ALSTON, W. - A Sensible Metaphysical Realism (2001)

8/12/2019 ALSTON, W. - A Sensible Metaphysical Realism (2001)

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SensibleMetaphysical

Realism


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The Aquinas Lecture, 2001

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SensibleMetaphysical

Realism

Under the auspices of theWisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau

by

William P. Alston


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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Alston, William P.A sensible metaphysical realism / by William P. Alston.

p. cm. (The Aquinas lecture ; 2001)Under the auspices of the Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of PhiSigma Tau. Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 0-87462-168-2 (alk. paper)1. Metaphysics. 2. Realism. I. Title. II. Series.

BD111 .A47 2001110dc21 00-012240

All rights reserved.

2001 Marquette University PressPrinted in the United States of America


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Prefatory

The Wisconsin-Alpha Chapter of Phi Sigma Tau,the International Honor Society for Philosophy atMarquette University, each year invites a scholar todeliver a lecture in honor of St. Thomas Aquinas.The 2001 Aquinas Lecture,A Sensible MetaphysicalRealism, was delivered on Sunday, February 18,2001, by William P. Alston, Professor Emeritus ofSyracuse University.

William P. Alston received his Ph. D. in philoso-phy from the University of Chicago in 1951. Hehas been Professor of Philosophy at Syracuse Uni-versity since 1980 and Professor Emeritus since

1992. He was Professor of Philosophy at the Uni-versity of Illinous at Urbana-Champaign from 1976to 1980 and served as chair from 1977 to 1979. Hewas previously Professor of Philosophy at RutgersUniversity from 1971 to 1976, serving as acting chairfrom 1972 to 1973. He taught at the University ofMichigan from 1949 to 1971 where he become Pro-

fessor of Philosophy in 1961.Professor Alston is a past President of the West-ern Division of the American Philosophical Asso-ciation, of the Society for Philosophy and Psychol-ogy, and of the Society of Christian Philosophers.He was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studyin the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University in

1965-66 and Distinguished Visiting Professor ofPhilosophy at the Center for Advanced Study inTheoretical Psychology at the University of Albertain 1975. He is a Fellow of the American Academy


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6 William P. Alston

of Arts and Sciences, and he received the SyracuseUniversitys Chancellors Citation for Exceptional

Academic Achievement. He conducted NEH sum-mer seminars in 1978 and 1979, and directed anNEH Institute on Philosophy of Religion in 1986.He is founding editor of the journal, Faith and Phi-losophy. In October, 1987 he led a delegation of eightAmerican philosophers in epistemology and philoso-phy of mind for a week of discussions with Sovietphilosophers in Moscow and Leningrad. In Septem-ber, 1991 he participated in a conference at CastelGandolfo, Italy on theology and physical cosmol-ogy sponsored by the Vatican Observatory.

His publications include several anthologies, Phi-losophy of Language(Prentice-Hall, 1964), more than

one hundred journal articles, many of which havebeen reprinted in anthologies, eighteen articles inthe Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by PaulEdwards (MacMillan, 1967), and numerous reviews.Two collections of his essays have been publishedby Cornell University Press (1989): Epistemic Justi-fication: Essays in Epistemology and Divine Nature

and Human Language: Essays in Philosophical Theol-ogy. His most recent books are Perceiving God: AStudy in the Epistemology of Religious Experience,(Cornell, 1991), The Reliability of Sense Perception(Cornell, 1993), A Realist Conception of Truth(Cornell, 1995), and Illocutionary Acts and SentenceMeaning (Cornell, 2000).

To Professor Alstons distinguished list of publi-cations, Phi Sigma Tau is pleased to add:A SensibleMetaphysical Realism.


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A Sensible Metaphysical Realism 7

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MetaphysicalRealism

1

Before expounding and defending my sensiblerealism, and explaining what is sensible about it, Ihad better indicate which of the many varieties of(metaphysical) realism that are found in the luxuri-ant jungle so called I will be seeking to develop asensible version thereof. Historically the most promi-nent realisms are the medieval commitment to the

objective reality of universals, and the opposition toone or another metaphysical idealism, the view thateverything is mental, or an aspect of, or dependenton, the mental. Moreover, there is a plethora of de-partmental realisms, in addition to the medievalrealism about universals, each of which claims ob-jective reality for the apparent objects of some fieldof inquiry. Thus we have realism about moral stan-dards, values, theoretical entities in science, ab-stract objects like propositions, meanings, and soon. These departmental realisms are in opposition


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8 William P. Alston

both to flat denials that such entities exist and toreductions of entities of the type in question to

something allegedly more fundamental or less prob-lematic. Thus a realism about physical objects isopposed to a phenomenalist reduction of physicalobjects to patterns of sensory experience. Realismabout propositions is opposed to their reduction toclasses of synonymous sentences. Realism about val-ues is opposed to the denial that values have anysort of objective status. And so on.1

The realism with which I shall be concerned dif-fers from all of the above. It differs from depart-mental realisms in being more global in character.And it differs from the anti-idealist kind of realismin the character of its principal opposition. Indeed,

an initial characterization of realism is most effec-tively couched in terms of what it opposes. To quotea phrase of J. L. Austins from the old male chauvin-ist days, it is antirealism that wears the trousers.The species of metaphysical realism I will treat hereis a denial of the view that whatever there is, is con-stituted, at least in part, by our cognitive relations

thereto, by the ways we conceptualize or construeit, by the language we use to talk about it or thetheoretical scheme we use to think of it. This kindof antirealism stems from Kants Copernican revo-lution, according to which anything of which wecan have knowledge owes at least its basic structureto the categories in terms of which we think it, rather

than to the way it is in itself. In a more contem-porary vein, we may think of my metaphysical real-ism as defined by the denial of the semi-Kantianposition held by Hilary Putnam. what objects does


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the world consist of?is a question that it only makessense to ask withina theory or descriptionthere is

more than one true theory or description of theworld.2 In other words, whatever there is, exists andis what it is only within a certain way of describ-ing or conceptualizing what there is. This is arelativized Kantianism in that it recognizes a num-ber of equally viable ways of describing or concep-tualizing or theoretically organizing reality, ways thatwould be incompatible if each of them were putforward as an account of reality as it is in itself. SincePutnam avoids recognizing Kantian noumena,things as they are in themselves, he can assert theconceptual relativity of what there is in a more un-qualified way than Kant, not restricting it to what

we can know.As the above quote from Putnam indicates, he usesa variety of terms to specify that by which he takesreality to be (partly) constituted on the cognitionsidetheory, description, and (elsewhere) con-ceptual scheme and language. My initial charac-terization of the contrast was similarly varied. I

would like to boil down the profusion so as to makethis antirealism, and by derivation my realism, morespecific. Some of the reduction is simple. Since thelanguage used to describe things and to report factsgets that function by virtue of expressing concepts,we may drop the linguistic formulation withoutloss.3 That leaves us with conceptualization and

theory. Since modes of conceptualization are gen-erally embodied in extensive schemes of concepts, Iwill concentrate on the term conceptual scheme.That leaves us with the question of how different


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10 William P. Alston

modes of theorizing, of theoretically organizing adomain, are related to different ways of conceptual-

izing. Many differences in theorizing go in tandemwith differences in conceptual scheme. Major revo-lutions in scientific theory, like relativity physics,involve fundamental reconceptualizations. But it isnot necessarily so. Less radical theoretical innova-tions can involve reorganizing familiar concepts.Hence I will need both conceptual schemeand theo-retical systemas factors on the cognition side of thecognition-reality relationship, choices betweenwhich can be partly constitutive of the reality side,according to antirealism.

