Some Observations on Realism, Science and Pragmatism

Abstract

I first highlight a main theme of the collection I edited and issued last year, Realism, Science and Pragmatism (Routledge 2014), by contrasting classical pragmatism and neo-pragmatism in terms of the distinction between semantic externalism and semantic internalism, and exhibiting how both of these semantic views are concisely stated by Carnap(1950a, 1950b), though neither he nor his followers recognised this contrast, nor its profound methodological and substantive implications – although they were highlighted at the time by Wick (1951), published by Wilfrid Sellars and Herbert Feigl in the second year of their journal, Philosophical Studies. I exhibit the continuing influence of semantic internalism – which dominates Quine’s, Rorty’s, van Fraassen’s, Brandom’s and Huw Price’s neo-pragmatist views – and argue against it with pragmatic realist considerations drawn from Kant, Carnap and Sellars.