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Dummett and Putnam: Realism Under Attack Dummett and Putnam DUMMETT AND PUTNAM: REALISM UNDER ATTACK DUMMETT AND PUTNAM: REALISM UNDER ATTACK By MARK QUENTIN GARDINER, B.A, M.A A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy McMaster University © Copyright hy Mark Quentin Gardiner, May 1994 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (1994) McMASTER UNIVERSITY Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Dummett and Putnam: Realism Under Attack AUTHOR: Mark Quentin Gardiner B.A. (University of Calgary) M.A. (University of Calgary) SUPERVISOR: Professor Nicholas Griffin NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 372 11 ABSTRACT Realism has traditionally been a philosophical doctrine embodying an ontological element asserting the existence of various types of entities and a meta-theoretic element asserting that the existence of those entities is independent of our knowledge of their existence. Anti-realism, on the other hand, denies that the existence of objects is independent of our knowledge. Recently, attempts have been made to reinterpret the basic realist/anti-realist dispute in semantic terms. Basically, realism would be the view that the truth (or falsity) of sentences are independent of our knowledge of their truth-values. Anti-realism, on the other hand, would hold that truth is not so independent of our knowledge. Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam have presented two of the most famous extended semantic criticisms of metaphysical realism. Dummett argues that realism is committed to an unacceptable theory of meaning. Putnam argues that realism rests upon incoherent assumptions regarding truth and reference. Unlike many commentators, I accept basic Dummettian constraints. I argue, however, that his conclusions do not follow. Not only can the semantic realist conform to his constraints, a realist construal of truth is in fact ineliminable in such an account. Thus, I turn Dummett's framework against its own conclusions. Regarding Putnam, I proceed by rejecting his premises. I show that the arguments he constructs do not support the claim of incoherence levelled at metaphysical realism. Often, indeed, his arguments, if carefully understood, actually support realism. I thus conclude that the two most famous and formidable attempts to reject metaphysical realism on the basis of semantic considerations fail. As such, there is no reason to abandon realism traditionally understood. lll ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would foremost like to thank Dr. Nicholas Griffin for his strong encouragement of this project, as well as his invaluable guidance in its direction and comments on its mis­ direction. I would especially like to thank his willingness to take on the additional burdens of being a long distance supervisor. I would also like to thank all my fellow students who guided my thinking about these matters by either agreeing or disagreeing with me. In particular, I want to thank Randy Metcalfe, Anthony Jenkins, Glen Baier, and Felix 6 Murchadha. I wish that they may also soon feel the satisfaction of finishing. Finally, I would like to thank my cat, Cinder, for reminding me that occasionally arguments need to be shredded. lV TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION . 1 1.0 THE DEBATE . 1 2.0 STRATEGY . 3 3.0 STRUCTURE OF THE ARGUMENT . 6 3.1 Section I: Dummett . 6 3.2 Section II: Putnam . 11 SECTION I: DUMMETT . 14 1.0 THEORIES OF MEANING . 14 2.0 CRITIQUE OF SEMANTIC REALISM . 34 2.1 What Semantic Realism Is . 34 2.2 The Critique . 42 2.2.l The Negative Programme . 43 2.2.1.1 The Acquisition Argument . 45 2.2.1.2 The Manifestation Argument . 55 2.2.2 The Positive Programme . 65 2.2.2.1 Logical Concerns . 70 3.0 RESPONSES TO THE NEGATIVE PROGRAMME . 96 3.1 Problems with Unrecognizability . 96 3.1.1 Recognition-Transcendence . 96 3.1.2 Decidability . 100 3.1.2.1 Decidability and Recognizability . 100 3.1.2.2 The Extent of the Undecidable . 122 3.2 The Non-Assertibility of Undecidability . 170 4.0 RESPONSES TO THE POSITIVE PROGRAMME . 179 4.1 Manifestability and Undecidability . 180 4.2 Alternative Accounts of Man ifestability . 190 4.3 Semantics and Compositionality . 201 SECTION II: PUTNAM . 225 1.0 PORTRAITS: METAPHYSICAL AND INTERNAL REALISMS . 225 1.1 Putnam's Metaphysical Realism . 225 1.2 Internal Realism . 235 1.3 Putnam's Strategy . 253 v 2.0 ARGUMENTS . 255 2.1 The Model-Theoretic Argument . 255 2.1.1 The Argument . 255 2.1.2 Responses . 264 2.2 Brains in Vats . 297 2.2.1 The Argument . 297 2.2.2 Responses . 301 2.2.3 Interrelationships . 307 2.3 Arguments from Equivalence . 319 2.3.1 Incompatible Empirical Equivalence . 319 2.3.1.1 The Argument . 319 2.3.1.2 Responses . 325 2.3.1.3 Interrelationships . 335 2.3.2 Conceptual Relativity . 342 2.3.2.1 The Argument . 345 2.3.2.2 Responses . 