Since my metaphysical realism is a denial of auniversal affirmative proposition (everything de-

pends, at least in part, on our conceptual-theoreti-cal choices),4it is not committed to the contraryofthat proposition, viz., that nothingdepends on suchchoices. At a minimum, it need only deny that allof reality is like that. Of course, the most minimumdenial, that there is somethingthat is not so depen-dent, is hardly significant enough to be worth the

trouble. I will be thinking of metaphysical realismas holding that large stretches of reality do not dependon our conceptual and theoretical choices for existingand being what they are. Much of this essay will bedevoted to exploring the question of just whatstretches do and do not exhibit this independence.The main respect in which my realism is distinctive

in being sensible is that it recognizes that somestretches of reality do conform to the account anti-realism gives of the whole of reality.


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2Before turning to my main taskdeveloping a

characterization, in some detail, of a defensibly mod-est form of metaphysical realismI must respondto a doubt about the genuineness of the contrastbetween my view and its antirealist opponent. Thishas to do with the notion of dependence involved.More than one reputable philosopher has opinedthat the claim that reality depends on our cognitionis either absurd or unintelligiblenot an attractivepair of prospects.5If the dependence is construed ascausal, the view is palpably absurd, as practicallyeveryone, realist and antirealist alike, agrees. It fliesin the face of overwhelming empirical evidence tosuppose that the heavens and the earth only came

into existence when human conceptualization6

cameon the scene and came into a position to exercisecausal influence. But if the dependence is not causal,what is it? No intelligible answer that is not equallyabsurd can be found, it is claimed, at least not with-out transforming the view into something that isfar from what its proponents have intended. It may

be thought that, if this is so, realism stands vindi-cated, since its chief opponent has turned out to beonly a paper tiger. But if so, it would be a Pyrrhicvictory. Since I have formulated realism in terms ofindependence of concepts and theories, it wouldseem that if dependence on those factors doesntmake sense, independence goes down the tube with

it.Fortunately for my position, we need not accept

the above dilemma. I agree with everyone else inrejecting as absurd the view that the physical uni-


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verse causally depends on human conceptualizationfor existing and being what it is. But I do not accept

that there is no form of dependence that rendersthe view intelligible without being absurd. Nodoubt, the kind of dependence required to makesense of the view is not obvious on the face of it,and it is incumbent on anyone who speaks in theseterms to provide an explication of a form of depen-dence that is appropriate for this purpose. I will pro-ceed to do so by first looking at a few plausible can-didates for entities or facts that depend for theirexistence and/or for being what they are on a con-ceptual scheme or theoretical choice for which thereare equally viable alternatives. I will then seek toextract from the examples a general characterization

of the kind of dependence involved. We can thinkof the sort of antirealism in question as an unquali-fied generalization of this dependence relation. LaterI will be arguing that the attempt at such an un-qualified generalization results in fatal internal de-fects of the position, rendering it self-defeating. Butthis kind of internal incoherence must be distin-

guished from unintelligibility. As in other such cases,we have to understand the position before we are ina position to demonstrate the internal incoherence.

Here are what I take to be some plausible candi-dates.

1. There are 50 peaks over 14,000 feet in Colo-rado.

2. Communism is a religion.Both of these cases depend for their acceptabilityon a certain conceptual choice for which there are,arguably, equally valid alternatives. When counting


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peaks in a mountain range we work with certaincriteria for how much lower altitude there must be

between higher elevations to count them as differ-ent peaks rather than parts of the same peak. And,obviously, these criteria could be set in different ways.No doubt, some are more natural than others, butit seems clear that there will be a variety of more orless equally natural and intuitive criteria that willyield somewhat different results as to the numberof peaks in the state.

As for 2., whether this is so depends on what wechoose to regard as necessary for a certain socialphenomenons being a religion. Religion is typicalof many terms for social entities and human prod-ucts, such as art, poem, democracy, and Chris-

tian, in exhibiting what we might call combina-tion of conditions indeterminacy.7 It is easy to listsalient features of paradigm cases of religions, fea-tures that would readily spring to mind if one wereasked for examples. These include:

1. Beliefs in supernatural beings.2. A distinction between sacred and profane ob-

jects.3. Ritual acts focused around sacred objects.4. Characteristically religious feelings (awe, sense

of mystery, adoration, etc.)5. Prayer and other forms of communication with

supernatural beings.6. A world view.

7. An organization of ones life based on the worldview.

8. A social group bound together by the above.


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The list could be extended. When we consider asocial organization that exhibits some of these fea-

tures and not others, it might or might not count asa religion, depending on which of the items on thecentral list are considered most important or mostcrucial. Depending on such conceptual preferences,Communism or Confucianism or Humanism mightor might not count as a religion.

A natural reaction to these first cases is to say thatthey are not genuine objective matters of factthatpartly are what they are by virtue of conceptual ortheoretical choices, but rather more or less indeter-minate concepts, the application of which to genu-inely objective realities is correspondingly indeter-minate and up for grabs. There is no fact of the

matter that there is some exact number of peaks inColorado, or that Communism is (not) a religion,that is partly constituted by our conceptual prefer-ences. It is rather that the terms or concepts peakand religion are not fully determinate. Commu-nism just is what it is. The only cognition-relativeaspect of the situation concerns our conceptual ap-

plications or abstentions therefrom. Naturally thatis dependent on our conceptual-theoretical choices,where the concept in question is not so fully formedas to have a uniquely correct application in everycase. In short, the only thing concept-relative in thesecases is concepts. There is nothing here that requiresany qualification to a full-blown realism.8

I am not disposed to quarrel with this diagnosis.Instead I pass on to some other sorts of examples,the antirealist qualifications of which cannot be soeasily dismissed.


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3. All necessary statements express the same propo-sition.

4. Every human being has an infinite number ofbeliefs.

5. The cause of the fire was an overturned candle.3. and 4. reflect different possible ways of concep-tualizing and theoretically organizing a subject mat-ter, in this case,propositional attitudes, treating speechacts as attitudes for this purpose.

3. holds on a currently prominent way of con-struing propositions as sets of possible worlds. Onthat reading statements that are true in the same setof possible worlds express the same proposition. Thisis counter-intuitive. Most of us balk at the idea thatwhen I utter 2+2 = 4 and The angles of a Euclid-

ean triangle add up to 180 degrees, I am sayingthe same thing, i.e., expressing the same proposi-tion. Nevertheless, this way of identifying proposi-tions is useful for certain logical purposes, includ-ing formal semantics. On a more natural way ofviewing propositions, propositions with differentconceptual content, like the two just cited, will count

as different propositions. So in this case what aproposition is, as well as what counts as the sameproposition, or the same propositional content oftwo psychological states or speech acts, depends onour choices as to how to structure our account ofthis subject matter.

