The Southern Journal of Philosophy (1991) Volume XXIX, No. 1

ANTIREALISM AND REALIST CLAIMS OF INVARIANCE Crawford L. Elder University of Connecticut

In defense of realism, Dr. Johnson pointed out that the spatio-temporal career of the stone was uninfluenced by his attempt at interfering with it. But Berkeley understood that though the stone did not become a projectile of Johnson’s foot, it might yet be a projection of Johnson’s mind. Some contemporary opponents of realism imagine they see, in their exchanges with realists, a similar pattern of argument. The realist maintains that this or that aspect of the world would remain unaltered, even if our mental a t t i tudes a n d commitments were to strike out in different directions from the actual ones; the opponent replies that he can and does wholeheartedly agree, but still holds that the aspect in question is a mere projection or construction of our minds- one constructed so as to be thus invariant. Thus some opponents of moral realism claim ability to agree that even if our feelings toward such practices as bear-baiting and kicking dogs h a d been ones of pleasure ra ther than repulsion, those practices would still have been morally wrong.’ Antirealists in other areas claim to agree that changes i n which na tura l regularities seem to u s unsurprising, or which are entrenched in our theories, would have made no difference in which regularities are lawlike; or that alterations in what we can manage to imagine would have made no difference in what is necessary or impossible.2 It even has been argued that the antirealist can afford to concede that reference is a determinate causal relation, uninfluenced by our choosing one reference-assignment or another, while yet denying that apart from us, running from language to a theory-independent world, there is a n y determinate relation of r e fe ren~e .~ What I argue here is that

Crawford L. Elder is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut. His first publications dealt with connections between Hegel and contemporary metaphysics. His subsequent work has been devoted to the issue of realism us. anti-realism. The aim has been to defend a realist view of the world which leaves room for reference, persons, and social institutions.

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opponents of realism have this time underestimated their opposition. They cannot afford to concede the claims of invariance which the realist advances; to avoid realism itself, they must argue that all these claims are false. And it is not surprising that they have so far been reluctant to do so.

I. I begin by considering the strongest case made so far for

claiming that antirealists about morality, about laws, and about modalities can afford to accept the realist’s claims of invariance-namely, Simon black burn'^.^

The antirealism which Blackburn seeks to buttress by this case is a standard projectivist view, in the mold of Hume’s. Any antirealist position, in the three areas mentioned, must deny that there are in the world moral properties, or lawlikeness, or necessities and possibilities. The standard versions, which Blackburn favors, avoid saying that ordinary assertions about moral matters-or about laws, or necessities, or possibilities-are simply erroneous or confused or incoherent. Moral judgments, for example, may appear to report the whereabouts of various moral properties, but are not in fact errors, because they are not in the business of reporting, of saying how the world is, at all; their function is rather that of expressing certain sentiments. Assertions that such-and-such is a law, or thus-and-so a necessity, likewise do not belong to fact-stating discourse; the former voice our sense that some regularity is familiar or natural, or well entrenched or explanatory or inference-justifying, and the latter our sense of inability to imagine otherwise.

Put this way, however, the antirealisms in question do seem to be vulnerable to an objection which even the likes of a Dr. Johnson could muster: if our sentiments or senses had somehow been different, then the expressions which it would have been correct for us to voice would evidently have been different from those we actually voice. Correctness in talk about morals and laws and modalities is determined by the way we happen to feel and think. But this result seems unacceptable, because in the actual course of such talk we feel that correctness is instead governed by factors altogether independent of how we feel and think-that correctness in a moral judgment, for example, is governed by moral rightnesses and wrongnesses which may elicit our sentiments, but are not made by them;5 that genuine laws are found and not made.6 In short, our ordinary practice of

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moral discourse involves unhesitating acceptance of claims like

(1) “Even if we had approved of it or enjoyed it or desired to do it, bear-baiting would still have been w~rong.”~

and unhesitating rejection of claims like (2) If we had had quite different sentiments about or reactions to bear-baiting, bear-baiting would have been morally permissible.

And our ordinary theorizing and modalizing involve parallel positions on parallel claims.

