Multi-Dimensional (Inclusive) Semantics

I address you today in a spirit of inclusiveness and diversity. For too long semantics (theory of meaning) has been the confine of a single type of entity held to constitute all that meaning encompasses (or a couple of entities, closely related).  We must broaden our horizons and recognize that many kinds of entity contribute to the overall significance of an expression, often emanating from different traditions and regions. Above all it is referencethat has proved hegemonic, squeezing out other contenders for semantic acceptance. Whether that notion is phallocentric to boot I shall not venture to say[1]; what I shall say is that we need a far more inclusive and diversity-driven approach to semantics. Semantics correctly conceived is a rainbow.[2]

It used to be that only reference (denotation) was admitted into the semantic club: the meaning of an expression was its denotation. This was the view of Lord Bertrand Russell, English aristocrat and logic whiz (Western logic). Definite descriptions had to be distorted beyond recognition in order to fit them into this narrow picture (a form of linguistic colonialism perhaps). In any case, this approach, hailing from John Stuart Mill, another privileged upper class Englishman (and we duly note the gender) held sway until a rebellious German, a certain Gottlob Frege, added an extra element to the story—what he provocatively labeled sense. This was an improvement, breaking the stranglehold of the English referential aristocrats, but sense was conceived as the mode of presentation of the reference; so reference was still occupying center stage, with sense acting merely as its reflection or image, i.e. how we viewreference. (Can we say that while reference is the phallus sense is its codpiece?) Still, the basic monism is firmly in place: semantics remains one-dimensional, or at least one-and-a-half-dimensional. Not till Ludwig Wittgenstein arrived (also a white male aristocrat) was this monism seriously questioned and a certain kind of pluralism put in its place—with all the variety of language emphasized and celebrated. This was a welcome development in the openness of semantic studies, even allowing for the existence of actual workingmen (those builders of the early Philosophical Investigations—though again we must note the gender bias). But instead of embracing diversity the Austrian aristocrat insisted on imposing a new one-dimensional hegemony—all meaning is use. Reference drops out of the picture entirely, as if use has ousted it altogether. We don’t have use andreference but use and notreference. The old exclusiveness survives in a new form, less rigid perhaps, but with the same drive towards uniformity. One half expects the use to be restricted to only the most privileged of users! This entire trajectory then reaches its climax, i.e. nadir, in the person of Sir Michael Dummett, a white male Oxford philosopher, whose main mantra is that everything about meaning should be explained by one central concept—such as truth or verification. There could not be a more blatant hegemony! Nothing is to be included in meaning except what can be subsumed under a single conceptual category: you are welcome to join the semantic club, but only if you are properly related to the concept of truth (or verification). No diversity allowed!

At this point I shall drop the political backstory and proceed immediately to theoretical matters, though I trust my enlightened readers to keep that political context always in mind. And let me lay my cards on the table right away: I am all in for maximum semantic inclusiveness with as much diversity as possible (within reason of course). Not just two-dimensional semantics, or even three or four, but manydimensions, indefinitely many—as many as we can come up with. Fortunately, we have this diversity already lying around—it requires no strenuous inventing on our part. I have prepared a long list: reference, sense (mode of presentation), tone, character and content, intension and extension, grammatical mood, inferential role, rules, stereotype, mental image, individual and social understanding, ideas, brain states, use, conceptual analysis, truth conditions, criteria, causal chains, and whatever else comes to mind. For my contention is that allof these may be reckoned to the meaning of a word or sentence: not one of them and notthe others, but the whole lot. They don’t exclude each other but coexist peacefully. For example, a proper name, say “Aristotle”, has reference, sense, an intension and extension, a character (constant in all contexts), a role in inference, an associated stereotype (“bearded cogitating Greek man”), individual grasp and socially agreed grasp, a use, a contribution to truth conditions, criteria of application (see stereotype), a causal-historical chain, even a tone (vaguely distinguished and admirable). From among this variegated list we may pick out sense and intension for instructive contrast: the former is defined in epistemic terms (mode of presentation and interchangeability in belief contexts) while the latter is defined in modal terms (functions from worlds to extensions). These are by no means the same notion, but they equally belong to a single name, existing side by side in perfect harmony. There is no point in arguing that one is the realmeaning and the other a mere impostor: both belong to the overall semantic significance of the name. Both are attributes the name has, and they clearly flow from what it means (not what it sounds like). Meaning is multi-dimensional, diverse, and inclusive. No doubt there are interesting relations of dependency between these various elements, which may be studied, but the plurality is irreducible—part of meaning’s rich pageant. We can even throw in some Meinong-style ontology if that is to our taste, assigning to so-called empty names a subsistent entity as reference, or what is called an ”intentional object”. A committed Kantian might insist that reference be divided into phenomenal reference and noumenal reference. A follower of Sir Arthur Eddington might propose a double reference for “chair”: the commonsense chair and the chair of physics. The possibilities are endless, to be considered on their merits; but they should not be rejected simply because of some presumed one-dimensionality in meaning. In the theory of meaning our adage should be, “The more the merrier”. Plurality is a sign that we have not omitted anything not a symptom of conceptual chaos or indecision.

