extension-reflecting role.



Two points are worth making. First, it is again relatively easy to see
why the question of judgement-dependence can mark a bone of contention
between realism and anti-realism. If a subject matter is
judgement-dependent we have a concrete sense in which the independence
dimension of realism fails for that subject matter: there is a sense
in which that subject matter is not entirely independent of our
beliefs, linguistic practices, and so on. Second, the debate about the
judgement-dependence of a subject matter is, on the face of it at
least, independent of the debate about the possibility of
recognition-transcendent truth in that area.



Wright argues (1989) that facts about colours and intentions are
judgement-dependent, so that we can formulate a version of
anti-realism about colours (intentions) that views ascriptions of
colours (intentions) as truth-apt and sometimes true, and truth in
those areas as judgement-dependent. In contrast to this, Wright argues
(1988) that morals cannot plausibly be viewed as judgement-dependent,
so that a thesis of judgement-dependence is not a suitable vehicle for
the expression of a non-expressivistic, non-error-theoretic, version
of anti-realism about morality. 



For discussion of further allegedly realism-relevant cruces, such as
cognitive command, see Wright 1992 and 2003. For critical discussion
of Wright on cognitive command, see Shapiro and Taschek 1996. See also
Miller 2004 and the papers in section III of Coliva (ed.) 2012.It is
the availability of these various realism-relevant cruces that makes
it possible to be more-or-less realist about a given area: at one end
of the spectrum there will be areas that fall on the realist side of
all of the cruces and at the opposite end areas that fall on the
non-realist side of all of the cruces, but in between there will be a
range of intermediate cases in which some-but-not-all of the cruces
are satisfied on the realist side. 


## 8. Views which Undermine the Debate: Quietism



Some of the ways in which non-realist theses about a particular
subject matter can be formulated and motivated have been described
above. Quietism is the view that significant metaphysical debate
between realism and non-realism is impossible. Gideon Rosen nicely
articulates the basic quietist thought:



> 
> We *sense* that there is a heady metaphysical thesis at stake
> in these debates over realism-- ... But after a point,
> when every attempt to say just what the issue is has come up empty, we
> have no real choice but to conclude that despite all the
> wonderful,suggestive imagery, there is ultimately nothing in the
> neighborhood to discuss (1994: 279).

Quietism about the
'debate' between realists and their opponents can take a
number of forms. One form might claim that the idea of a significant
debate is generated by unsupported or unsupportable philosophical
theses about the relationship of the experiencing and minded subject
to their world, and that once these theses are exorcised the
'debate' will gradually wither away. This form of quietism
is often associated with the work of the later Wittgenstein, and
receives perhaps its most forceful development in the work of John
McDowell (see in particular McDowell 1994 and 2009). Other forms of
quietism may proceed in a more piecemeal fashion, taking constraints
such as Wright's realism-relevant Cruces and arguing on a
case-by-case basis that their satisfaction or non-satisfaction is of
no metaphysical consequence. This is in fact the strategy pursued in
Rosen 1994. He makes the following points regarding the two
realism-relevant Cruces considered in the previous section.



Suppose that:



(F) It is *a priori* that: *x* is funny if and only if
we would judge *x* funny under conditions of full information
about *x*s relevant extra-comedic features 



and suppose that (F) satisfies (in addition to a prioricity) the
various other constraints that Wright imposes on his provisional
equations ((F) is actually not of the form of a provisional equation,
but this is not relevant to our purposes here). Rosen questions
whether this would be enough to establish that the facts about the
funny are in some metaphysically interesting sense 'less
real' or 'less objective' than facts (such as,
arguably, facts about shape) for which a suitable equation cannot be
constructed.



In a nutshell, Rosen's argument proceeds by inviting us to
assume the perspective of an anthropologist who is studying us and who
'has gotten to the point where he can reliably determine which
jokes we will judge funny under conditions of full relevant
information' (1994: 302). Rosen writes:



> 
> [T]he important point is that from [the anthropologist's] point
> of view, the facts about the distribution of [the property denoted by
> our use of 'funny'] are 'mind-dependent' only
> in the sense that they supervene directly on facts about our minds.
> But again, this has no tendency to undermine their objectivity
> ... [since] we have been given no reason to think that the facts
> about what a certain group of people would think after a certain sort
> of investigation are anything but robustly objective (1994: composed
> from 300 and 302).
> 



