On reference
Reference is something that happens in language; it occurs by using certain words in certain (empirical) contexts (and having these words and contexts understood). To talk about Frodo is to use the word "Frodo" in conversation. To talk about apples is to use the word "apples" in conversation. To talk about Hitler winning World War II is to use the sentence "Hitler won World War II" in conversation. To talk about atoms is to use the word "atom" in conversation.
Some think that realism is required for reference to work; that unless there is a mind-independent object properly designated by the word "apple" then we cannot talk about - refer to - an apple. This is problematic on two accounts. First it must explain the (meta)physical connection between the sounds we speak (or the ideas we have) and these mind-independent things (such that the former have something to do with the latter). Secondly it suggests that it's impossible to talk about things which aren't mind-independent things (like Frodo, or Hitler winning World War II).
It is far simpler to accept that to talk about a thing only requires talk and understanding (which requires recognising the relationship between words and either other words or empirical situations).
Some think that realism is required for reference to work; that unless there is a mind-independent object properly designated by the word "apple" then we cannot talk about - refer to - an apple. This is problematic on two accounts. First it must explain the (meta)physical connection between the sounds we speak (or the ideas we have) and these mind-independent things (such that the former have something to do with the latter). Secondly it suggests that it's impossible to talk about things which aren't mind-independent things (like Frodo, or Hitler winning World War II).
It is far simpler to accept that to talk about a thing only requires talk and understanding (which requires recognising the relationship between words and either other words or empirical situations).
Comments (61)
To talk about apples is to use the word "apples" in conversation; but, importantly, it's not [I]just[/I] that in many cases. This is most clear when one talks about some actual, particular apples. When I truly talk about the apples that are in my kitchen, what am I talking about? I certainly don't mean to refer to anything other than the apples themselves. I don't intend to refer to my own thoughts or experiences or words. Are you willing to accept the consequences of your position? Are you willing to accept that intentional reference fails in so many cases, so much of the time?
And I'm not saying that you refer to your thoughts or your experiences or your words. I'm saying that to refer to the actual apples on your table is to speak certain sounds or write certain symbols.
If you think that there is more to reference than this then you need to explain the origin and nature of whatever (meta)physical connection ties particular sounds or ideas to things which aren't these sounds and ideas (or experiences). If you can't then your claim that these other things are required for reference to work seems rather vacuous.
But what is the conversation about? It's about the apples. And the apples are neither speech nor writing.
Quoting Yahadreas
You seem to be forgetting about gesture again.
How can one truly refer to the actual apples on my table if there are none there?
Reference is defined in how an instance of language which talks about something is not the thing spoken about. Language "references" because it is a state distinct form what it talks about. Reference is one state (language) pointing to another (what is talked about in language). It doesn't happen just in language. It happens in the world.
The necessary relationship between reference and realism is not a question of "explaining" reference. Reference doesn't need explaining. That's just what language does: it talks about other states. Reference and realism go together, instead, because the mention of something in language does not define its existence. It is because talks of something is separate to the state which is spoken about.
The former does not define the latter. So there is no extra "metaphysical connection" which ties language to the states it talks about (language, itself, is that connection: it needs nothing else). Realism is, instead, necessary because a state talked about is a different in empirical terms to the state of language. Reference doesn't require an extra "metaphysical connection" (i.e. logical) outside language.
Rather it constituted by the difference between an empirical state (the language used) and either an empirical state (in the case of someone talking about a state of the world) or a logical meaning (in the case of imagined worlds).
I think this is a bit much, you're demanding more than you have supplied yourself. To say that language just refers does not provide any insight in to how it refers. As much as Sapientia needs to supply a theory of reference which shows that it depends on ontology you need to supply one that is independent of ontology.
Maybe it doesn't require something outside of language but we still need an account of how language refers. If I asked how a car takes petrol and produces motion, it can't be answered by saying that it doesn't need anything out side of a car, it is something that the car does... Edit: Apart from this relatively minor point, I agree with your post.