It may be remarked that the situation in other departments of linguistic theory is already happily pluralist. Consider the theory of syntax, taken to include the study of the sound system of a language. There is no one central concept here to which others must bow down; instead there are layers and dimensions. We can study speech as an acoustic phenomenon (as with a speech spectrograph), or as an articulatory system, or as embodied in the brain, or computationally. None of these competes with the others; all are legitimate and important. Syntax more narrowly conceived is typically understood as consisting of layers of rules, which may be viewed computationally or in terms of brain mechanisms. These are all aspects of the “formal” properties of language, and they all coexist—people don’t go around complaining that someone else’s pet theory isn’treallyabout syntax. Syntax isn’t one-dimensional. Similarly, in pragmatics there is room for a diversity of perspectives—not a single overarching concept. Thus there is no inconsistency between Gricean, Austinian, and Wittgensteinian approaches to (philosophical) pragmatics: all can be true and illuminating in their different ways. After all, there are many aspects to the employment of language by people, and we should not expect to be able to subsume all them neatly under a single heading. For example, an utterance of “Shut the door!” may be made with Gricean intentions, while having an Austinian perlocutionary effect, and occurring within a Wittgensteinian language game. Then too, we may approach pragmatics from an individual’s perspective, studying the way language is used as a tool of thought (say), or we can approach it socially, studying how language is used in interpersonal communication. There are indefinitely many possible ways to do pragmatics, as there are multiple ways to do syntax; and there is no reason semantics should be an exception. There are multiple components across the board. The fact is that the list of concepts I gave represents a variety of insights into meaning on the part of different thinkers, each valuable in its own way, and there no necessity to reject some in favor of others. I don’t mean to say that no semantic theory can conceivably be false, just that the fault is usually incompleteness not outright error. Apparent inconsistencies often melt under more tolerant investigation (as with Fregean versus Kaplanian approaches to indexicals). I used to be all in favor of “dual component” semantics, but really we should expand the dimensions dramatically to accommodate everything that characterizes meaning. The concept of meaning is a multi-dimensional concept incorporating a large variety of factors. It is not a simple thing like being square or red; it is more like the concepts of democracy or marriage or success. It contains multitudes.