Now prior to Blackburn’s work, it appeared tha t antirealista about morality, of this standard Humean mold, had little choice but to hold that the everyday assertion of counterfactuals on the model of (1) was simply an error, and likewise the everyday denial of counterfactuals such as (2). But such a position seems little more attractive than an “error theory” for categorical moral judgments, e.g., “Bear- baiting is morally wrong.”S And parallel problems appeared to face the other two antirealisms. What Blackburn argues is that the moral antirealist can himself endorse (l), and reject (2), and the nerve of the argument is the claim that (1) and (2) themselves belong to expressive discourse. The subject matter of each is a certain “moral sensibility,” which Blackburn defines as “a function from input of belief to output of attitude.”g The “sensibility” which (2) schematizes is a disposition, a readiness, to acquire an accepting attitude towards bear-baiting upon exposure to the news that we feel enjoyment or pleasure at bear-baiting, and in denying (2) we express rejection of that “sensibility.” The “sensibility” which (1) schematizes is a disposition to continue to scorn bear-baiting, even upon receipt of the information that people now feel differently about it from before, and in asserting (1) we are endorsing this “sensibility.” It is important to note that the rejection and endorsement we signal, in denying (2) and asserting (l), are themselves moral rejection and endorsement. They are not epistemological; it is not that in denying (2) and asserting (l), we in effect say that information about how humans feel about bear-baiting is an unreliable basis on which to report the moral facts about the practice, likely to lead to false reports. In that case, of course, the consistent projectivist could not deny (2), or assert (l), after all. The claim is rather that by our use of (2) and (l), we endorse and reject certain moral

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“sensibilities” on intrinsic grounds-as cases of proper moralizing, or improper moralizing. And in the parallel cases-e.g.,

(3) If we had had different scientific customs, or a different informal sense of how the world works, the regularity that all creatures having hearts also have kidneys would have been a law of nature.

the claim would be, in parallel fashion, that by rejecting (3) we oppose a readiness to change one’s claims about what is lawlike, upon receipt of information about our scientific customs, and oppose it not on epistemological grounds, but as intrinsically inconsistent with proper conduct of the language-game called “scientific theorizing.”

Of course, one might wonder just how much is left, given this accommodation with ordinary thought over statements like (1)-(3), of any doctrine properly labelled “projectivism.” What after all would it mean to say that moral properties, for example, are projections of our sentiments, if not that our sentiments control where moral properties do and do not occur-and how could one explicate the sort of control involved, if not by endorsing such counterfactuals as (2)? The appearance, in other words, is that Blackburn may have devised a way for the projectivist to endorse statements like (l), and reject ones like (2), but has not removed the need for the projectivist, qua projectivist, to reject statements like (l), and endorse ones like (2). The projectivist might not, even so, be involved in simple self-contradiction. One might argue that when (1) and (2) are viewed as statements made within the ordinary practice of moral discourse-when they are given what has come to be called an “internal” reading- they can be endorsed and rejected, respectively, by the moral projectivist, and that it is only when they are viewed as descriptions of how the world is-read “externally,” as articulations of a position i n metaphysics-that t he projectivist must reject and endorse them, respectively. But that would be a precarious position for the projectivist to take.10 To suggest that one and the same sentence might be correct when placed within one sphere of discourse, and false when placed in another, would require an implausibly sharp distinction between spheres of discourse. And it would, even worse, invite the question how one is so sure that ordinary practitioners of moral discourse do not sometimes endorse (l), and reject (2), on the “external” reading-the problem being that if they do, the projectivist is advancing a n “error theory” after all.

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In fact these worries do not arise, on Blackburn’s actual position. His position is not the one which the label “projectivism” might at first suggest-though perhaps none of the positions, which from time to time get labelled “projectivist,” quite match that initial impression, either.” It is that moral properties-and also lawlikeness and necessity-simply do not exist. It is not that where they occur depends on the directions taken by our sentiments, but that they do not occur at all. So on the topic of what their occurrence does or does not depend on, there is no truth to report-“no doctrine to express.”12 But this is not to say that sentences which appear to discuss that topic are meaningless or confused. (1) and (2) both appear to discuss it, and both are meaningful-(1) is right, and (2) is wrong-but that is precisely because (1) and (2) both belong to expressive discourse. In other words, (1) and (2) have only “internal” readings.13 And in general, talk about what rightness or lawlikeness or necessity does or does not depend on is meaningful, but never amounts to description of how the world is; rather, it always functions as an expression of what is and is not proper procedure in moralizing, theorizing, and modalizing.

That then is Blackburn’s case for saying that antirealists in these three areas can afford to accept the reali. t’s invariance claims. I have two objections. I agree that we express approval and disapproval of various moral “sensibilities,” and of parallel dispositions to alter or resist altering the claims we make concerning laws and necessities. I even agree that the particular “sensibilities” Blackburn mentions are, roughly, ones of which we approve and disapprove. But I hold that we approve and disapprove of them for reasons, and with qualifications, which Blackburn’s account is unable to recognize.

First, the point about reasons. There is no question that, if we were really to discover in someone a readiness to retract his condemnation of bear-baiting, upon learning merely that others now felt amused rather than revolted by the sport, we would disapprove of that readiness. What would our reason be for disapproving of it? The question seems legitimate. The answer seems to be roughly this: what makes bear-baiting wicked has nothing to do with how we feel about the sport, though it may indeed get reflected in how we feel about it; so a moral assessment of bear-baiting cued directly to human reaction would be both unreliable and insensitive. But from the perspective of Blackburn’s projectivist, no such answer can count as reason. For from that perspective, the assertion

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“what makes bear-baiting wicked has nothing to do with how we humans feel about the sport” belongs to expressive rather than fact-stating discourse, and expresses disapproval of precisely the disposition to cue condemnation of bear- baiting directly to human revulsion at the sport. In other words, when asked what our reason is for disapproving of that disposition, Blackburn’s projectivist can only express that same disapproval all over again (provided, that is, his analysis of our answer to the question is right.)