I would make the case that both the causal theory of reference and the descriptivist theory do not depend on metaphysics. Lets call this world the medium-sized world, i.e the world which we share. Normally when dealing with metaphysics we are talking about a basis for this medium-sized world, what underlies it or what its made up of etc. When we use language to refer, we are referring to this medium sized world. The descriptivist theory state we are describing the medium sized world and the causal theory that there is a causal connection between what we say and this medium sized world.
If it wasn't like this there would be problems, we would need to say that the ancients failed to refer to objects at all because they didn't know they were constructed out of atoms. More generally it would follow that if there were people with differing metaphysical views, at least some of them would fail to refer to objects.
If I discovered I was in the matrix, it doesn't imply that this whole time I have been unable to refer to apples.
It suggests only that it's impossible to talk about things that have no correlation to a previous experience of a mind independent thing. That is, I cannot talk about winning, unless you can point me to some prior experience of an occurence that you can compare to winning. We can form new thoughts about prior interactions with the real, but that doesn't equate to me being able to have knowlege without experience of the real.Quoting YahadreasAn empirical situation is a mind independent thing, so I don't know how that fits into what you're saying.
On the most fundamental level I don't know how we can deny realism if we accept that language exists as a communicative tool. How is it that I hear your utterances if they don't exist apart from me? What am I hearing if there is nothing real outside me other than the echos of my mind?
Lastly, a thing that is independent of the mind, in the sense of not participating in discourse, or life has no significance in any sense, and by this very stipulation cannot possibly exist.
But significance, of course, is trans-linguistic. There are plenty of things in the world which have significance - are meaningful - that do not belong to the order of language. A stovetop reddened by heat would be recognised as a danger to touch, just as a door in a passageway may have significance as a barrier to movement and vision. Language of course, is no different: words are no more special than stovetops and doors, their particular sonorous or graphic presence occasioning responses in no different a way than non-linguistic signifying elements.
What's important here is that while it's true that language does not consist of a doubling of the world (having to 'refer to things out there' in order to have meaning), it is equally untrue to think that this entails any sort of anti-realist conclusion whatsoever. Rather than instituting a divide in which language and the world would occupy two opposing sides, the whole point is that language is of the world. Realism does not require that language refer to 'things out there': it requires instead a recognition of the reality of language, that language is itself an empirical instance like any other, that it's 'self-referentiality' belongs wholly to a worldly order with respect to it's very status as language.
The point is not to look for a realism 'inside of language' - all you will ever find is more language - but to recognise that language as such is already 'worldly'. To "recognise... the relationship between words and either other words or empirical situations" is to respond in a certain way to a linguistic event, just as to move in a certain way to avoid the heat of the stove is to respond in a certain way to a culinary event. Language in this sense is continuous with the world of which it is a part of, and a 'realism' has no need to explicate any mysterious link between sounds and things in order to substantiate itself as realism. Instead, to put it baldly: sounds are things.
Yes, it's about the apples. But how does one talk about the apples? By talking (and understanding), nothing more. The point I am trying to make is that realism is not required to talk about the apples. We can talk about things that aren't words and aren't experiences and aren't ideas even if anti-realism holds.
I'm not. I mentioned gesturing. When we gesture the act of reference is a visual experience. To gesture at the apple only requires that I see you gesture at the apple. Like above, realism is not required to gesture at the apple. We can gesture at things that aren't words and aren't experiences and aren't ideas even if anti-realism holds.
I'm not saying that they're not there. The actual apples can be on your table even if anti-realism holds. Because for there to be actual apples on your table is for "there are actual apples on your table" to be true, and "there are actual apples on your table" can be true even if anti-realism holds (e.g. if the coherence theory of truth is correct).
To talk "about" something is to refere to something. When we talk about an apple and we aren't referring to the word "apple", a physical object, an experience of an apple or the concept of an apple , then we aren't talking about anything at all.