Let me return to my political platform, because I was not being entirely frivolous (though mainly so). In ethics there has historically been a tendency towards monolithic theories, as with utilitarianism and Kantian ethics. It was left to more ecumenical ethicists like W.D. Ross to advocate a pluralist reconciliation between these apparently competing systems, thus producing a multi-dimensional ethical system. It is easy to see this development as an integration of different political perspectives—the pure will of the privileged autonomous agent versus the maximization of happiness in a suffering population. In the case of semantics we also have a politically contested domain, because language is spoken by diverse groups of people each with their purposes, positions, and ways of life. It would not be amazing if a certain kind of linguistic hegemony were in effect according to which only certain aspects of meaning are deemed “proper”, the rest consigned to illegitimacy and disdain. Hence we get the idea of the logically perfect language. The messy reality of meaning might not receive its due recognition because of an ingrained habit of favoring some things over others. There is always something evaluative in theories of meaning, as if only a certain dimension is deserving of respect. Why has tone not received the attention it deserves? Could it be that its prime examples are racial slurs and sexist language? Why would people want to explore the expression of their own prejudices and hostilities? Speaking very broadly, there is something democraticabout meaning: everyone speaks no matter his or her social class or place in society, and meaning itself combines disparate elements jostling together. Oversimplifying culture from political motives is not so far removed from oversimplifying language from similar motives. The habit of exclusivity is deeply rooted and ubiquitous. At the least it can operate as a factor in determining what theoretical options people tend to take seriously. Semantics is political too.[3]

Colin McGinn

[1]I have no wish to wax psychoanalytic, but isn’t the notion of reference suspiciously phallic (at least as phallic as some of Freud’s phallic symbols)? It seems to involve a kind of mental protrusion, as the act of reference extends outward to make contact with objects in the environment. People sometimes talk of reference as like tentacles reaching out to grasp, but other organs of the body can reach out and make contact too. And what about pointing? The pointing finger has a rigidity and angle not unlike… And then there is “rigid designation”, a phrase that trips suspiciously easily off the tongue. Just saying.

[2]Light can appear homogeneous, but the rainbow resolves it into an array of separable hues. Meaning can seem homogeneous too until we resolve it into its components.

[3]For all I know intellectual traditions from beyond the West have suggested aspects of meaning Western thinkers have missed. If so, I cordially invite them in.

Existence and theCogito

The Cogitostrikes most people as intuitively valid, but it has been trenchantly criticized. How exactly the inference is supposed to work still excites controversy. Here I will consider a line of objection that I have not seen pressed before. The natural way to interpret the inference is that it moves from a premise about instantiation to a conclusion about existence: I know with certainty that I instantiate the property of thinking, so I must exist as the subject of this property. We might expand the argument as follows: “I have the property of thinking; if something has a property, that thing must exist; therefore I exist”. My thoughts exist (as I know with certainty), and they must be instantiated in some object; this object is not identical to my thoughts; so we can infer that there exists an object (viz. myself) that is not identical to my thoughts. Thus we can move nontrivially from the existence of thinking to the existence of a thing that thinks. But consider the analogous argument concerning unicorns: “Unicorns are horses with one horn, so unicorns instantiate the property of having a horn; but there has to be an object that instantiates this property; therefore unicorns exist.” Or: “Santa Claus has a beard, so he instantiates the property of having a beard; but then he must be an object that instantiates a property; therefore Santa Claus exists”. The premises seem true but the conclusion is false, so the argument must be invalid—but where does it go wrong? Meinong would give the following answer: it does not follow from the fact that an object instantiates a property that the object exists—it might only subsist. In more recent terminology, these objects might be merely “intentional objects” not real existent objects; and so instantiation does not imply existence on the part of the instantiating object. Applying this point to the Cogito, what is to rule out the possibility that the self is a merely intentional object that instantiates the property of thinking but does not exist? We can see that objects are able instantiate properties without thereby existing, so why can’t the self be one of those? To be sure, the propertiesexist—they are real entities all right—but it doesn’t follow that anything that instantiatesthem is itself real. Fictional objects are a counterexample: the property of being a detective is a real property, but the fact that Sherlock Holmes is a detective doesn’t make himreal. Likewise, thinking is a real property that things can have, but it doesn’t follow that anything that instantiates this property is itself real—after all, Holmes also thinks. Maybe the self is like Holmes.