How plausible is this attempt to deflate the significance of the
discovery that the subject matter of a particular area is, in
Wright's sense, judgement-dependent? Argument--as opposed
to the trading of intuitions--at this level is difficult, but
Rosen's claim here is very implausible. Suppose we found out
that facts about the distribution of gases on the moons of Jupiter
supervened directly on facts about our minds. Would the threat we then
felt to the objectivity of facts about the distribution of gases on
the moons of Jupiter be at all assuaged by the reflection that facts
about the mental might themselves be susceptible to realistic
treatment? It seems doubtful. Fodor's *Psychosemantics*
would not offer much solace to realists in the world described in
Berkeley's *Principles.* Rosen's claim derives some
of its plausibility from the fact that he uses examples, such as the
funny and the constitutional, where our pre-theoretical attachment to
a realist view is very weak: it may be that the judgement-dependence
of the funny doesn't undermine our sense of the objectivity of
humour simply because the level of objectivity we pretheoretically
expect of comedy is quite low. So although there is no knock-down
argument to Rosen's claim, it is much more counterintuitive than
he might be willing to admit.



Rosen also questions whether there is any intuitive connection between
considerations of width of cosmological role and issues of realism and
non-realism. Rosen doubts in particular that there is any tight
connection between facts of a certain class having only narrow
cosmological role and mind-dependence in any sense relevant to the
plausibility of realism. He writes:



> 
> It is possible to imagine a subtle physical property *Q* which,
> though intuitively thoroughly objective, is nonetheless nomically
> connected in the first instance only with brain state
> *B*--where this happens to be the belief that things are
> *Q*. This peculiar discovery would not undermine our confidence
> that *Q* was an objective feature of things, as it should if [a
> feature of objects is less than fully objective if it has narrow
> cosmological role] (1994: 312).
> 



However it seems that, at least in the first instance, Wright has a
relatively quick response to this point at his disposal. Waiving the
point that in any case the width of cosmological role constraint
applies to *classes* of properties and facts, he can point out
that in the example constructed by Rosen the narrowness of Q's
cosmological role is an *a posteriori* matter. Whereas what we
want is that the narrowness of cosmological role is an *a
priori* matter: one does not need to conduct an empirical
investigation to convince oneself that facts about the funny fail to
have wide cosmological role.



Wright thus has the beginnings of answers to Rosen's quietist
attack on his use of the notions of judgement-dependence and width of
cosmological role. It is not possible to deal fully with these
arguments here, let alone with the other quietist arguments in
Rosen's paper, or the arguments of other quietists such as
McDowell, beyond giving a flavour of how quietism might be motivated
and how those active in the debates between realists and their
opponents might start to respond. For a further discussion of quietism
by Wright, see Wright 2007.


## 9. Concluding Remarks and Apologies



This discussion of realism and of the forms that non-realist
opposition may take is far from exhaustive, and aims only to give the
reader a sense of what to expect if they delve deeper into the issues.
In particular, nothing has been mentioned about the work of Hilary
Putnam, his characterisation of 'metaphysical realism',
and his so-called 'model-theoretic' argument against it.
Putnam's writings are extensive, but one could begin with Putnam
1981 and 1983. For critical discussion, see Hale and Wright 2017 and
Wright 2001; see also the entries on
 scientific realism
 and
 challenges to metaphysical realism.
 Nor have issues about the metaphysics of modality and possible worlds
been discussed. The locus classicus in this area is Lewis 1986. For
commentary, see Divers 2002 and Melia 2003; see also the entries on
 David Lewis's metaphysics
 and the
 epistemology of modality.
 And the very important topic of scientific realism has not been
touched upon. For an introductory treatment and suggestions for
further reading, see Bird 1998 Ch. 4; see also, the entries on
 scientific realism
 and
 structural realism.
 Finally, it has not been possible to include any discussion of
realism about intentionality and meaning (but see the entries on
 intentionality
 and
 theories of meaning.)
 The locus classicus in recent philosophy is Kripke 1982. For a
robustly realistic view of the intentional, see Fodor 1987. For a
collection of some of the central secondary literature, see Miller and
Wright 2002, and for a robust defence of Kripke's interpretation
of Wittgenstein, see Kusch (2006). For an entertaining defence of
metaphysical realism, see Musgrave 2001 (exercise for the reader: do
any of the forms of opposition to realism described in this entry rely
on what Musgrave calls word-magic?). For an alternative approach to
mapping the debates about realism involving conceptions of
independence more distinctively metaphysical than those focussed on
here, see Fine (2001) and the entry on
 metaphysical grounding.
 For good introductory book length treatments of realism, see Kirk
1999 and Brock and Mares 2006. Greenough and Lynch (2006) is a useful
collection of papers by many of the leading lights in the various
debates about realism.