This problem infects even Blackburn’s account of what projection itself is. Blackburn writes,

“we project an attitude or habit or other commitment which is not descriptive onto the world, when we speak and think as though there were a property of things which our sayings describe and which we can reason about, know about, be wrong about, and so on.”14

Here the phrase beginning “as though” indicates a manner or pattern of speech and thought, but there is also a suggestion of explanation: we speak and think in a certain pattern, which so far is unspecified, except for the comment that it is the pattern that would be explained by-would come naturally for us, given-our thinking of these properties as unaffected by inadequacy, incompleteness, or inaccuracy in our thoughts about them. But could we literally think that? We could, and indeed we do, say the words, “there are moral properties in actions, which are unaffected by the thoughts we have about them.” But what this saying amounts to, if Blackburn is right, is not a description of the status of moral properties, but a n expression of disapproval of moralizing that is cued to human reaction. So what “explains” the pattern in which we speak and think about moral matters-in particular, our resistance to “anthropocentric” moralizing-is our adherence to a sentence which says, “Anthropocentric moralizing is to be resisted! ” The passage quoted would less misleadingly run thus: “we project an attitude or habit or other commitment which is not descriptive onto the world, when we utter sentences which express or voice those attitudes, and in addition voice disapproval of anyone’s being disposed to utter such sentences upon exposure merely to information about what attitudes are generally held by us.’’

Now there is not even the suggestion of our having any particular reason for being opposed to anthropocentric moralizing. Also-and this is not coincidental-there is no indication of why the verb “project,” or the noun “projection,” is an appropriate label for this pattern of

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attitude-expression. But if the sanitized version of Blackburn’s original passage seys very little, that is not because Blackburn wrote the original badly. There simply is no way to unpack the metaphor of “projection” without speaking of features which at least seem to be “out there,” “independent of us,” etc., and these embedded descriptions have to be given an “external” reading: otherwise one cannot say that we speak and think, approve and disapprove, as if we thought so-and-so were the case, as a matter of fact; one can only say that we speak and think, approve and disapprove, thus.

Next, the point about qualifications. As a very rough generalization, it is true that we disapprove of the disposition to withhold moral judgment on a given practice or institution until one has learned whether others feel favorably or unfavorably towards it; or morally to approve (disapprove) of the practice as soon as one has learned that others feel favorably (unfavorably) towards it; or to retract one’s earlier condemnation (endorsement) of the practice upon learning that others no longer feel unfavorably (favorably) towards it. But there are countless exceptions. Consider, for example, the case of a n agent who suspects that he has been prevented, by cultural “blinders,” from having an adequate appreciation of how some social institution is experienced by persons positioned differently in society from himself-e.g., a white reflecting on the morality of apartheid, or a male wondering about the moral defensibility of sex-role stereotyping. Such an agent might hesitate to take any moral stand on the institution in question until he has managed, in his imagination, to do some difficult “shoe- trading,” and his eventual moral stand might well be cued to the feelings which he ends up imagining those remote others having towards the institution in question. But we would disapprove of neither disposition; we would probably applaud them both. There even are benign cases of the third disposition. If the news that others now feel quite differently from before about a given institution is accompanied by some creditable story about “how they could have been so wrong”-a story that saves their claim to be moral judges worth taking seriously-then the disposition to change one’s own moral stance may seem reasonable, and unruffled indifference to the change in how others feel may seem to bespeak “moral solipsism.” One can even imagine exceptions to the approvals and disapprovals, which Blackburn envisions us making, of dispositions-to-judge in other spheres. Thus we do, as a rough generalization, disapprove

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of the disposition to cue one’s judgments about which regularities are and are not lawlike to a survey of which regularities are and are not entrenched in our scientific traditions or habits of thought. But presented with a plausible version of the Quine-like idea that our traditions and habits are likely to have been shaped by the way the world itself works, we might imaginably come, in some cases, to approve of such a disposition.

Of course we do disapprove of some instances of moral “sensibilities” such as Blackburn indicates. I concede this readily, since my objection is that Blackburn cannot differentiate the instances of which we do disapprove from those of which we do not. We disapprove of the extreme instances-the ones in which an agent can be brought to take a moral position on some institution only by the presentation of information about how others feel about it, and moreover takes this information alone as settling, beyond any intelligible doubt, what moral position should be taken. That is, the moral “sensibilities” we disapprove of are slavishly “anthropocentric” ones-sensibilities so anthropo- centric as to bespeak a conviction that how people feel about a given institution is constitutive of its moral character. The sensibilities described above are, i n contrast , mildly “anthropocentric”: they treat how people feel about a given institution as likely indicators of the institution’s moral character. Since, in the cases described, we as judges of these sensibilities tend to agree tha t the feelings are likely indicators, we tend to approve of these sensibilities.

