Realism
--A case of mere homonymy or identifiable common commitments?
Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies
6-9 June 2011
http://www.nordprag.org/realism.html
In philosophical language, the word realism is a polysemic and fundamental notion. One can be a realist, as opposed to an idealist, if one defends the view that material objects exist externally to us and independently of our sense experience; one can be a direct realist in the theory of perception if one holds that perception is a direct awareness of external objects, a moral realist if one believes that there are objective moral values, a scientific realist if one holds that scientific knowledge is about theory-independent phenomena and that such knowledge is possible even about unobservable entities, a modal realist if one believes that possible worlds are as real as the actual world. In ontology, realism indicates the fact that one grants – in ways which vary greatly from case to case – extra-mental existence to certain kinds of entities, such as universals, relations or propositions.
The conference aims at exploring the relations that the different positions referred to as “realism” may have to each other. We wish to provide an answer to the question: are the many ways in which theories can be qualified as “realist” merely homonymic or is/are there one or more common commitment/s which ground the use of the same word? In particular, are there any interesting connections, historical and/or systematic, between two (apparently quite different) debates around the notion of realism, that about universals and that which opposes realism to idealism? When, and how, the realism vs. idealism debate emerged, and did the realism vs. nominalism debate play any role in this emergence?
The conference, organized by the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, will explore these issues both from an historical perspective, focussing on the Middle Ages and Modernity, and from a systematic perspective based on contemporary debates.
The first conference days (6-8 June) are reserved for invited presentations. On the final day (9 June) the Nordic Pragmatism Network organizes a one-day follow-up symposium on “Pragmatism and Realism”, concentrating on the issue of realism with an emphasis on the philosophical tradition of pragmatism.
For more information, see:
Nordic Pragmatism Network
http://www.nordprag.org/