4. represents a simpler example of the same thing.

It reflects a construal of beliefs according to whichwhen one believes that p, one thereby believes ev-erything entailed byp, and, given the principle ofdisjunction according to which p entailspor q,for


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any q, this implies that for any belief one has, onehas thereby an infinite set of other beliefs. 4. as-

sumes, of course, that it is not a necessary conditionfor having a belief that one be capable of consciouslyentertaining it, or that one is disposed to act as if itscontent were true. These assumptions have reason-able and viable contraries. Hence if 4. is the case, itis the case only relative to conceptual-theoreticalchoices that have viable alternatives.

5. is a somewhat different kind of example. Herethe variability stems not from ways of theoreticallyorganizing a subject-matter, but from a context de-fined by what is taken for granted as a backgroundagainst which to pick out one of the causally rel-evant factors for special attention. Clearly an over-

turned candle is not sufficient by itself for a fire in ahouse. There must be inflammable material suffi-ciently close by, enough oxygen in the atmosphere,etc. But all that was taken for granted in the contextof utterance, and attention was focused on what inaddition to that makes the difference between fireand no fire.

Harkening back to the dismissal of 1. and 2. asgenuine antirealist cases, I can easily imagine some-one rejecting 5. as aid and comfort for the antirealiston somewhat similar grounds. Here it is not an in-determinacy of concept that is involved, but ratherrelativity to interest or to what has already been as-sumed. And it might well be argued that this is a

feature of the discourse, not of what the discourse isabout. The fire is just what it is, and the causalcontributors to it are just what they are, whatever par-ticular contributor we pick out as of special interest.


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But 3. and 4. are not so easily dismissed. Proposi-tions and even beliefs are creatures of theory in a

way that fires (and mountain ranges and religions)are not. We have a choice as to how we construeand individuate propositions and beliefs, and itseems that different ways of doing this have an ap-proximately equal claim to be adequate ways of deal-ing with the subject matter. Of course, this last judg-ment may be contested. It may be urged that thereis some unique objective truth about these matters,just as there is about whether there was a fire in thehouse, how it started, and how it spread. But, atleast it is not so obvious that this is the case. And soI feel entitled to take 3. and 4. as prima facie plau-sible examples of how states of affairs can be depen-

dent, at least in part, on conceptual-theoreticalchoices that have viable alternatives.Now for extracting a reading of dependenceon

conceptual and theoretical choices from examples3. and 4. The basic idea has been hinted at already.The nature and individuation of propositions andbeliefs do not confront us as something ready made,

whatever our concepts and theories. On the con-trary, these matters go one way rather than anotherdepending on those choices. Hence if we think ofpropositions and beliefs as part of reality, part ofwhat is involved in the way things go in the world(as we surely do, especially with beliefs, which werecognize as playing a large role in the motivation

and guidance of behavior), then we must take themas examples of how the existence and nature of thingsin the world, including their individuation, is partlyconstituted by one or another way of conceptualiz-


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ing them and theorizing about them. This is notthe causaldependence that we have seen to be ab-

surd. Our theorizing clearly does not exercise thatkind of influence. It is what we might call constitu-tive dependence. Propositions are what they are inthese respects by virtue ofour shaping our thoughtof them in one or another way.

But we are still not at the end of the needed expli-cation. Not enough has been said to make clear whatthis constitution amounts to, and how it is dis-tinct from causal production. We can best approachthis task by once more recurring to the alternativeof handling the variation in essence and individua-tion of, e.g., propositions as having to do solely withthe conceptual-theoretical side of the transaction,

leaving the reality side untouched. Go back to thehard nosed realist who holds that any differences asto what propositions are and how they are individu-ated are only differences as to how we think andwhat we believe about them, not differences inpropositions as denizens of reality. With respect tothe latter, propositions are what they are, in some

one unique self-consistent way, however differenttheorists might view them. If those views are in-compatible, then all but one is mistaken, even if weare unable to say which is the one that alone has itstraight, if, indeed, any of them do.

I find this reaction to be the most powerful chal-lenge to the idea that there is an unmistakably in-

telligible account of how, e.g., propositions can ex-hibit different natures by virtue of being embeddedin different conceptual-theoretical structures and doso themselves as objectsof thought and discourse.


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To meet it lets move to a different way of thinkingof the dependence involved. Lets say that proposi-

tions enjoy a particular nature not absolutely, butrelativeto a certain theoretical-conceptual scheme.For any sort of reality that is subject to this consti-tutive dependence on our thought, there is no suchthing as what it is absolutely, tout court, but onlywhat it is relativeto a certain scheme of thought.With respect to propositions, an absolutist statementis incomplete. To say Propositions are sets of pos-sible worlds and leave it at that is to make an in-complete statement. To render it capable of truth orfalsity we must add an index, relativizing it to a con-ceptual scheme. The statement must be somethinglike In C, propositions are sets of possible worlds,

where C denotes a theoretical-conceptual scheme.And dont take in too literally. It is not that propo-sitions are themselves constituents of a conceptualscheme that represents them as sets of possibleworlds. A more literal formulation would be rela-tive to, rather than in.

One may still feel the need for more explanation

of the kind of relativity envisaged here. Before do-ing what I can to meet this need, I should point outa respect in which this is more difficult for me, as arealist, than it is for someone like Putnam orGoodman, who universally generalizes the relativ-ity to conceptual schemes. It is more difficult forme because, recognizing as I do vast stretches of re-

ality that are absolute, not relative to conceptualschemes, the problem of why I shouldnt treat myalleged examples of relativity in the same way is alive one for me, as the previous discussion makes


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clear. Whereas those who take everything to be rela-tive to alternative conceptual schemes have no con-

trasting, absolutist mode of reality that, so to say,threatens to swallow up all the putatively relativeentities and banish all relativity to the thought sideof the thought-reality relationship. In a bit I willargue that the attempt to universalize this relativitypropels antirealists into fatal internal defects. Butthe fact remains that the job of explaining what suchrelativity amounts to is, in a way, easier for them.

To continue with my burdensome job, I suggestthat some familiar analogues may help us to graspthe idea. Consider the relativity of motion to frame-work. Is the train moving? Well, yes, it is movingrelative to the station but not relative to another

train moving at exactly the same speed on a paralleltrack. Can we say that the relativity attaches only toour ways of describing the situation, whereas abso-lutely the train either is moving or not? That is theposition of one who takes space to be absolute. Ei-ther the train is changing its location in absolutespace, or it is not. And as far as the train itself is

concerned, in contrast to our ways of describing theproceedings, that is the end of the matter. But ac-cording to the now generally accepted relativity phys-ics, there is no such absolute space and time. Theonly motion there is is motion relative to one oranother framework taken as fixed. And there is aplurality, indeed an infinite plurality, of such pos-

sible frameworks, from which motion can be as-cribed. We can think of propositions as relative, insomething like the same way, to conceptual frame-


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works, to ways of construing the nature and indi-viduation of propositions.