Insofar as linguistic 'anti-realism' is a merely negative thesis, then, that the behavior of language provides support against the realist's claims about how language somehow secures or props up reality, I would say that these facts are good grounds for linguistic anti-realism. Certainly, one is not committed to anything like SX's claim, whatever it might mean: the question of whether language itself treats linguistic structures on a par with non-linguistic ones is an interesting one. In some ways, I think it does: all languages have mention mechanisms, for example, that effectively give speakers the ability to form quasi-proper names out of words just by the fact of those words' existence (what we in philosophical discourse use quotations marks to mark), and so do take words to be 'things' as much as they take anything else to be 'things.' But in other ways, language seems curiously blind to itself: it lacks mechanisms for describing its own mechanisms, outside of formal linguistics, where we must use the medium of models. For example, we seem to be unable in natural language to self-reference our own speech acts except in certain 'performative' constructions, which in English often license the adverb 'hereby.' Thus you can say, 'I [hereby] challenge you,' but you can't answer a question like, 'What are you doing?' with 'I'm answering your question.' That is, the descriptive assertion is incapable of itself describing what it is doing; it is forcibly interpreted as a description of something else.
I'm not quite sure on this subject, but my inclination now is to think that because ontology or metaphysics are themselves discursive practices, and the medium they're forced to employ itself refuses to validate the very theses that are made in that medium, there is a sort of incoherence to questions of ontology and metaphysics. Or, at the very least, to the extent one has an ontology or metaphysics, it must be non-linguistic (and I do not rule out that possibility) and the best language could do to illustrate it would be to 'lead people' to that non-linguistic understanding rather than straightforwardly describing 'the way things really are.'
With reference it is here we need to ask the hard question. When you demand a description of "how" reference works, what are you requesting to know? In the case of the car and petrol what you want to know is obvious: the way the petrol interacts with the car, the mechanical ad chemical system, which functions to move the car. Where are the analogous moving parts and chemical interactions in presence of reference though? There is nothing to be found. At no point are we waiting for a use of language to be engage reference by the burning of fuel and spinning of wheels. Each use of language that references does of by its definition. There is nothing more about it for us to know.
Langauge does, indeed, not "validate" anything. To be a meaning spoken or thought doesn't justify any argument as correct.
"Description" is, in fact, "non-linguistic" in that it is not merely a use of language which consists a person understanding something. A use of language has to trigger a particular response in an individual to actually grant them an understanding of a thing, and so form a "description" in language. All language "leads" people to understand. This is what description in language entails. The language is, after all, never the state it describes.
With this the inability of language to describe is dissolved. Since language is the trigger for an individual have experiences, it is no longer the "distant" vessel which must fail to capture what it is like to experience, for it is actually triggering experience. Someone can, for example, use words to describe their emotions and trigger the same feelings in another person. Words can give us the insight of what it means to be another person. There is no "first person"/ "third person" split which renders language incapable of description.
TGW's argument is making a mockery of what language is and does. The "negative thesis of anti-realism" entirely ignores what language is: an existing thing, a "positive" state, which talks about something else, whether rightly or wrongly.
The underlying issue is he thinks reference is a question of "being correct" of "describing the real world." It's not. Statements of falsehood reference all the time. If a say: "TheWillowOfDarkness is the president of the US," my statement still refers to me, even though it is mistaken. TGW is actually correct that reference has nothing to do with describing what is real or not. To say: "this language refers to X" is never enough. It doesn't actually point out whether a statement is true. All it does is say language talked about something.
TGW has reversed to key point of the realist argument. For the realist, language does not prop-up reality. The necessary relationship between realism and reference isn't defined on the basis of language. Rather, it is the reverse: that there are no things to talk about without realism. It is question of things, on the distinction of what is talked about from language, which the realist makes their case on.
If what we talk about is distinct form state of language, then there is more to the world than our language, our discourse. States of the world are defined not on whether they are experienced (i.e. thought about, talked, about), but rather in themselves, regardless of whether anyone thinks or talks about them in any way.