How might we respond to this objection? One possibility would be to appeal to the certaintyof the premise that I think, holding that this is what sets the Cogitoapart. But am I not also certain that unicorns have one horn, that Santa Claus has a beard, and that Holmes is a detective? The fact that an object certainly instantiates a property does not automatically confer existence on that object (it is certain that the Golden Mountain is a mountain). Another possible way out would be to question the whole ontology of subsistent or intentional objects, insisting that there are no objects but existent ones. This flies in the face of the seemingly obvious fact that some things don’t exist and yet have properties; but also, from the point of view of the Cogito, it gives up the certainty of the inference—for now we have to accept that the validity of the Cogitodepends on the rejection of Meinongian metaphysics. Maybe we should, maybe we shouldn’t, but we don’t want the fate of the Cogitoto be tied to that metaphysical issue. No one hearing the Cogitofor the first time thinks, “Well, it depends on your view of Meinong”. Descartes surely did not take a stand against Meinong-style ontology when he enunciated the Cogito. The validity of the argument should not depend on whether or not you entertain Meinongian predilections. It isn’t as if those with such predilections are prohibited from accepting the Cogito; at any rate, that’s not the way the question presents itself.

A third suggestion is that there is an asymmetry between unicorns (etc.) and thinking selves, namely that you can hallucinate unicorns but you can’t hallucinate thinking selves. Thus it can seem to you as if there is a unicorn in front of you without there being one, but you can’t hallucinate having thoughts without actually having them. That asymmetry must be conceded—beliefs in unicorns are not epistemically necessary but beliefs in thoughts are—but it doesn’t help to salvage the argument: for all we get from this is that the existence of thoughtsis certain, not that the existence of thinking selvesis. True, we can be certain that thoughts exist, but we could still be in error about the existence of a self that has them. There might be nothing except thoughts in the vicinity. We might be under an illusion about the self, as we might be under an illusion about unicorns. We might be misinterpreting a collection of thoughts as a self that hasthem. Compare seeing a swarm of bees in the distance and mistakenly thinking there is a single big organism there. Maybe we hallucinate a unitary self when we introspectively encounter a swarm of thoughts. Who knows what might be going on? We can’t hallucinate the thoughts, but we could be under an illusion about what they signify, i.e. an underlying unitary self. Similarly, when we hallucinate a unicorn we are not hallucinating its component properties—they are real enough quaproperties (though their present instantiation is illusory). Anyway, even if it is somehow impossible to hallucinate a self, why should the existence of a self be entailed by the existence of individual thoughts? We still haven’t justified the step from the existence of thoughts to the existence of a thing that has them (the Gassendi-Lichtenberg objection).

Fourth, we might hope to find something in the specific nature of thought that guarantees an existent thinker, where this something is not present for properties in general. Maybe having a single horn doesn’t prove the existence of what has the horn, but thought might be such as to necessitate an underlying existent thinker. This would be the analogue of the ontological argument: most properties indeed fail to guarantee existence, but the property of total perfection does guarantee it, because of its specific nature. Instantiation by thatproperty entails the existence of the instantiating object (according to the ontological argument). There has been a strong intuition (notably voiced by Frege) that mental states necessarily require a bearer—something that has them, a subject. But it is far from clear how this can help the Cogito: Meinong could agree with this point while insisting that the bearer is a merely subsistent entity. Fictional mental states logically require a bearer too, viz. a fictional character, but they lack existence. The notion of a subject of predication—an object of instantiation—is too weak to deliver the conclusion of the Cogito: we might be predicating thought of a non-existent object. But also: does the intuition hold for all kinds of mental states or only thoughts? And does it apply to unconscious mental states as well as conscious ones? Is it true of the bodily sensations of jellyfish or worms? And is the point any different from the claim that any kind of state needs something for it to be a state of, including the state of being electrically charged or the state of the weather? We really need an argument, analogous to the ontological argument, showing that thinking inherently and uniquely calls for an existent subject that can be the reference of “I”, but what this argument might be remains elusive. Could it be that the capacity to think requires the capacity for the self-attribution of thoughts, and hence for a self? But what could establish that, and how would it guarantee the reality of the self in question? Descartes never argued anything of the kind, and it would certainly undermine his claim that the Cogitois primitively compelling. So there is nothing comparable to the ontological argument showing that it is in the nature of thought to bring with it an existent bearer, let alone one with the characteristics of the self as normally understood.[1]