Another interesting analogy is put forward in Sosa1999. This involves indexical statements. Considersomeones saying Boston is nearby, and considerthe fact that makes this true. Obviously it is onlyrelative to a certain spatial position that Boston isnearby rather than far away. If the speaker had beenin Los Angeles rather than in a Boston suburb, itwould not have been true that Boston is nearby andthere would have been no such fact to make it true.We can think of this as a relativity of fact to a fea-ture of discourse, in this case the spatial location ofthe speaker, somewhat as motion is relative to frame-work. This may help us to see how facts about propo-

sitions or beliefs can be relative to ways of concep-tualizing them, and in that way dependent onthose ways for the details of what they are and howthey are individuated. And note that the depen-dence in these analogies is not causal. Its not thatthe relevant framework, rather than the locomotivecausesthe train to move. And what causesBoston to

be nearby is whatever caused the speaker and Bos-ton to assume their relative positions, not the posi-tion of the speaker.

I must confess that Sosa does not use the analogyin the way I just have. On the contrary, he takes therelativity to location to affect only the content ofthe statement (only the thought side of the thought-

world relation), and not the world side. He sup-poses that the fact that makes it true, when it is true,that Boston is nearby, is absolute and in no way rela-tive to the spatial location of speaker or any other


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feature of thought or discourse. I have discussedSosas take on these and other matters having to do

with realism in my Sosa on Realism (forthcom-ing). In any event, my present concern is not to usethe indexical phenomenon to prove anything butonly as a stepping stone to help the reader, andmyself, form an intelligible conception of facts inthe world being, in part, relative to features ofthought or discourse.

To be sure, as a realist I do consider things thatexist absolutely and facts that obtain absolutely, notrelative to some optional mode of conception ortheorizing, to be more real, to have a higher modeof reality than what exists or obtains only relative toone of several equally viable theoretical-conceptual

schemes. But that does not imply that what existsor obtains only relative to such schemes has no ex-istence except for the existence of the schemes them-selves. To get back to the analogies, it is like the wayin which motion that occurs only relative to oneout of many different frameworks is still somethingother than the frameworks themselves. Relative ex-

istence is still existence, even if it is not absoluteexistence.Thus my explanation of constitutive dependenceof

things and facts on conceptual-theoretical choicesis in terms of their relativityto such choices, relativ-ity of the sort exemplified by the analogies. Thoughin the sequel I will often speak in terms of depen-

dence and independence, that is to be understoodin accordance with the foregoing. And the canoni-cal explanation of the contrasting positions is interms of relativity.


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Antirealism (AR)Everything and every fact ex-ists or obtains, and is what it is, at least in part, rela-

tive to certain conceptual-theoretical choices thathave equally viable alternatives.

Realism (R)Vast stretches of reality are whatthey are absolutely, not in any way relative to cer-tain conceptual-theoretical choices that have equallyviable alternatives.

3The next item on the agenda is drawing some

boundaries around the kind of metaphysical real-ism I advocate here. I have just made explicit thepositive core of the position. But it will be useful tomake explicit certain things that are not involved in

that core. And since this kind of realism frequentlycarries various other commitments in its train, itwill not be amiss to point out that I do not conceivethe position as including them. In doing so I do notthereby reject those views, many of which I hold. Itis just that for present purposes I want to focus onthe independence thesis, separating it from other

commitments with which it is frequently associatedso as to give it a full treatment in its own right.9

First, I want to bring out, with some examples,the fact that R is concerned only with independenceof conceptual-theoreticalchoices, not with other waysin which things and facts are, or might be thoughtto be, dependent on cognition and on other aspects

of the mental. Consider, for example, Berkeleys Tobe is to be perceived. This is certainly a kind ofdependence of everything (except minds themselves)on the mental. The reality of physical objects con-


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field, being a wedding ring. In all these cases theperson or thing has this status by virtue of certain

propositional attitudes taken toward it by membersof the society in questionwhat they believe aboutit, what obligations, prohibitions, permissions, theytake to apply to it, what behavior is appropriate withregard to it, and so on. To be a member of an orga-nization or to have a certain job is to have certainrights, obligations, and responsibilities that onewould would not otherwise have, and the posses-sion of those rights, etc. is dependent on their rec-ognition by members of the society generally. For abuilding to be a church building is for it to be gen-erally recognized that certain activities are appro-priate there and others inappropriate. For a piece of

paper to be a $10 bill is for it to be generally accept-able as a medium of exchange. And so on. None ofthis is a matter of the adoption of a certain concep-tual scheme or a certain theoretical orientationamong other alternatives vis-a-vis these matters. Theconcepts involved (concepts of obligations, permis-sions, appropriateness, exchange of goods) are al-

ready in the usual human conceptual scheme,whether or not they are employed as they are in therecognitions, acceptances, and so on illustratedabove. To oversimplify in order to make the pointin a concise manner, these social statuses depend onhow concepts are deployed in beliefsand attitudesthat are generally held in the society, not on whether

one rather than another conceptual scheme is usedto organize a certain subject matter. Hence this kindof dependence on cognition falls outside the con-trast between AR and R. Though I take the depen-


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dence of social statuses on generally shared beliefsand attitudes in the society to be a crucially impor-

tant example of a dependence of objective facts onthe mental, I will not be citing it as one of the con-cessions that, I will suggest, a sensible realism shouldmake to AR.

The example of social statuses brings out the factthat AR could be construed more generally to in-clude any sort of constitutive dependence of thingsand facts on human cognition thereof, and R, as itsdenial, would be correspondingly altered. Thiswould be a weaker AR, since its universal generali-zation would be over a wider range of constitutivedependencies. But for present purposes I will stickto the more restricted version of AR set out above.

The phenomenon of social statuses illustrates an-other point that is importantly, though tangentially,related to this essay. The relativity of things and factsto conceptual-theoretical choices that AR univer-sally generalizes and that I acknowledge at certainpoints is a malleability, a vulnerability to individualshifts in cognition. In the examples from section 2,

it is up to each individual theorist whether he or sheadopts one rather than another way of construingand individuating propositions and beliefs. This isa maximal relativity, in the sense that each individualis free to make his or her own choice. But the mal-leability of social statuses, though real, is not so ex-treme. I cant just decide to organize marital rela-

tions, mediums of exchange, the rules of football,or who owns what property, as I like. Who is mar-ried to whom, who owns what houses, etc., con-front me as objective facts that I must accept willy-


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nilly. I dont have the power to reshape them on myown. They are subject to change only by a general

shift in beliefs and attitudes in the society. They ex-ist at the sufferance of propositional attitudes, butthese are generally shared beliefs and attitudes, notisolated individual ones.

