engleski

Global Realism vs. Global Constructivism: an attempt at resolution

The goal of this paper is to show that the Realism vs. Anti-Realism debate at the fully general level (is reality independent of the mind or not?) is unsolvable. This goal is meant to be compatible, however, with the following two claims, the second of which is taken to be a presupposition of the first: (1) embracing the existence of what Searle (1995) termed 'institutional facts', it seems justified to claim that some aspects of reality are constructed by the mind ; (2) in order to be able coherently to claim that some aspects of reality are constructed, we have to be in a position to claim that some are not, which entails that the basic tenets of Realism (the fundamental nature and structure of reality is independent of the mind ; also, this nature is essentially physical) have to be preserved, albeit in a form compatible with the main goal of the paper, as stated above. As opposed to Global Realism (GR, universalist by definition), Global Anti-Realism or Constructivism comes in two varieties: Relativistic Global Constructivism (RGC) and Universalist Global Constructivism (UGC). After disposing briefly of RGC I focus on the polemic between GR and UGC. GR and UGC differ with regard to the quantificational structure of their claims: whereas GR claims that at least something is independent of the mind, UGC claims that everything is in some sense constructed by the mind. However, both positions face closely analogous predicaments, with disanalogies introduced by the said quantificational difference. For GR, the problem is that it needs something to confirm that our experience is (for some, or most, things) experience of mind-independent things, and this it cannot have without an external, Archimedean point, which is unattainable. As for UGC, a claim that something is constructed presupposes that there are things that can be said to be non-constructed ; if the claim is, however, that everything is constructed, then again an Archimedean point would be required to justify this claim, and it is unavailable. Neither Global Realism nor Global Constructivism seem able, therefore, to gain the upper hand. And yet, in order to preserve claim (1) above, claim (2) has to be retained in certain form. The proposal is that the basic tenets of Realism be preserved in normative form, i. e. as regulative ideas which serve to guide inquiry.

Realism; Constructivism; Kant; Carnap

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