But perhaps there is an intuition lurking in this unsuccessful argument that might have more cogency: namely that there is a contradiction in the idea of existent thoughts occurring in a non-existent object. Fictional thoughts can occur in a fictional object, but non-fictional thoughts require a non-fictional object. Thoughts are particulars not universals (token not types) and existent particulars need existent objects to inhere in. Properties can exist and be properties of non-existent objects, but events and processes can’t both exist and also inhere in non-existent objects. What would it mean for Sherlock Holmes the fictional character to have an existent real thought? Wouldn’t that make him real? So there is a metaphysical assumption at the heart of the Cogito: those thoughts whose existence is evident to us must exist in a being that is itself existent, since real events need real objects as bearer. Real mental particulars need real mental substances to inhere in—they can’t exist in an unreal substance. In Meinong’s language, existent events cannot inhere in merely subsistent objects. If there is real thinking going on, then this requires a real entity to do the thinking; and we know for sure that real thinking is going on—hence we know for sure that we exist. If the thinking was fictional, the subject of it would or might be fictional too; but granted that the thinking is not fictional, neither can he thinker be. Thus I know that I am not a character in fiction (or a “logical fiction” or an hallucination). Compare the bodily counterpart to the Cogito: “I have a body, therefore I exist”. We could not object to this that the premise could be true and the conclusion false, because the body, not being fictional, cannot be had by something fictional: something must non-fictionally exist if my body non-fictionally exists (whether it is the reference of “I” is a further question). We can infer from the existence of the body that something exists. To be more precise, if I know that I have bodily states, then I know that something exists in which those states occur—for example, if I digest there must exist something that digests. The inference is solid because it is compelling to claim that physical states require a physical bearer—a physical thing that has them. If I know there are physical states, then I can deduce that there are physical objects, because states must be states ofsomething. And it would be absurd to suggest that existent physical states could exist in a non-existent object—a merely intentional object. If Holmes is in real physical states, then he must be real himself—fictional characters can’t have real indigestion! The difference from the classic Cogitois just that the premise here is not certain (not an epistemic necessity): I don’t know for certain that I am in physical states or even that I have a body. So this is no use for Descartes’s purposes, though the connection between premise and conclusion is the same in both cases, viz. a metaphysical principle precluding unreal bearers of real states. As we might put it: we can’t mix the existent with the subsistent, the real with the imaginary, the factual with the fictional.

Where does this leave the Cogito? It allows it to struggle on, to retain a semblance of cogency, but it leaves it vulnerable to skeptical doubt. Descartes was working with a scholastic metaphysics of substance and accident—his evil demon was not supposed to call thatinto question. Against this background the Cogitois relatively smooth sailing. But a dogged opponent might protest that this metaphysics is not immune to doubt, and if it is doubted the Cogitowill not go through. Why should we accept that there are substances at all, material or immaterial—why not make do with an ontology of states, events, and processes? Later philosophers indeed did advocate such a low-calorie ontology (e.g. Russell) and so there is no substance in the world for thoughts to inhere in anyway. Thoughts may form sets or aggregates, according to this point of view, thereby gaining a sort of collective unity, but they don’t inhere in substances. So there is no valid metaphysical principle licensing the move from the existence of states to the existence of substances that support them. That may be wrong as a piece of metaphysics, but in the context of the Cogitoit would need to be addressed.