But then it has to be wrong to say that we criticize the moral sensibilities, which Blackburn identifies, as being intrinsically inconsistent with proper procedure in the practice of moralizing. If we thought that (or felt that way), we would criticize these sensibilities in all their instances, and the instances I have described show that we do not. Instead we criticize them just to the extent that, and just because, they show inattention to a certain metaphysical picture of the world-one on which moral properties are not constituted by, but are independent of, and are at best indicated by, the feelings people have towards the insti tutions and actions that possess them. This metaphysical position we endorse unhesitatingly, and without qualification. The moral sensibilities which Blackburn identifies we criticize (or endorse) only sometimes, and with many qualifications. So the assertions which articulate this metaphysical position-statements about what is and is not constitutive of moral badness and moral

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goodness, read “externally”-simply cannot be equated with expressions of approval or disapproval of sensibilities such as those we have considered; our confidence in them is too unqualified for the equation to work.

But is this perhaps unfair? Blackburn’s actual texts provide only rough sketches of the objectionable moral sensibilities, and the sketches do apply both to sensibilities of which we disapprove and to sensibilities of which we do not. But it is unfair to reject a position on the basis of the actual text, if it is easy to see how the text could be improved. Above, I myself offered a dispositional explanation of the difference between slavishly anthropocentric moral sensibilities and only mildly anthropocentric ones. Why might not Blackburn say that it is only anthropocentric moral sensibilities bear ing this extra differentiating feature-or some other extra feature like it-of which we voice disapproval, whenever we appear to asser t t he metaphysical independence from human reaction of moral badness (or goodness) ? This revision might indeed require us to concentrate on different examples from those Blackburn offers. What matters most about bear-baiting, for example, is an evil suffered by bears, and not by anthropoi at all, and so it may be that sensibilities about the sport which are anthropocentric at all-whether slavishly or mildly-are all morally objectionable. (The same holds of kicking dogs, another of Blackburn’s examples.) 15 But a suitably fine-grained account might be elicited if, say, we considered apartheid instead. Blackburn’s revised position would be that what we find objectionable is, roughly, the disposition to pass both quickly and unquestioningly, from learning that other people have favorable (or unfavorable) feelings towards apartheid, to adopting, oneself, a favorable (or unfavorable) moral stance on the institution. It is of this sensibility, he now would say, that we voice disapproval in asserting

(4) How people feel about apartheid is not constitutive of its moral unacceptability or acceptability.

But room would remain to acknowledge the point about mildly anthropocentric moralizing. Blackburn could specify a different sensibility-roughly, a disposition to react, to the news that others feel accepting of (or antagonistic towards) apartheid, by entertaining doubts and misgivings about one’s own moral disapproval (or approval) of apartheid-and could say that it is of this sensibility that we voice approval in asserting

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(5) How people feel about apartheid is in fact a fairly reliable indicator of its moral unacceptability or acceptability.

The question, however, is whether the difference between immediate capitulation to the sentiments of others, on the one hand, and sensitivity towards others’ sentiments in one’s own moral reflection, on the other, can be made to match with the difference between slavishly and mildly anthropocentric moralizing-at least by Blackburn. Slavishly anthropocentric moralizing, I said, involves not only the disposition to cue one’s moral stance on an institution (or action) to information about how others feel about it, but also to hold a certain belief-namely that how others feel settles, beyond any intelligible doubt, what moral stance is correct. Slavishly anthropocentric moralizing about apartheid, then, would involve belief in the negation of (4), or rather in the negation of one of its two substitution instances-belief either that how people feel is constitutive of apartheid’s unacceptability, or that how people feel is constitutive of apartheid’s acceptability. And mildly anthropocentric moralizing, in contrast, would involve belief either that how people feel is not constitutive of the unacceptability, or else not constitutive of the acceptability. But this contrast, so drawn, is off limits for Blackburn. For Blackburn is committed to saying that talk about what is and is not constitutive of the moral badness (or moral acceptability) of a given institution does not belong to fact- stating discourse at all. So such talk does not express a speaker’s beliefs. It instead expresses a speaker’s attitudes- specifically, the speaker’s approving or disapproving of this or that moral sensibility. What distinguishes, then, the slavishly anthropocentric moralizer from the mildly anthropocentric one-so Blackburn will have to say-is that the former not only cues his moral stance on a given institution (or action) to information about how others feel about it, but also voices approval of such cueing. But now the difference between slavish and mild is in danger of disappearing. For the mildly anthropocentric moralizer also cues his moral stance to information about how others feel, and also, presumably, voices disapproval of such cueing.