Another feature of the AR-R contrast is that theAR side involves not only (1) a (partial) dependenceof how things are on our conceptualization, but (2)a dependence that is (possibly) variable. There arepossible, and sometimes actual, variations in the waya given domain is conceptually and/or theoreticallyorganized. Moreover, what I regard as the main ar-guments Putnam and Goodman give for AR is basedon this alleged variability. And it is this whole pack-

age that R, as I have been presenting it, denies to beuniversally applicable. But, of course, one could es-pouse (1) without (2). We find this in Kant and, ina different way and less clearly, in Hegel and abso-lute idealism generally. And I could, of course, con-strue R so that it is opposed to Kant as well as toPutnam. I find myself with a strong temptation to

do just that. The realist conviction I am concernedto defend is also violated, though not as strongly, bya unique dependence of everything on certain in-eluctable features of our conceptualization of it, justas it is by a dependence of everything on a pluralityof equally acceptable conceptualizations. Of course,Kant and the absolute idealists need different kinds

of arguments for their position than those deployedby Putnam and Goodman. But they all represent agenerically similar opposition to common sense re-alism.10


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Moreover, the pluralist and absolutist forms arenot as starkly opposed as they appear to be at first

blush. For though Kant does not take seriously theidea that human beings might categorize the mani-fold of sensation in different and equally valid ways,it is still the case that the force of his transcenden-tal idealism depends on a contrast with conceiv-able alternative categorizations. Apart from that,what does the Copernican revolution amount to?If we cannot even conceive the abstract possibilityof alternative conceptualizations (perhaps for othercognitive subjects), if our way of doing it is the oneand only possible way, then how does that differfrom holding that (apart, of course, from mistakesin details) our way of representing reality is just the

way it is in itself?Despite all this I will, for purposes of this essay,confine myself to the AR that takes there to be ac-tual variations in conceptualization that are consti-tutive of differences in things and facts with whichwe are confronted in the world. And my partial con-cessions to AR will concern stretches of reality that

are dependent on alternative conceptualizations inthis way.Now I want to dissociate R from various com-

mitments that are frequently connected to it. Forone thing, my realism carries no epistemologicalcommitments. Interestingly enough, some philoso-phers take realism to be committed to the inaccessi-

bility of reality, and others take it to be committedto its accessibility. Though the independent realityof, e.g., the physical world would hardly be worthfighting for if we were fated to remain in complete


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ignorance of it, and though I am convinced that wedo know a lot about it, I will set aside those episte-

mological issues in order to concentrate on the in-dependence thesis. Second, realism is often associ-ated, or even conflated, with a correspondencetheory of truth, or with a minimalist version of that,which in Alston 1996 I call a realist conception oftruth. But although I agree that it would be bizarrefor a metaphysical realist to hold an epistemic con-ception of truth or any other conception that makesthe truth of a statement to consist in something otherthan what the statement is about being as the state-ment says it is, I will abstract my independent real-ity realism from issues of truth in this discussion.Finally, in recent decades realism has been frequently

associated with physicalism and with a causal theoryof reference. I can set aside these entanglements withgreater enthusiasm than the first two, since althoughI am enthusiastic about independence realism, I holdno brief for either physicalism or a causal theory ofreference. But my present point is only that in or-der to hold that large stretches of reality are what

they are independently of our modes of conceptual-ization, one need not take those stretches, much lessall of reality, to be purely physical; and one neednot accept a causal theory, or any other particulartheory of reference. To be sure, reference is an im-portant and fascinating problem in itself. And onemust be able to refer to things in order to ascribe

independent existence or anything else to them. But,fortunately, human beings can succeed in doing sowithout being in possession of an adequate theoryofreference. Otherwise we would be in a pretty pickle.


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There is other baggage we need to discard. Itshould not be necessary to say this, but here goes

anyway. R does not imply that every one of our con-cepts (terms) denotes something that exists. Every-one realizes in practice that this is a truism, butstrange things happens when philosophers discussrealism. In addition to standard textbook exampleslike unicorn, there are more interesting, and corre-spondingly controversial, philosophical examples. InAlston 1993 I argue that it is a mistake to supposethat justified, when used in the epistemic evalua-tion of beliefs, picks out a unique objective epistemicstatus. Quine, notoriously, takes the same positionfor meaning and analytic, as semantic terms. Whatmay be less obvious is that the above factthat not

all intelligible concepts denote anythingimpliesthat not every intelligible question has an objectivelycorrect answer. Quine does not hesitate to draw thisinference for Are these terms synonymous? Al-though I cannot point to documentary evidence, Ihave the sense that it is not infrequently assumedthat a serious metaphysical realism would imply that

every meaningful question has a unique objectivelycorrect answer. Hence the need to take up space topoint out that this is not the case. This reflects amore general point about R. It is not a thesis aboutdiscourse or thought. It a thesis about (much of)what exists. The opposition between R and itsantirealist opponents only arises when both parties

have agreed that something exists (obtains) in someway or other, with some status or other. The ques-tion is as to which way or which status. This alsoimplies that R is not, as such, opposed to views that


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something or other does not exist at all. Someonewho denies that there are propositions, or unexem-

plified properties, or possible worlds, or unobserv-able objects, or God, or whatever, is not contradict-ing R, although various proponents of R may alsodisagree with these claims. For, as I say, the issuebetween R and its opponents only arises when thereis agreement on somethings existence. Of course,an advocate of R may hold that Xs exist indepen-dently even though other thinkers deny that thereare any Xs. It is just that there can be an R-AR dis-pute between them about Xs only after both admitthat Xs exist in some way.

4

My next task is to explain what I think to be pos-sible by way of defending realism. I fear my posi-tion on this will seem disappointing to many real-ists. I dont see any prospect for a direct argumentfor realism. Some, like Devitt, suppose that it canbe supported as the best explanation of our senseexperience. But the presentation of this in Devitt

1984 (5,7, pp. 64-65) is much too sketchy to carryconviction. A straight enumerative induction woulddo no better. That would consist in listing all theitems that enjoy independent existence and thengeneralizing from this. If we are properly cautious,that generalization will not be unqualifiedly univer-sal, but will be content with the claim that much of

reality exists independently of conceptualization.The deepest trouble with this suggestion is that ifanyone is disinclined to accept such a modest gen-


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eralization, he will be equally disinclined to acceptthe status of independence for the individual items.

Thus what seems to me the best way to view thematter is to take realism to be the default position.All of us, before we encounter clever antirealist ar-guments, unhesitatingly ascribe independent exist-ence to what we take ourselves to encounter in theworld. This is as deeply rooted as any conviction ofcommon sense. It is to be given up only if there arestrong reasons against it. Hence the only defenseneeded is a critique of attempts to give such reasonsand/or an argument for the lack of viability of anunqualified antirealism.