More subtly, however, there is this problem: the prima faciepersuasiveness of the Cogitoseems not to be hostage to the kind of principle I have invoked to bolster it. Is this what someone is thinking who accepts the Cogito? Possibly, but it would have to be in some subliminal or tacit manner, since the requisite principle is hardly laid bare in the usual presentations of the Cogito. It takes work to come up with it and it is not entirely self-evident, even if you accept it. So it is not clear it can explain the felt cogency of the Cogito; indeed, it renders it much more wobbly than we might initially have supposed. Once it is fully articulated in this way its appearance of self-evidence starts to fade, and yet it is routinely hailed as the surest of philosophical theses. The resourceful Meinongian has produced a new threat to the Cogito, and the suggested repair to the argument lacks transparent cogency, even if it is ultimately correct as a piece of metaphysics. So we are left in a rather unsatisfactory position: the argument is not clearly valid but not clearly invalid either. I would say that it can be salvaged more effectively than might have seemed possible once the Meinongian objection has been formulated; for that objection looks formidable at first sight and it takes some ingenuity to forestall it. Hume’s kind of critique of the self, which takes the self as a type of fiction (at least on some interpretations of Hume), was evidently alien to Descartes and quite inimical to the Cogito(we can’t deduce the existence of a substantial self merely from the existence of ideas encountered internally). And yet it is hard to deny that the Cogitohas all the appearance of self-evidence, whatever its final analysis may turn out to be. This philosophical gem thus remains as tantalizing as ever.

C

[1]Not that the ontological argument is really any good in the end, but it is at least an argumentthat needs to be contended with.

I have discovered that my 1992 novel The Space Trap now exists in audio form from Amazon. I had no idea this was being done and was not informed of it. I discovered it by chance when I bought an Alexa and it started reciting the novel to me for reasons I can’t fathom. The woman reciting the novel does a creditable job, especially given the challenging content. I enjoyed listening to it. I don’t know how generally available it is, so I’d be interested to know if people can access it from their devices. All I did to get it was say to my Echo Dot “Alexa, read The Space Trap by Colin McGinn” and she started reading it. Can readers check to see if they can get it this way?

Strengths of Realism

Realism and anti-realism are conventionally presented as dichotomous: you must be either one or the other with nothing in between. This is supposed true across the board, from material objects to moral values. But on reflection the dichotomy is too simple—there are finer distinctions to capture. We can approach the matter by examining the paradigm case: realism and anti-realism about the external world. What is it to be a realist about material objects? Several points might be mentioned: propositions about material objects must be logically independent of propositions about sense experience; material objects must be the cause of sense experiences; material objects cannot be mental constructions of any kind; material objects must differ in their intrinsic nature from sense experiences; material objects must exist in a different space (or region of space) from that occupied by sense experiences; material objects must pre-exist and post-exist sense experiences; material objects must have properties that sense experience does not reveal or perhaps cannot reveal. These points affirm that material objects in no way reduce to or depend upon sense experiences; and they are precisely what is denied by someone who cleaves to an anti-realist view of them. So realism here consists in a conjunction of separate claims that are not necessarily jointly true. Consider Berkley’s idealism: he regards so-called material objects as ideas in the mind of God that can exist whether we have corresponding ideas or not, but he does not suppose that they have an intrinsically different nature from sense experiences, since that is what they are. He also believes they exist in a space separate from that occupied by human minds, but he doesn’t think they pre-exist existence in God’s mind. Nor does he hold that propositions about material objects are logically independent of propositions about God’s mind. So is Berkeley a realist or an anti-realist? The question has no sensible answer: he accepts some of the claims of the cluster I mentioned but not all. It seems right to say that he is not so strong a realist as someone who accepts all the claims of the cluster but that he is also not an outright anti-realist who rejects all of them. We might say (not very illuminatingly) that he is a weakrealist about material objects, and then go on to specify exactly what claims he accepts and what he rejects. The traditional dichotomy is just too crude to capture the full range of metaphysical opinion in this case.

Or consider realism and anti-realism about the mind itself. You can hold that there is nothing in the mind except what shows itself in actual behavior; or you can weaken this to maintain that mental states consist in dispositions to behavior; or you can identify mental states with brain states that underlie such dispositions; or you can hold that it must be at least logically possible to manifest a mental state behaviorally. Correspondingly, you can assert that mental states exist in a separate immaterial substance that is logically independent of the body and behavior, or you can weaken this position in various ways. The result is a spectrum of possible positions not a simple dichotomy. Some positions are intuitively more realist than others. The closer the position gets to the analogous position with respect to material objects the more or less realist it becomes (existing in a separate space and having a different intrinsic nature make the position strongly realist). But it is artificial and distorting to try to force a position into one or the other of two categories, realist or anti-realist. Someone might reasonably maintain that he is moderately realist about Xbut not mad-dogrealist about X—soft-core but not heavy-duty. On a realism scale of 1 to 10, he might describe himself as a 7.