No, the word apple, and an apple are not the same thing, if they were the same thing, there wouldn't be two things at all, there would be one thing. Two different apples are not the same thing. They can, and usually do mean the same thing though.
The problem is, in my view, that people imagine that some sensible, or substantive distinction between the meaning, and the thing can be drawn or made, when it clearly cannot be. First note that no individual apple is ever necessarily referred to, or clarified by the word, and objects designated as such cannot be used to define the meaning or concept, not remotely exhaustively. This invariably leads to reference being about a universal property, or characteristic, or essence of things that is what is truly referred to. It is obviously wrong that "apple" refers to any particular apple, nor gets its exhaustive meaning from any single particular object, which automatically commits one to some form of essentialism in order to maintain a reference based view of discourse. I say that seeing objects, events, and particular things as participating in discourse, as meaningful depending on how they are used in discourse, doesn't require some one to one correspondence, or sign/signified relationship.
But we can refer to specific token apples. The apple in my refrigerator is mostly red with a tinge of green near the top.
The fact that we can also refer to types or things is no argument against correspondence theory of truth.
I never said that we couldn't refer to apples. I argued that meaning isn't based in material referents.
We can talk about to things non material things such as sensations and concepts, but when we talk about material objects like apples, we are necessarily referring to a material object.
See how I attempt to explain my reasoning above. Do that rather than just assert that we necessarily refer to a material object when we talk of material objects. Explain in what sense, and address my criticism of this position, and the senselessness of it.
I'm afraid I'm still not a any closer to understanding what you meant " the apple and the word are one and the same".
We can use discourse to discuss the types of things that are apples, and we can talk about specific token apples. However,unless we are specifically talking about the word"apple", we are using discourse to refer to objects that are independent of discourse.
That's all off topic though if we both agree that reference does not have ontological implications.
I conclude that you either don't mean what you stated or you're obviously mistaken.
The point I'm trying to make is how the meaning is the same, and what is suggested to be references for the meaning rather participate in discourse and meaning, rather than are the sources of it.
It's both true and trivial that we talk about the apples by talking (and understanding). But if nothing more is required, then the apples don't need to exist. And if the apples don't exist, then how does one truly talk about the apples? Although it might seem that such statements are about the apples, wouldn't such statements actually be about something else or nothing, or not about anything?
Quoting Yahadreas
But you keep making statements which exclude it.
Quoting Yahadreas
No, it's not necessarily a visual experience, and it doesn't need to be seen by anyone. I can gesture at an apple whilst unseen with my eyes closed.
Quoting Yahadreas
I know. But you implied that there need be nothing more involved in referring to the actual apples on my table than speaking certain sounds or writing certain symbols. That is not the case, since there needs to be the actual apples on my table, and since I can refer to them without speaking certain sounds or writing certain symbols.
Quoting Yahadreas
Agreed. However, anti-realism requires an unusual interpretation of language which I reject.
That's just your excuse for when you don't want to admit that you meant something different to what you said.
Quoting Wosret
But they clearly don't mean the same thing as language and things like apples are normally understood. And I see no good reason to abandon this understanding. I don't mean to talk about the word "apple" when I talk about the thing that is called an apple. They are not one and the same; they are one thing and another different thing.
No, I meant what I said, I just said more than that, which is being ignored so that that part can be misinterpreted. Clearly a mistaken, unclear choice of words, easily misinterpreted on my part though. I do think that it is difficult to maintain the misinterpretation in light of what else was said in the same post. It isn't as if I back peddle, or change what I said later. The post taken as a whole, it is clear that I wasn't calling spoken apples, written apples, drawings of apples, or tasty apples in every way identical.
Obviously you don't mean to talk about tasty apples when you mean to talk about the word "apple", but most uses of the word "apple" aren't meta, and do mean to talk about tasty apples, and not the word "apple".
Then we agree about that. It's weird that I agree with you about that, yet you said something completely different and contradictory that you're clinging on to. It's also weird that you both meant what you said and meant something different. I'm going to reject the former possibility in favour of the latter.