I will not undertake a criticism of arguments forAR in this essay. But I will indicate ways in which I

take AR to be self-defeating and hence internallyincoherent. If I am right about that, there is no needto examine arguments for the position, since it couldnot possibly be correct. Remember that the antire-alism under consideration here is an unqualifiedgeneralization of the relativity to conceptual schemesI have already acknowledged to hold for certain

matters, a list to which I will shortly make furtheradditions. The internal incoherence is a direct re-sult of that unqualified generalizations. Lets say thatwe have identified a variety of equally viable con-ceptual schemes (total ones if you like) such thatphysical objects and facts have a certain characterrelative to one or another such scheme. Relative to

one of the alternative schemes those objects and factshave one detailed constitution, whereas relative toanother such scheme they have a somewhat differ-ent constitution.11 But now what about those con-


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ceptual schemes themselves? And if we are not think-ing of such schemes as abstract objects but only as

employed by concrete cognitive subjects, how aboutthose subjects? Do all of these exist and have thenature they do relative to each of a number of dif-ferent conceptual schemes? If not, the unrestrictedgeneralization has been given up. But if so, whatabout these second level conceptual schemes. Obvi-ously an infinite regress looms. The unrestrictedgeneralization is purchased at the price of an infi-nite hierarchy of conceptual schemes. And if theconceptual schemes involved must actually be usedby subjects, we get an infinite hierarchy of subjects,or at least an infinite hierarchy of employments ofdifferent conceptual schemes by subjects. I take all

this to be obviously unacceptable.A second fatal internal difficulty stems from anessential element in the argument for this kind ofantirealism. The different conceptual schemes mustbe construed as yielding incompatibleconstruals ofthe entities dependent on them. Otherwise there isno objection to taking the entities to be what they

are absolutely, not relative to one or another scheme.But they can be incompatible only if they areconstruals of the same entities. For if they areconstruals of different entities, they can all happilycoexist in one unique reality. But this means thatthe view presupposes some common object ofconceptualization. And just by being the shared

object of the different conceptual schemes, it is it-self immune from relativity to those differentschemes. Thus the view is driven back to somethinglike the Kantian noumenon, to which the plurality


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of schemes of categories is applied. And so the priceof maintaining the basic argument for the position

is an exception to the universal generalization ofrelativity. If we try to escape this consequence bytaking what is differently conceptualized in differ-ent conceptual schemes to be itself relative to dif-ferent conceptual schemes, and so split it up intodifferent versions corresponding to those differ-ent second order schemes, we are off on anotherinfinite regress. For what are to say of that which isconceptualized differently in those second orderschemes?

Since an unqualified conceptual relativity is un-acceptable, I feel justified in taking realism to bethe default position for any putative entity or fact,

taking any such item to be independent of our cog-nitive activity until it is shown to be otherwise.Hence the specification of those stretches of realitythat are independent will proceed negativelybywhittling away at the mass of prima facie indepen-dent realities (i.e., all of them), and ascribing inde-pendence to what remains. Thus the process is much

messier than we might hope. It involves a painstak-ing discussion of all the more promising candidatesfor dependence on our conceptualizations, so as todetermine which of them passes the test. I will notbe able to complete such an enormous task in thisessay. And even if I had several volumes at my dis-posal, the fact would remain that some of those can-

didates will be highly controversial, and argumentsabout them could drag on interminably in the waytypical of philosophical arguments. For the presentI will have to restrict myself to, first, making some


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distinctions between different kinds of dependenceon human cognition, and, second, making a case

for a significant relativity to conceptual schemes ofsome of the most promising candidates. But beforestarting on that, let me say that I believe one resultof any such investigation would leave most of theobjects we have commerce with, cognitive and prac-tical, and most of the facts concerning such objectswith their prima facie realist credentials intact.

5I will be spending most of my time in this re-

mainder of this essay presenting and discussing can-didates for the conceptual-scheme-dependent sideof the R-AR opposition. But I will introduce this

by a contrast that seems to me to put into sharprelief the difference between those entities and factsthat are and those that are not, so to say, imposedonus by the nature of things willy-nilly. On the onehand, there are items with respect to the nature andexistence of which we have no choice, which arewhat they are regardless of our interests or prefer-

ences, which are, in the strongest sense, stubbornand unyielding facts; and, on the other side, thereare those with respect to which we do have a choiceas to whether or not to countenance them. Hereis an imaginative example from Sosa 1999.

Artifacts and natural objects are normally com-

posed of stuff or of parts in certain ways. Thosethat endure are normally composed of stuff orof parts at each instant of their enduring.Thusa snowball exists at a time t and location l only


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if there is a round quantity of snow at l and tsufficiently separate from other snow, and so

forth; and it endures through an interval i onlyif, for every division of i into a sequence ofsubintervals i

1, i

2, there is a corresponding

sequence of quantities of snow Q1, Q

2, re-

lated in certain restricted ways. I mean thus torecall our criteria of existence and perdurancefor snowballs.

So much for snowballs. The like is true ofchains and constituent links, boxes and con-stituent sides, and a great variety of artifacts ornatural entities such as hills or trees; and thesame goes for persons and their constituentbodies

Compare nowthe concept of a snow-discall, which we may define as an entityconstituted by a piece of snow as matter and asform any shape between being round and beingdisc-shaped. At any given time, therefore, anypiece of snow that constitutes a snowball consti-tutes a snowdiscall, but a piece of snow might at

a time constitute a snowdiscall without thenconstituting a snowball.Whenever a piece ofsnow constitutes a snowball, therefore, it con-stitutes infinitely many entities all sharing itsplace with it.

Under a broadly Aristotelian conception,therefore, the barest flutter of the smallest leaf

creates and destroys infinitely many things, andordinary reality suffers a sort of explosion.(pp. 132-33)


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To elaborate on the last two paragraphs of the above,since there is a continuum of shapes between round-

ness and disc-shape, we could draw a line anywherealong that continuum and define another kind as apiece of snow the shape of which falls somewherebetween roundness and that line. So just the exampleof hunks of snow enables us to specify an infinitenumber of kinds. And since hunks of snow are onlyone of a potential infinity of masses of different kindsof stuff, if we recognize all the snowdiscall sorts ofentities as individuals with their distinctive essen-tial properties and conditions of identity, we arefaced with a very high order of infinity of individu-als, and indeed, as the snowdiscall example shows,an infinity of individuals all occupying the same

space at the same time.I believe that it will seem intuitively plausible tomost of us that this infinity of snowdiscall-like pu-tative individuals are not thrust on us by the natureof things, regardless of our preferences, interests, orchoices. If, for whatever reasons, we choose to ac-cept the existence of all these individuals, we will

not be flying in the face of any empirical data, thoughthe consciences of those committed to Ockhamsrazor will undoubtedly feel a decided twinge. I thinkthis intuition can be strengthened by consideringsome contrasting cases in which it does seem thatwe encounter stubborn, unyielding facts that arethere to be reckoned with, whatever we will.

There are some kinds that are thrust upon us bythe fact that the members of such kinds share nu-merous properties that are of importance for ourattempts to understand the world. They prove fruit-


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ful for taxonomy, for prediction, and for the con-struction of powerful explanatory theories that of-

ten provide drastic unification of what heretoforeseemed to be diverse phenomena. Salient examplesinclude the species of organisms, chemical elements,chemical compounds, crystalline and other physi-cal structures, fundamental physical particles, basictypes of forces, and so on. This is so oft told a talethat it is unnecessary for me to belabor the point.The idea that the form definitive of snowdiscalls hasan ontological claim to be there equal to that ofhydrogen, a cold virus, water, the strong nuclearforce, or protons, runs into the crushing objectionthat snowdiscalls share no theoretically or practi-cally interesting properties that indicate they are

pulling some independent weight in the economyof the universe. Thus snowdiscalls and the infinitelynumerous other artificially marked out kinds canbe distinguished by a clear criterion from naturalkinds and their members, as being much less wor-thy of being recognized as existing independentlyof our interests and choices.