Now since Blackburn cannot say the two moralizers differ in their beliefs about the metaphysical and epistemological justification for approving of such cueing, he must say instead that they differ over the precise version of such cueing of which each approves. The slavishly anthropocentric moralizer, Blackburn will have to say, is

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distinguished by endorsing-and embodying-a particularly speedy disposition to pass from information about how others feel, to endorsing, himself, a matching moral stance. Or perhaps what is distinctive about the “slavish” disposition will be the greater conviction-the greater immunity from second-guessing-with which that matching moral stance gets held; or perhaps both. But the question is whether any such suggestion is believable. In actual practice, it seems, slavishly anthropocentric moralizers may be plagued by doubts whether they have canvassed the feelings of others representative enough, or ideal enough, or just numerous enough, to provide solid warrant for the moral stance they find themselves taking up. Their moral pronouncements may be hesitant and wavering. And, depending upon the details of the case, mildly anthropocentric moralizers may react to information about others’ sentiments both quickly and decisively. Suppose, for example, that such moralizers judge that informed human reaction always couZd, as a matter of abstract possibility, be an unreliable indicator of justice or injustice in a given institution, and even judge it to be a n interesting philosophical challenge, to show why moral scepticism is in general not justified. They might nevertheless also be resolved, in their actual moralizing, to waste no effort fretting over epistemological limitations of “the human predicament”-they might, with the good sense of a Hume busy at backgammon, let themselves quite directly be guided by information about how reflective others feel about a given institution.

The difference between the slavish version of anthropocentric moralizing and the mild, I conclude, comes down to a difference not in the dispositions one has (and endorses) to respond to information about how others feel, but in the beliefs one holds about the metaphysical and epistemological justification of that disposition. Since Blackburn cannot account for this difference in belief-save as endorsements of different dispositions-he cannot find room to distinguish the two versions of anthropocentric moralizing. So the attempt at revising Blackburn’s actual text must fail. Blackburn can only construe the realist’s claim of invariance-e.g., his assertion of (1) and denial of (2)-too broadly, as endorsements and rejections of sensibilities which in fact we do not uniformly endorse or reject.

The realist’s claims of invariance have only an “external” reading, as utterances belonging to fact-stating discourse. So

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a projectivist like Blackburn cannot avoid contradicting them.

11. How, in general, could a n antirealist concede the realist’s

claims of invariance? Blackburn’s strategy is to argue that these claims belong not to fact-stating discourse, as the realist supposes, but to stance-taking discourse. But the strategy faces a dilemma, as we have seen. On the one hand one could characterize the stance taken as a response to, or recognition of, a certain fact-but then the claim that voices the taking would belong to fact-stating discourse, after all. On the other, one could characterize the stance in purely dispositional terms-but then the stance is not after all precisely the one the realist takes, and one has not so much conceded the realist’s invariance claim, as altered it.

A more promising strategy for the antirealist would be to deny that there is any sphere of discourse, any construal or reading, in which or on which the claims of invariance would be ones which he is obliged to deny. For as soon as such a point is conceded, the presumption must be that the claims of invariance belong to precisely the forbidden sphere, and the antirealist is fighting a decidedly uphill battle. The antirealist would be better advised to charge, not that the realist has mistakenly assigned the claims of invariance to one actual sphere of discourse rather than to another actual sphere, but tha t the realist has given to the claims of invariance a confused and fanciful construal or reading-one which never actually applies to any claim. The antirealist might, in particular, charge that in asserting the claims of invariance, the realist treats them as corresponding to the way the world is in itself, and argue that the very concept of assertions’ corresponding to the way the world is in itself is confused. He could add that his own assertion of the invariance claims t reats them as ideally warrantedly assertible, and so amounts to a different stance from the realist’s-but one which is correct, so far as it goes.

Of course, an antirealist who did follow this strategy would be likely to take over more than just the realist’s invariance claims. For it would sound ad hoc and implausible to contend that the realist gives a confused construal to only his claims of invariance: those claims fit into a connected story about how thought and theories interact with the world, and the more plausible claim would be that the realist gives the same confused construal to all the components of this story. But then the antirealist would claim that room is left to assert

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all the same components, provided that in doing so one treats them only as ideally warrantedly assertible. The antirealist might thus claim to endorse

(6) The objects of the world exist and behave as they do independently of our holding the beliefs about them that we hold.

and

(7) What it is for a theory to be true is for it to correspond to the world.

and

(8) Typically, how well a theory works is a function of the extent to which it is true.