It's funny that you ask me that, as I didn't see anything that I was replied to about as being all that significant to my point really. The point that I was trying to make was that meaning isn't a matter of reference back to some particle, or neutral object, but rather is a constantly changing, flowing relationship with people and the world, that we, and things take part in, or participate in. The big whoop is that the world apple doesn't refer to any particular apples, and when one does refer to an apple, it is being brought into participating with discourse for some purpose, and isn't the origin of the meaning of any terms, or the meaning maker.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean or what it entails. I was going to ask you some questions in the hope of getting a better understanding, but I think I'll just leave it be. I'm tired.
Good, good. I thought that you might see through my ruse.
That's because in those cases I'm specifically talking about reference in the context of using words to talk about things that we can't see. It's slightly different to reference in the context of pointing to a thing. I'm more interested in the former.
This topic is more or less a continuation of the one on PF where I was arguing over the coherency of the coherence theory of truth. @aequilibrium argued that if we accepted such an account then even though the statement "there are apples on the table" could be true it wouldn't refer to the apples on the table, but to the speaker's words or ideas. My point is that this a misunderstanding. When I use the name "Frodo" I am referring to the hobbit, not to the word "Frodo" or my idea of Frodo. Realism is not required for words to refer to more than just our words and our ideas.
In the case of referring to the apples on the table one might say that using and understanding words is not sufficient; it is also required that there are apples on the table -- and so it is also required that "there are apples on the table" is true. And as the coherency theory of truth allows for "there are apples on the table" to be true it allows for there to be apples on the table. So the coherency theory allows for the statement "there are apples on the table" to truly talk about the apples on the table.
Unusual in the sense of not common, yes. But I think it far more sensible than the traditional realist account where there's some metaphysical relationship between the sounds we speak and things which are ontologically independent of language and experience and ideas.
@Michael
I take it you agree with Derrida, then that words can only refer to other words? Deconstructionism lies on the path towards anti-realism. I started a thread related to this yesterday in the philosophy of language section.
No. "Frodo" refers to a fictional hobbit, this fictional hobbit is not a word, and so "Frodo" doesn't refer to a word. Does this entail realism regarding Frodo? Of course not. Frodo is not ontologically-independent of our language and our ideas.
The idea that only realism allows for words to refer to things (which aren't words) is mistaken. Anti-realism allows for this too. To say that "X" refers to X is to say that X is the subject of "X". If the subject isn't defined as a word then the subject isn't a word and so "X" doesn't refer to a word. I don't need to be a realist to claim that bachelors are not words but unmarried men (and for this claim to be true).
I never suggested the above, to the best of my knowledge.
I didn't mean to suggest that you had. That was more of a general comment to those who think otherwise.
Rejects ontological independence of language and experience and ideas, yes.
With that in mind, it seems to me that you are running these two senses of the word "anti-realist" together, which is leading to a bit of confusion. It seems like what you are really doing here is arguing for a realist theory of reference that can be explained entirely in terms of your anti-realist ontology.
Thoughts?
I don't think I'd consider it a realist theory of reference. It's effectively a disquotational theory of reference; "chairs" refers to chairs. It's a parallel to the disquotational theory of truth.
Realism and anti-realism only come into the picture when considering the ontological status of chairs (and truth).
I think that's a far too simplistic account of anti-realism. I don't find it at all problematic for an anti-realist to accept the truth of "chairs exist" and "chairs are not experiences, ideas, or words" (e.g. by arguing for the coherence theory of truth and showing that these two statements cohere with some other set of specified sentences). The fact that one is arguing for a non-correspondence account of truth is why it is not realist.
Put like that, it looks like a matter of taste whether you want to call that position anti-realism or merely something like deflationary realism. What makes the difference is when you say that objects are ontologically dependent on experiences, ideas, or words.