On which side of this divide should we place arti-facts? They cant claim the theoretical importanceof organic species, living cells, chemical elements orfundamental forces. And yet it does seem that desksand chairs are out there confronting us in a waythat snowdiscalls are not. And I think that there is asignificant basis for this intuition. Artifacts do have

intrinsic, non-arbitrary principles of identity andpersistence, though it comes not from nature butfrom art. I will bring this out by reference to a pointSosa makes near the end of Sosa 1999. He says that


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a hammer could also be used as a doorstop. Theremark was designed to provide another illustration

of the ontological explosion. Is there both a ham-mer and a doorstop confronting us? But the exampleleads me to reflect that the hammer has a kind offoothold on reality lacking to the doorstop that itconstitutes. And that is due to the intentions of themaker(s). The object was manufactured in order todo such things as drive in nails. Like anything else,including organisms, it can be used for various otherpurposes. But the intention of the maker, the pur-pose for which it was constructed, takes a certainprecedence. That provides the primary identity andpersistence conditions by contrast with which theconditions stemming from other possible uses have

only a secondary status, if that. If we may think ofthe essences of natural kinds as intended by a divinemaker, we have a close analogy between natural kindsand human artifacts. There is still the difference thatthe standard way of discovering the natural kind towhich natural substances belong does not normallygo through an investigation of the intentions of the

maker, whereas the opposite is true of artifacts. Andyet in both cases there are objective facts of the mat-ter that provide a basis for placing an item in onekind rather than others to which it nominally be-longs, and giving that kind a special ontological sta-tus.

Moreover Sosas example of the snowball reminds

me that there are artifact-like things to be foundamong ways of dividing up stuff. It is much moreplausible to take snowballs as existing in a context-free way than to accord that status to snowdiscalls


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or any of the other indefinitely numerous putativeindividuals that we could dream up in the same way.

Why is that? Presumably it is because there are stan-dard procedures for shaping snow into balls for awell defined purposeto throw them at people.Though it is much simpler to design and constructa snowball than a gun, it is not too much of a stretchto think of them as endowed with an essence bytheir creators in basically the same way, and henceas having the same kind of title to context-indepen-dent existence. The same cannot be said ofsnowdiscalls and the like. This opens up the field toan enormous variety of stuff shaped for a purposesugar cubes, medallions of veal, gold rings, etc. Andthere are even pieces of stuff analogues to natural

kindssnow flakes and drops of water, for instance.This discussion has thus far been restricted to thequestion of whether certain putative kinds and theindividuals of those kinds existindependently of ourconceptual or theoretical choices. This is a some-what different issue from the one that bulks largestin Putnam and Goodman, viz., whether different

conceptual and theoretical choices engender equallyvalid ways of describing and theoretically organiz-ing a given subject matter. To see a clear oppositionhere we can contrast the earlier examples of propo-sitions and beliefs with natural kinds. For both sortsof cases there are, in principle, alternative ways ofconceptualizing, of determining what the essential

nature is and what the principles of identity andindividuation are. We can define fish as animalorganism that lives in water, or as animal organismwith fins and gills, just as we can define proposi-


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tion as a set of possible worlds, or as a complexconceptual structure capable of a truth value. But

it seems that we have a much greater degree of free-dom in the latter than in the former case. We canachieve our cognitive goals at least approximately aswell with one conceptualization of propositions aswith another; whereas the same cannot be said forfish and other organic species. A specification of theessence of fishhood in terms of anatomical or physi-ological structure, or perhaps in terms of DNA con-stitution, is of much greater theoretical and practi-cal significance than specifications in terms of moresuperficial features, like living in water. There itseems that a particular way of assigning an essenceto fish and other organisms is thrust upon us re-

gardless of our choices, in a way it is not with propo-sitions, and even with beliefs.Having shown my hand as to what I take to have

a status in reality independently of conceptual-theo-retical choices to which there are acceptable alter-natives, I can now proceed with further examples ofwhat I take to be on the conceptually dependent

side of the contrast.

6I expect that my remaining examples of entities

and facts dependent for their existence and/or theirnature on conceptual-theoretical choices will bemore controversial than the ones already mentioned.

I will try to order them in accordance with degreeof controversiality, beginning with what I believe tobe the least controversial.


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One of Putnams favorite examples concernsmereological sums.

Suppose I take someone into a room with achair, a table on which there are a lamp and anotebook and a ballpoint pen, and nothing else,and I ask, How many objects are there in thisroom? My companion answers, let us suppose,Five. What are they? I ask. A chair, a table,a lamp, a notebook, and a ballpoint pen. Howabout you and me? Arent we in the room? Mycompanion might chuckle. I didnt think youmeant to count people as objects. Alright, then,seven. How about the pages of the note-book?

At this point my companion is likely tobecome much less cooperative, to feel I havepulled a fast one. But what is the answer to myquestion? A logician is likely to say that there isan ordinary (or perhaps a metaphysical) notionof an object, according to which, perhaps, thepages of the notebook are not objects as long

as they are still attached, and according to whichmy nose is not an object, only a part of an objectas long as it is still attachedand that there is alogical notion of an object or entity accordingto which anything we can take as a value of avariable of quantificationis a object; andthat all the parts of a person or a notebook are

objects in this logical sense.What about the group consisting of my

nose and the lamp? Is that an object at all? Isthere no such object? (Putnam 1989, 110-111)


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Lets focus on this last example, which involvesmereological sums. According to mereology, for

any entities, x, y, , there is a entity of which theyare parts. On this approach, the 14th page of mycopy of The Possessed, a crumb beneath the break-fast table in my house, the spruce tree in my frontyard, and the Taj Mahal make up a composite en-tity with these as its sole parts. Clearly, on this ap-proach there is a high order of infinity of such enti-ties. For not only does any collection of individualsconstitute a complex entity. Any number of suchcomplex entities constitute a higher order complexentity. Moreover, the components of these mereo-logical sums need not be restricted to individuals,if, indeed, there are entities other than individuals

properties, sets, possible worlds, etc.So says the mereologist. Should we agree with him?Is there any unique fact of the matter as to whetherwe should? Is there an objective fact of the matter asto whether there are all these mereological sums,independently of what we choose to recognize? Ordo we have a free choice in the matter? I cant see

that our choices are limited here by facts that ob-tain independently of those choices. Each of us isfree to treat any group of entities as an entity, orrefrain from doing so. Here, so far as I can see, is aprime candidate for facts that obtain only relativeto a certain theoretical choice, to which there areequally viable alternatives.

Another issue, which, so to say, goes in the oppo-site direction from the one about mereology, has todo with whether we should recognize the hunk ofstuff(s) of which something is composed as a dis-


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tinct individual from the one it composes, takingup just the same space for as long as the individual

is so composed. This problem can be broached fororganisms and other individuals that are composedof a complex organization of stuffs. But in the in-terest of simplicity discussion is usually focused onmore homogeneous stuffs (at least more homoge-neous at a macroscopic level) like the marble orbronze that is fashioned into a statue. Should wecount the marble of which Michaelangelos Davidis composed as an individual in its own right, dis-tinct from the statue so composed, with its own es-sential properties, conditions of persistence, and soon? Or should we refrain from doing so, taking thestatue as the one and only individual in that loca-

tion, one that, so to say, swallows up the stuff ofwhich it is composed as one of its constituent as-pects or features?