In short, the antirealist who follows this second strategy would best be advised to adopt the position Putnam labels “internal realism.”16 (He might add, in explanation of his endorsement of (7), that all tha t is meant there by “corresponding to the world” is proving warrantedly assertible, perhaps in the ideal limit.)” The only claims made by the realist which the antirealist would now reject would be precisely those which articulate the way the realist construes (6)-(8), and likewise the invariance claims, in asserting them-for example,

(9) For a theory to be true is for it to correspond to the world as it is in itself-over and above the question of how well- warranted that theory turns out to be.

The antirealist would now reject only “metaphysical realism.” 18

But will this strategy really work-will it enable the antirealist consistently to endorse the realist’s invariance claims? It might be interesting, for the light it would cast on Blackburn’s attempt, to pursue this question by focussing on the same invariance claims as before. But since Putnam himself maintains that a n antirealist of the sort just sketched can afford to concede the invariance claims a realist would make about reference, I will consider those instead. (This will not only provide the anchor of a familiar literature, but also will, I believe, cast useful light on Putnam’s position.) What Putnam explicitly says19 is that an antirealist could afford to concede

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(10) “t” refers to Xs iff tokens of “t” stand in causal relation R to X’s.

where (10) is treated by the realist as establishing that reference is determinate,ZO and fixed independently of anyone’s endorsing this or that reference assignment for the language to which “t” belongs. Hence Putnam can be said to hold that the antirealist could concede the weaker, because more general, claim that

(11) Reference is a determinate relation, running between the terms in a language L and those items in the world which the sentences of L are (in virtue of their component terms) about, which obtains independently of anyone’s taking the sentences of L to be about these items or those.

Is Putnam right?

111. The antirealism now to be examined alleges confusion in

the very idea of a theory’s corresponding to the way the world is, in itself; it denies the realist’s claim (9), and asserts its negation. But can such an antirealism actually be defended or argued for? How might its proponent argue against (9), having conceded so many others of the realist’s characteristic claims? That is the main question I shall consider in this section, and my contention will be that no coherent argument can in fact be offered for it. But first some effort must be expended at seeing how this antirealism can be asserted, never mind defended, as a position opposed to realism. If the antirealist really asserts the tenets of “internal realism” (i.e., (6)-(8)) in addition to the invariance claims (i.e., (10)-(11)), can he even consistently assert the denial of the distinctively realist claim (9)? Or, from the other direction, if the realist really concurs with the antirealist on both “internal realism” and invariance-however she may treat the individual claims in asserting them-is it not shaving things too close to regard the realist as holding an opposed position? Is the “realist” just an antirealist who makes the isolated error of endorsing (9)? Just what is the content of, or the evidence for, the claim that the realist construes (6)-(8) and (10)-(11) differently from the antirealist?

One main ground for questioning whether the antirealist can consistently differ with the realist over (9), while agreeing on so much else, comes from Quine’s arguments for the inscrutability of reference. By conceding (10) and (1 l), the antirealist has conceded that how the terms of a language

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refer is a part of how the world is-that reference is the sort of thing one could have a theory about. But in denying (9), and asserting instead

(12) What it is for a theory to be true is for that theory to be ideally warrantedly assertible.

the antirealist leaves open the possibility that discrepant theories of how the terms of a given language do refer could all be true. Quine argues that for any given language, divergent reference assignments will prove equally warranted, even in the ideal limit.21 If so, the antirealist must concede that this possibility is actually realized: divergent reference assignments for any language are all true. Even the weaker claim that divergent reference assignments could all be true appears inconsistent with the invariance claim (1 l), which the antirealist claims to endorse, and the inconsistency is even worse given Quine.

The antirealist may resist this charge of inconsistency, but cannot do so by any easy or obvious means. It is of no avail for the antirealist to respond that truth for a reference assignment must be relativized to a preaccepted translation manual, or tradition of translation, or background theory, or whatever; that only shifts the inconsistency onto the claim of independence in the last clause of (11). There is, indeed, a fairly non-obvious way by which the antirealist just might maintain that (ll), as he construes it, is not in fact contradicted by (12), even in light of Quine, and I will turn to it in a moment. But it would be unacceptable for the antirealist to argue thus by claiming that (ll), as he construes it, says that we are warranted, even by ideal standards, in acting at any given time as if the terms in a given language referred in just one determinate way, independently of interpretation. That is not what (11) says. At best what (11) says is that we are ideally warranted in acting as if the terms in a given language referred, at any and all times, in just one determinate way, independently of interpretation. And this saying conflicts with any explicit claim that truth for a reference assignment can be relativized to our choices or traditions. (If we act in the “ideally warranted” way just sketched, we would avoid making any such claim.)