347 CONCLUSION 350 REFERENCES 357 VI INTRODUCTION 1.0 THE DEBATE The field and the frogs in it, the sun which shines on them, are there whether I look at them or not.1 As modern Anglo-American analytic philosophers, and especially Michael Dummett, owe much to Frege, it is appropriate to open with him. As an introduction to a work on the realism/anti-realism debate, this quote is a bit out of context, but it does serve to express nicely the two main theses falling under the general rubric of 'realism'. First of all, Frege makes an existential claim - fields, frogs, and the sun exist: 'realism' unquestionably involves ontological or metaphysical elements. A moral realist might, for example, assert the existence of values or moral facts. A mental realist might assert the existence of private mental events. A 'scientific' realist might assert the existence of 'tokens of most current unobservable scientific physical types'.2 An anti- realist, in this sense, would be one who denied that such entities exist. Thus, emotivists, behaviourists, and instrumentalists can all be regarded as anti-realists. Secondly, Frege implies that the being is distinct or independent from the being percefred; the things which are exist independently of our perceiving, or knowing, that they exist. In this 4 ·sense, 'realism' is a overarching or 'meta-theoretic' position concerning, broadly, the relation between metaphysics (or ontology) and epistemology; the realist would maintain that, in the order of conceptual priority, ontology does not depend on epistemology. 1Frege (1918) p. 12. 2Devitt (1991) p. 24. 1 2 Realists in general tend to ground epistemology in ontology - we 'know' the things we do in virtue of the access we have to the 'things' which exist independently of our knowledge of them.1 Anti-realists of this second sort, in general, reverse the order of priority - the 'things' which are exist in virtue of our knowledge of them. The quintessential statement of this sort of anti-realism comes from Berkeley: esse est percipi; to be is to be perceived. Summing up, we can combine the two elements and say that a realist (towards X) is one who asserts that tokens (of type X) exist independently of our knowledge of them. An anti-realist of the first variety would deny that there exist tokens (of type X) simplicitcr, while anti-realists of the second variety would deny that tokens (of type X) exist indcpendcn t~r of our knowledge.2 It is only the debate between realists and anti-realists of the second sort which will concern us. In characterizing anti-realism, I have been alluding to the 'epistemological turn' ­ the 'movement' originating in the 17th century which sought to dislodge metaphysics from its position of 'first philosophy' and replace it with epistemology. This century has seen a similar 'linguistic turn'. We can express the essential realist and anti-realist posmons in linguistic terms: given that 'truth' is one of the primary semantic concepts, realism is the view that the truth-values of sentences are independent of our determination of them, whereas anti-realism is the view that the truth-values of sentences are not independent of our determination of them. According to realism, truth is 1The sceptic, of course, denies that we have a reliable access to the knowledge­ independent world, and thus denies that we have genuine knowledge. 2See Devitt (1991) Ch. 2 for a similar characterization of realism and anti-realism. 3 primarily a non-epistemic notion, whereas according to anti-realism, truth is primarily an epistemic one. However, it is one thing to acknowledge that the core elements of realism and anti-realism can be expressed in linguistic or semantic terms and quite another to accept, as Michael Dummett and Hilary Putnam do, that therefore the debate is essentially a semantic one, or that semantical arguments can settle the issue. I accept the former but reject the latter. Besides the goal of clearly showing why Dummett and Putnam do not succeed in discrediting realism, I hope to lay a strong foundation for the repudiation of any similar semantic approach. The realism/anti-realism debate is, it seems to me, primarily a metaphrsical one concerning the nature and population of 'reality'. Obviously, many epistemological and semantic issues will have a bearing on such a debate (as will many others), but from that it does not follow that the metaphysical controversy can be solved by merely semantic or epistemological considerations. While I cannot, sadly, claim that all semantic arguments against realism are inadequate, I hope that by undermining the two strongest such arguments on the market - Dummett's and Putnam's - there will at least be a strong presumption against such approaches. 2.0 STRATEGY At its most basic level, realism is the view that reality is discovered, not invented. Human knowledge is a function of attempting to mirror that reality. Anti-realism, on the other hand, is crudely the view that reality is invented, not discovered.
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