Yes, and I think that this depends on the nature of truth. If one accepts the coherence theory of truth then the truth of "chairs exist" depends on linguistic conventions, and so the existence of chairs is ontologically dependent on linguistic conventions (which includes the experiential contexts which influence and measure such conventions). Hence anti-realism. If one accepts the correspondence theory of truth then the truth of "chairs exist" does not depend on linguistic conventions, and so the existence of chairs is ontologically independent of linguistic conventions. Hence realism.
I don't see why it would be deflationary realism. It's just deflationary. It has nothing to do with realism (or antirealism).
I see what you mean.
Ok, so there are fictional characters too. But a fictional character can be boiled down to just words and ideas, can it not? That can't be done with apples. Not realistically, anyway.
Quoting Michael
I'd argue that although the coherency theory of truth allows for "there are apples on the table" to be true, it doesn't have as a prerequisite, that it necessarily follow that there are in fact apples on the table in reality, in accordance with how we normally understand words such as "fact" and "reality". I think that that's problematic.
What you mean here is that the coherency theory of truth doesn't have apples existing in the realist sense as a prerequisite. And so your criticism of antirealism is that it isn't realism. That's question-begging.
I don't think I'd consider it a realist theory of reference. It's effectively a disquotational theory of reference; "chairs" refers to chairs. It's a parallel to the disquotational theory of truth.
Realism and anti-realism only come into the picture when considering the ontological status of chairs (and truth).[/quote]
What I am saying is that it becomes a realist theory of reference when you attempt to explain it in terms of some ontology, even if the ontology is an anti-realist one.
[quote=Michael]
I think that's a far too simplistic account of anti-realism. I don't find it at all problematic for an anti-realist to accept the truth of "chairs exist" and "chairs are not experiences, ideas, or words" (e.g. by arguing for the coherence theory of truth and showing that these two statements cohere with some other set of specified sentences). The fact that one is arguing for a non-correspondence account of truth is why it is not realist.[/quote]
What you seem to be saying is that the anti-realist can genuinely accept as true, claims such as "chairs actually exist, and they are not experiences, ideas, or words" because their theory of truth commits them only to the actual existence of such things as experiences, ideas and words. I'd be interested to see how you handle the fact that, prima facie, this leads to a situation in which the anti-realist is committed to two claims about what actually exist that don't cohere. It would seem that the anti-realist's own commitment to the coherence theory of truth would necessitate the rejection of one or the other statement.
I'd also be interested to see if you can explain coherence without ultimately appealing to claims about the behavior of rational agents in the physical world. Would you mind offering an explanation of what the coherence between two statements consists in?
Not quite. You've assumed quite a bit there, given that I merely said that I think that it's problematic. Like I said in my first post, realism is required to give an account of reference that is more plausible than alternatives. I think that realism is similarly required to give a more plausible account of truth than alternatives.
It just doesn't make sense to have a true statement about reality that doesn't reflect reality. You could have an elaborate web of true statements that don't in fact reflect reality.
I don't see how it's explained in terms of some ontology. And even if it was, how does explaining it in terms of an anti-realist ontology make it realist?
I don't think that their theory of truth commits them to the actual existence of only such things as experiences, ideas, and words, so there aren't two contradictory statements.
Appealing to the behaviour of rational agents in the physical world doesn't entail realism (as one will take an anti-realist approach to behaviour and physics), so this isn't a problem. And coherence between statements consists in one statement following from another (or at least not contradicting one another). It has nothing to do with realism.
Anti-realism doesn't entail that we have true statements about reality that don't reflect reality. It entails that reality isn't to be understood in realist terms. So, again, you're begging the question by assuming that reality is that which is ontologically-independent of language, experience, and ideas and remarking that this is inconsistent with anti-realism.
I don't see how requiring an ontological separation between sentences and subjects makes for a more plausible account of reference. It seems far more complicated. One has to explain the nature and origin of the relationship between words and the sort of things that satisfy realist metaphysics such that the former "denote" or "are about" the latter.