Much the same pattern is discernible with respect to mathematical realism. You can be an extreme platonic realist holding that numbers exist in a separate sphere difficult to reach from the human point of view, eternal and unchanging, far from the madding crowd of empirical particulars; or you can weaken this position in various ways, holding (say) that numbers are constructions from sets of particulars combined with logic, or even concrete aggregates of particulars. Again, there is room for manoeuver in articulating a position deserving the name of realism, with some positions stronger than others. An anti-realist might accept nominalism or some form of psychologism, where again different strengths of position might be distinguished (for example, numbers are nothing but actual inscriptions in contrast to possible inscriptions). There is a wide spectrum of possible positions that may be adopted and it would be procrustean to try to force all of them into one of two categories. Similarly with scientific realism: one might hold that unobservable entities are real and causal while also holding that they consist in potentialities not actualities; or one might accept particles as real but jib at fields. There is room for half-hearted scientific realism as well as the full-throated kind.

I have made these points as a preparation for considering moral realism. For here there are difficult questions of formulation and it is helpful to have a clear view of the full range of options. We don’t want to lapse into anti-realism just because we have a limited view of the varieties of moral realism. If we want to keep the analogy with the external world, which gives the issue clarity and bite, we need to identify features of the moral case that match the features I listed earlier—such as intrinsic difference of ontological kind or separation in space. Thus moral values may be said to exist at some remove from the moral subject and to differ in kind from any fact about that subject. They must also pre-exist recognition by the subject and be logically independent of anything she might believe, feel, or experience. Presumably they will not be said to act as causes, but that view is logically available under some ingenious conception of causation. Moral values might exist and yet not be discoverable by moral agents, and they may be quite other than what is generally believed. Again, it is possible to endorse some of these claims but not others: for example, one might hold that what is morally right cannot be inferred from what people believe but that morality must be in principle accessible to moral believers—belief-independent but not completely mind-independent. One might believe in Plato’s Form of the Good or in Moore’s indefinable non-natural property of goodness; but it would also be possible to style oneself a moral realist while rejecting such views, opting instead for a view in which the existence of objective reasons constitutes the sole content of a reasonable moral realism. There is no point in fighting over labels, which is a temptation if the issue is conceived dichotomously; better to accept a plurality of possible views each inviting the label “realism”. Some types of moral realism will be stronger than others, i.e. closer to the paradigm of realism about material objects. To insist that certain views are not reallyrealist is to be in thrall to binary thinking, though no doubt certain views will count as anti-realist if any view does (emotivism, for instance).[1]

One response to these observations would be to abandon all talk of realism and anti-realism as misleadingly simplistic; and that response is not without its merits. But then there is the question of what might be put in its place—what other terminology could we use? And the current terminology is not without intuitive force, especially in conjunction with the paradigm supplied by the external world. To be a realist is definitely to be an identifiable kind of thing—to adopt an intelligible position. The concept is not empty. It is just that it is not quite as black and white as it has seemed from traditional debates. We need to make room for the partial, qualified, and week-kneed realist—as well as the modest and lukewarm anti-realist. Certainly, we must avoid pinning caricatures on positions that attract the label “realist”, as if anything so called must be of the most extreme and implausible kind.

[1]In ethics we find a contrast between subjectivism and objectivism, as well as between relativism and absolutism, but we don’t find these contrasts in the case of the external world and other subject matters. It is an interesting question why this is so, but it must surely be connected to the fact that there is a strong tendency in ethics for people to believe that thinking it makes it so, which is not the case for the external world. Thus moral realism is often framed as the denial that moral belief implies moral truth (suitably relativized). I would prefer to label this position “moral objectivism” and keep the label “moral realism” for views that model ethics more closely on the external world: but this is all a matter of words (not that words can’t be philosophically important).