From the other direction, just what is the evidence that the realist construes (6)-(8) and (10)-(11) differently from how the antirealist construes them? After all, the realist says these sentences in just the same tone as the antirealist does. Why would it not be the more charitable interpretation to say that

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the “realist” is in fact a n antirealist who makes the isolated error of asserting (9), and denying (12)? The most plausible answer for the antirealist to give would be that the realist treats (6)-(8) and (10)-(11) as carrying different consequences, and as standing in different logical relations, from those that he, the antirealist, recognizes. Thus it might be said that the realist characteristically takes (11) as incompatible with (12), and characteristically claims that Quine’s thesis makes the incompatibility vivid. As the reverse side of this same coin, the antirealist might claim that he is perfectly well within his rights to rule that (11) is not contradicted by (12), even in light of Quine. What it is, he would say, to treat (11) as ideally warrantedly assertible-and not also as corresponding to the world as it is in itself-just is to treat (11) as compatible with (12). The realist might well be tempted to retort that what this shows is that to treat (11) as only warrantedly assertible is to make a mistake-but such is the nature of their disagreement.

Possibly, then (just possibly) one could consistently assert that antirealist position we have sketched. But could one argue for it? The puzzles we have noted show, I trust, that some argument is required; the position may come with Putnam’s name attached to it, but the burden of proof nevertheless lies upon the philosopher who propounds the position, not the philosopher who questions it. Putnam’s own argument-the only one extant-runs as follows.22 (i) Hypothesize, for reductio, the realist’s claim about truth, i.e., (9). Then (ii) there could be a theory TI which, though ideally warrantedly assertible, were false, i.e., failed to correspond to the world as it is in itself. That is, what the sentences of TI said might be false of those bits of the world which those sentences were about. But just which bits of the world are the sentences of TI about? (iii) What it is for a reference assignment for TZ to be true is for it to meet the operational and theoretical constraints that make a reference assignment warrantedly assertible, and to meet them to an ideal degree. (This follows from (12)). But, for reasons which Quine himself underestimated, (iv) there are lots of such reference assignments-one on which TZ’s term “cat” refers to cats, another on which it refers to cat-stages, and even one on which it refers (in the actual world) to cherries. There are even many such assignments on which each .sentence in TI is about just that bit of the world, of which what that sentence says is true. So (v) it can truly be said that TI is true throughout. But (vi) we said (at (ii)) that TZ fails to correspond to the world as it is in itself. So (vii) a theory’s

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being true is not its corresponding to the world as it is in itself-(9) is false.

The reductio ad absurdum would be a powerful philosophical weapon indeed if one could simply set up the position of one’s opponent as the hypothesis for reductio, proceed immediately to contradict it, and then announce that one had reduced that position to absurdity. Such arguments are rarely given, and are never any good, because the only circumstances in which there is any need to argue against the position of one’s opponent are circumstances in which the presumption exists that that position may, imaginably- or may, for all that has been said so far-be true. In such circumstances one cannot baldly assert that the position of the opponent is false; one must earn the right to contradict it, by offering reason or argument.

Now step (iii) in Putnam’s argument is simply a substitution instance of the antirealist’s general position on truth, i.e., (12). In asserting it, Putnam simply asserts that the hypothesis for reductio is false. He does not earn the right thus to contradict the hypothesis, by offering a sub- argument or intervening reason. The argument, as Putnam presents it, has no force.23

Two rejoinders might, at first blush, seem available to Putnam here. One would be to question whether step (iii) is, indeed, a substitution instance of (12). What if there is something particularly unfactual about reference, so that offering a reference assignment for a given language is not (or is not part of) offering a theory about anything? In that case, what (12) says about theories would have no connection with what step (iii) says about reference assignments. But for the version of Putnam relevant to our concerns, this rejoinder is unavailable. Our interest is in Putnam as architect of an antirealism which concedes the realist’s invariance claims, (10) and (11). To concede them is, as we have noted, to concede that reference is the sort of thing one could have a theory about.

The other rejoinder would be for Putnam to simply assert that (12), and with it step (iii), do not contradict the hypothesis for reductio, i.e., (9). After all, did I not earlier countenance an unargued claim, by Putnam’s antirealist, that (12) does not contradict (ll)? So why not here? But this reply too is unavailable. Once Putnam allowed that (12) were compatible with (9), he would have no way of articulating his disagreement with (9); the only words Putnam can use to say that (9) is false are those that compose (12).

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IV.

For antirealists who seek to affirm the realist’s claims of invariance, two spheres of discourse are too many. For the realist can always plausibly argue tha t the claims of invariance belong to the sphere which antirealists are forbidden to enter. But one sphere of discourse is too few. For then there is no place to sequester the claims of invariance from the statements which articulate the antirealism itself.

Antirealists cannot afford to be blas6 about the claims of invariance; they must fear them, and argue against them. It is a n unenviable task.24

NOTES

Simon Blackburn, “How to be an Ethical Antirealist,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XZZ: Realism and Antirealism, ed. Peter A. French, Theodore E. Uehling, Jr., and Howard K. Wettatein (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), pp. 361-75. See also Blackburn’s Spreading the Word (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), pp. 217-20, and “Errors and the Phenomenology of Value,” ed. Ted Honderich (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985), pp. 1-22.