Of course when I said that the coherency theory of truth doesn't exclude [i]the possibility of having true statements about reality that don't reflect reality[/I], I was speaking of reality as per realism. I've already said that your anti-realist interpretation is problematic and ought to be rejected.
My argument is a counterargument, as opposed to one which just points out purely internal faults. I'm not just saying that your position is problematic; I'm saying that there is a better alternative, and that your position is problematic in light of it.
Quoting Michael
What do you mean by "an ontological separation between sentences and subjects"? That, for example, apples are separate from sentences which include the word "apple"? I thought that we agreed about that, so perhaps there's more to it than that.
Quoting Michael
You have to do the same with regard to anti-realist metaphysics. And, in any case, I'd much rather have a more complicated position if it was also more plausible. In seeking a less complex position, one might exclude something of importance.
But anyway, what more is needed than to say that we use names to denote things? We have both done this countless times, since a very young age, so we already have the know-how.
The distinction is based on my understanding of the difference between realist and anti-realist theories of reference. The former attempt to explain reference in ontological terms, whereas the latter don't. As far as I can tell, the theory you have presented explains truth/reference in terms of an ontological relationship between entities; namely a coherence relation between propositions or sentences. Unless you are saying that your theory of truth does not require that either coherence relations or propositions actually exist, then I'd say that your theory qualifies as a realist theory of truth/reference.
Things only get confusing when we fail to distinguish the two senses of the word "realist" that are in play here. Ontological realists (which I am here defining in opposition to ontological idealism/anti-realism) often also hold a realist theory of truth/reference that is based on correspondence. However, the correspondence theory of truth/reference is not a realist theory of reference in virtue of its appeal to correspondence, but rather in virtue of the fact that it attempts to explain reference in ontological terms (i.e. in terms of things that are taken to actually exist).
Quoting Michael
I thought you had appealed to this very fact as a means of demonstrating how the anti-realist can consistently make statements that are apparently realist in the ontological sense. It's hard to see how someone could qualify as an anti-realist in the ontological sense while maintaining that they are committed to the actual, irreducible existence of the very entities that their ontological anti-realism denies the actual, irreducible existence of.
Quoting Michael
But to take an anti-realist approach to things like behavior and physics is to attempt to explain those things in terms of some alternative ontology that limits itself to the actual, irreducible existence of things other than what are referred to by the scientific theories of behavior and physics. To accept the actual, irreducible existence of the entities referred to by the theories of behavior and physics is just what it means to be a realist with repect to them. I imagine you will respond by saying that since you are an anti-realist with regard to reference, you don't have to worry about the realist implication of accepting the actual, irreducible existence of such things that are referred to by those theories. But I don't think you really are an anti-realist with respect to reference, as I tried to explain above, and so I think it is necessary for you to explain things like behavior and physics in terms of whatever ontology you actually adhere to.
Quoting Michael
It does have to do with realism if you can't explain coherence without being a realist about the physical world. Again, I think it's important to keep the two different senses of the word "realist" distinct.
What's wrong with that account? We speak certain sounds when we say the name of an object that we're indicating for some communicative purpose, and the existence of that object does not depend on language, experience, or ideas. As a consequence, the object, and others like it, wouldn't simultaneously cease to exist if we (as beings with linguistic, perceptual, and mental capabilities) ceased to exist.
The relationship is that there is the world, and within that world there are people and things, and the people are intelligent and have linguistic capabilities such that they can refer to things. And the world is such that many things don't depend on us or our capabilities. There were things before us, and there'll be things after us.
Is that not more plausible than the alternative?
Hobbits are fictional characters. Being fictional characters, they exist only as ideas in the imaginations of humans. So any true proposition that refers to hobbits, say "hobbits are short", is necessarily reffering human ideas of hobbits. If one wants to claim that hobbits can refer to things outside the realm of human imagination, such as the proposition " the dude that lives next door is hobbit", I would have to insist that they are just mistaken.
Oh , also, is this yaha? If not, I'm really confused.