Joanna asked:

What is anti-realism?

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First we have to get an idea of what realism is. Broadly, it is the view that reality is mind-independent.
That the world is found rather than created. Anti-realism is the opposite view, that the world is created
rather than found.

Now the problems come, when we try to say what it is that reality consists of, what are the things that
exist independently of our (or any intelligent mind) thinking about them? Not everyone agrees about
what things are actually in the world. For example, common sense tells us that physical objects are
real. Tables and chairs would continue to exist independently of what we think about them, but what
about abstract objects like numbers or Plato's Forms? Or what about pains? They are real, but are
they mind-independent? What does realism about pains require? Is it that pains exist because I am
aware of them, or am I aware of them because they are painful?

Or what about values, moral and aesthetic. Would the works of Dali be masterpieces if no one was
around to look at them?

So we can be realist about many different kinds of things. The issue gets even more complicated
because we can be realists about one aspect of reality and anti-realists about others. For example we
can be realists about physical objects whilst being anti-realists about properties and relations. So if
we did not exist there would be objects but perhaps there would be no colours or distances or causal
relations between these objects.

And perhaps we can be realist about physical stuff, but anti-realists about tables and chairs. For if we
did not exist would it even make sense to talk about tables and chairs? If there was nobody around to
use these things there wouldn't be anything that would qualify as a table. Because a table is a social
construct. There would be no such things as tables if people didn't use them.

The problem here is where to draw the line. if we are anti-realists about tables and chairs, why not be
anti-realists about electrons, magnetism, elephants, or sunsets. 1 do not the answer, it is a problem
that has been bothering me a long time: How much of the world is created by us and the way we
think? Is the world found ready made, split into easy to use natural kinds of things that our ideas and
languages simple refer to? Or is it the other way around, does our use of language mould the world
into the ways we want it?

Brian Tee
Dept of Philosophy
University of Sheffield