Blackburn, Spreading the Word, pp. 210-17, and “How to be an Ethical Antirealist,” pp. 373-74.

3 Hilary Putnam, Reason, Truth and History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), pp. 45-53; see also “Realism and Reason,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American PhilosoDhical Association. 50 ( i m ) , 486-87,

4 See Spreading the Word, chapters 5 and 6, and the two articles mentioned in note 1.

For an example of this objection, see Mark Platts, “Moral Reality and the End of Desire,” Reference, Truth and Reality, ed. Mark Platts (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), pp. 69-82.

6 For an example of this objection to the projectivist treatment of laws, see Fred I. Dretske, “Laws of Nature,” Philosophy of Science, 44 (1977), 254- 55.

The example comes from Blackburn, “Errors and the Phenomenology of Value,” p. 6.

For a good explanation of why an “error theory” appears unattractive, see “Errors and the Phenomenology of Value,” pp. 1-4.

Spreading the Word, p. 192. 10 Quassim Cassam argues that the projectivist has no choice but to take

this position, be it precarious or not; see “Necessity and Externality,” Mind,

11 See Spreading the Word, p. 219, n.: “This means that the metaphor of

l2 “How to be an Ethical Antirealist,” p. 372; cf. pp. 367-68. l3 “How to be an Ethical Antirealist,” p. 367. l4 Spreading the Word, pp. 170-71. l5 Spreading the Word, p. 219. l 6 For one statement of what “internalist realism” is, see “Realism and

Reason,” 483. l7 It might seem that “corresponding to the world” could never mean this,

but some plausibility is bestowed on the suggestion by Richard Rorty, “The

95 (19861, 446-64.

‘projection’ needs a little care.”

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World Well Lost,” Journal of Philosophy, 69 (1972), 649-65; or see Donald Davidson, “On the Very Idea of a Conceptual Scheme,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 47 (1975), 5-20.

18 The term is of course Putnam’s: “Realism and Reason,” 483-485. 19 Reason, Truth and History, pp. 4553; “Realism and Reason,” 486-87. 20 Strictly speaking, one should say: “where (10) is treated by the realist

as establishing that reference is not open to widely divergent construals, such as those Putnam endorses . . . .” For “the realist” to whom Putnam makes his concessions is Hartry Field, and Field, for his part, supposes that R might turn out to hold not just between “rabbit” and rabbits, but equally between “rabbit” and rabbit-stages, “rabbit” and undetached rabbit parts, etc. Some indeterminacy would in that case remain. (Field, “Quine and the Correspondence Theory,” Philosophical Review, 83 (1974), 200-228; or Field, “Theory Change and the Indeterminacy of Reference,” Journal of Philosophy, 70 (1973), 462-81.) But the point is not of great importance. For one thing, Field is not the only proponent of a causal theory of reference. For another, Field does hold that if (10) is true, there is a perfectly determinate (and mind-independent) relation running from any term “t” to some area of the world, and this relation is the crucial one for semantics- it’s just that the crucial relation is not reference, but “partial reference.” (Field, same articles.) For a third, it is not just a bad idea to fixate on peculiarities of Field’s version of the causal theory of reference, but also to fixate on even the causal theory of reference in general. For realists-as articles published since Putnam wrote have made clear-would be better advised to view the determinate, mind-independent relation of reference as a biological or functional relation. (A single example will suffice: Ruth Millikan, “Biosemantics,” Journal of Philosophy, 86 (1989), 281-97.) Finally-returning now to Field-Field may be wrong to concede that Quine’s arguments show some indeterminacy exists, even in the light of (10); I argue that he is wrong, in “On the Determinacy of Reference,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 26 (1988), 481-97.

21 Word and Object (Cambridge, MA. M.I.T. Press, 1960), Chapter 2. 22 Reason, Truth and History, pp. 45-48; “Realism and Reason,” 485-95. 23 Here I echo one standard assessment of Putnam’s argument, which is

that it begs the question. But all other proponents of this assessment write as if Putnam begs the question in favor of a perfectly coherent position. What I have argued is that it is, to begin with, extremely questionable that the position, in favor of which Putnam offers this strengthless argument, is coherent at all. For other versions of the standard assessment, see Michael Devitt, Realism and Truth (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984), 188-91; Robert Kirk, Translation Determined (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 118-27; David Lewis, “Putnam’s Paradox,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 62 (1984), 224-26; Curtis Brown, “Internal Realism: Transcendental Idealism?,” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, XII, pp. 149-50; and also Gilbert Harman, “Metaphysical Realism and Moral Relativism: Reflections on Hilary Putnam’s Reason, Truth and History,” Journal of Philosophy, 79 (1982), 574-75.

24 For criticisms of an earlier version, I am grateful to John Troyer, Joel Kupperman, and especially Ruth Millikan.

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