The Possibility of Critical Realism

Abstract

An investigation into the potential incompatibility between critical metaphilosophy, the view that traditional philosophy violates the conditions of its own intelligibility, and realism, the view that (at least some) things are independent of us. I argue for their compatibility by working through important attempts to reconcile them made by Kant, Heidegger, and Putnam. Philosophy is self-reflective. Part of the philosophical project is to consider the nature, scope, and limits of the project itself. Historically, this has led some philosophers to the view that philosophy is incapable of its traditional aspirations (e.g., to gain knowledge of the world by a priori means). In its distinctively post-Kantian form, which I call critical metaphilosophy, the view is that traditional philosophy violates certain limits to thought or language. For example, purely a priori theorizing lacks a requisite grounding in our experience or activity. Critical metaphilosophy faces historically recurring problems that have tended to make it seem rationally unacceptable. One such problem is its potential incompatibility with realism. The need to ground meaningful discourse in our experience or activity threatens to leave us incapable of meaningfully affirming that things exist independently of that experience or activity. I investigate this problem by working through three important attempts at critical realism: Immanuel Kant’s empirical realism, Martin Heidegger’s ontical realism, and Hilary Putnam’s internal realism. I argue that Kant’s attempt fails due to his transcendental idealism, on which independence and intelligibility turn out to be mutually exclusive. But the failure is instructive. The issue with Kant’s attempt isn’t his experiential conception of independent reality, but the idealistic commitments accompanying it. We can open up a route to critical realism by clearing away such commitments. Then, we can argue that the most realism can intelligibly require is that, given the conditions of intelligibility, things are intelligible as independent of us – according to experiential or practical standards. To demand more is to demand the unintelligible. I argue that Heidegger and Putnam both pursue this sort of strategy. For Heidegger, our understanding of being – in particular, of ‘presence-at-hand’ – makes it possible for us to experience things as independent of our involvement with them. In abstraction from our understanding, he argues, things aren’t intelligible as either independent or dependent. Heidegger’s attempt is undermined by his commitment to temporal idealism, the view that time depends on us, but I argue that the strategy itself is separable from that commitment. For Putnam, similarly, things are intelligible as independent of us with – and unintelligible without – some conceptual scheme in place. Putnam’s attempt is undermined by his commitment to an ‘interface’ model of cognition, which implies that things are scheme-dependent. But, again, I argue that the strategy is separable from that commitment. Insofar as Putnam rejects temporal idealism and Heidegger rejects the ‘interface’ model, they can serve as mutual correctives. And each of them, in fact, moves in the other’s direction in his respective later work.