Existence

I have been reading a little about realism and anti-realism which has left me thinking that my metaphysical beliefs put me in both camps? Let me explain. I'm inclined to accept the correspondence theory of truth which, I think, puts me in the realism camp as to my ontology. However, while I believe there exists a world external to mind, I do not think we come to know that world directly. Our experience and knowledge of the world is mediated by the brain which uses conceptual frameworks to make sense of all the raw data we are bombarded with daily. So it would seem, ontologically I'm a realist but epistemologically I'm an anti-realist. Does this make any sense?

Comments

Let's make two initial comments to muddy the waters!

1) Accepting some version of a correspondence theory of truth -- e.g. accepting that a true proposition is made true by the existence of a corresponding fact -- doesn't ipso fact make you a realist in your ontology. It will obviously depend what you think about facts! (You could still be an idealist like Berkeley, and suppose the only facts are ultimately those involving God, other spirits, and their ideas.)

2) Accepting that our knowledge of the world depends on a lot of processing of data by the brain using built-in cognitive mechanisms doesn't make you an anti-realist in epistemology. You could still hold that when those processes are working reliably, they successfully give you epistemic access to facts that obtain independently of you and your cognitive mechanisms.

I'd say that talk of a "correspondence theory of truth", "realism about ontology", "conceptual frameworks", and "epistemological anti-realism" is all far too slippery to be very useful. As often in philosophy, it helps to try to frame the issues that might be bugging you in plain terms, without any such jargon, and certainly without any reference to "isms". Sometimes it turns out that it was the jargon that was tangling your thought, or greasing the slide into confusion: but even if you are left with genuine problems, it will at least be clearer what they are!

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