This too strikes me as a matter about which wehave a conceptual-theoretical choice. I cannot seeany facts that we are constrained to recognize, what-ever our preferences, that dictate one or another

answer to this question. If we wish to count the con-stituent marble as a distinct individual, we can tell acompletely coherent story in those terms. And anequally coherent story will result from a decision tolimit the occupants of that location to the statue,taking that to include its stuff as one part of its in-dividual being. I suggest this too as a plausible case

of something that fits the AR picture of an issuethat can receive equally viable resolutions in differ-ent conceptual-theoretical schemes.


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Is there a straightforward factual issue betweenthose who assert and those who deny that physical

objects have temporal parts? Are there objective factsthat determine that one is correct and the other in-correct? Where would we find such facts? No doubt,we dont ordinarily think of enduring objects as hav-ing temporal parts, but is there anything in inde-pendent reality that constrains us to think that way,or do we have a choice in the matter? Are we free tocountenance temporal parts if we choose to doso? In the absence of some conclusive reason forthinking that there are or are not temporal parts ofenduring objects, it seems very plausible (at least tome) to suppose that these are different ways of con-struing the same familiar facts. It would seem that

everything the commonsense advocate wishes torecognize (apart from the alleged matter under dis-pute) can equally well be recognized by the tempo-ral parts advocate. Where the latter will say that Iam now using a 5:00-5:25 PM, 8/18/2000 part ofmy computer, the commonsense opponent will saythat I am using my computer, period, at some time

between 5:00 and 5:25 on that day. As far as any-thing that is obviously thrust upon us by things inthemselves, they are in agreement. It is only thatthey wish to conceptually structure this in differentways.

To take a more global, but allied, metaphysicalissue, consider the opposition between a familiar

common-sense substance metaphysics of the physi-cal environment and a process metaphysics. Accord-ing to the former the physical world consists of vari-ous kinds of relatively enduring substances that


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remain identical through change. When I look atmy bedside table on awakening each morning It is

just the same individual that I see each time. Nowcontrast this with a process metaphysics such as thatpropounded in Whitehead 1927. On this metaphys-ics the fundamental units of reality are actual occa-sions, momentary happenings each of which occu-pies some minimal duration, say 1/20th of a second,and some very small spatial extent. What in the morefamiliar substance metaphysics is construed as a per-sisting substance like a bedside table is thought byWhitehead to be a complex society of actual occa-sions. There is no single individual that remains thesame through what we think of as the life span ofthe spruce tree. The bedside table has temporal

parts just as a football game does, and it is such tem-poral parts that are the fundamental constituents ofreality. From this standpoint it is an illusion to sup-pose that there is an individual that retains its selfidentity through the life span of what we call a be-side table. What we have here is a succession of events(or rather a number of such successions) each of

which exists but for a moment.I had best say something about the relation be-tween this issue and the previous one about tempo-ral parts. The previous issue was framed within asubstance metaphysics. It was the question ofwhether enduring substances have temporal partsas well as spatial parts. To be sure, substance meta-

physics has without exception, at least until recently,been formulated in a way that rules out temporalparts of substances. But if what it takes, minimally,for an individual to be a substance (in addition to


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being a bearer of properties and not itself a prop-erty) is that it can remain the same individual

through change, then an individual can be a sub-stance and also have temporal parts. Just my feet areon the same bed as my head, though on a differentspatial part thereof, so I can see the same bedsidetable this morning as I did yesterday morning, buta different temporal part thereof, if it does have tem-poral parts. In that case one and the same bedsidetable can be there every day of its existence, though,on the temporal parts alternative, it is not whollythere every day, as it is ordinarily taken to be on theusual substance metaphysics. But a process meta-physics like Whiteheads represents a more radicaldeparture from the standard substance metaphysics

on which substances lack temporal parts. For thebasic individuals of the former not only have tem-poral parts, but there is no sense in which basic in-dividuals retain their identity through change. This,of course, as Whitehead recognizes, requires a viewof process as consisting of discrete temporal drops,each of which occupies a minimal duration without

undergoing change during that duration. Each ac-tual occasion happens all at once. Of course,Whiteheads metaphysics is not the only alternativefor a process metaphysics. Another would be a viewof process as a continuous becoming which is notin any way composed of distinguishable individu-als. But on either version there is nothing that counts

as an individual retaining its identity throughchange.

I make bold to suggest that here too we have anissue that is, prima facie, grist for the AR advocates


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mill. It would seem that reality can equally well(though not equally familiarly or comfortably or sim-

ply) be construed in either of these ways. Of course,both substance metaphysicians from Aristotle on,and process metaphysicians from Heraclitus on,present arguments that are designed to show thattheir chosen metaphysic is the unique truth aboutthe physical world, and that their opponents are sim-ply mistaken as to what reality is like. But theseoppositions have persisted for at least 2500 years inWestern philosophy, and there are no signs that ageneral consensus is on the horizon. Moreover, it isnot that we are faced with only two contenders. Bothcamps are split into many competing factions. I needonly mention the names of Descartes, Spinoza,

Leibniz, Locke, and Kant, to remind us that Aristotledoes not control all of the substance territory. AndWhiteheads metaphysics is only one of the optionson the process side. For those of us who lack a firmcommitment to one of these contending orienta-tions, it seems not implausible to suppose that achoice between them is radically underdetermined

by such considerations as can be brought forward.It seems that the physical reality we are dealing withis more or less equally susceptible of a number ofdifferent ways of conceptually and theoreticallystructuring it.12 If so, this is at least a prima faciecase of facts that are what they are only relative to acertain mode of conceptualizing and theorizing to

which there are equally viable alternatives.I certainly do not expect universal agreement on

my judgment that a unique choice between meta-physical positions on this issue is not determined


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by the objective facts. Those who are strongly com-mitted to a traditional metaphysical project will, no

doubt, insist that there are unique facts of the mat-ter as to which of the competing positions have itright (if, indeed, any of them do), whether we candefinitively show this to be the case or not. To goproperly into this issue I would have to undertake athorough discussion of the epistemology and meth-odology of metaphysics. And there is no room forthat in this essay. I only have space to make onecomment. The usual defense of metaphysical posi-tions like the above consists in showing that the rel-evant subject matter canbe construed in the favoredway, and that alternative positions face certain prob-lems. But as for the first point, it turns out that the

subject matter can also be construed in rival ways.And as to the second point, I dont know of anymetaphysical position that does not face seriousproblems.

Before leaving this topic, I must address the fol-lowing worry. Earlier I presented familiar macro-scopic itemsorganisms, artifacts, hunks of stuff

as enjoying an objective reality independent ofconceptual choices. But in doing so was I not em-ploying a substance rather than a process ontology?If dogs and sofas, as ordinarily conceived, exist andare what they are regardless of our conceptual choicesand preferences, doesnt that imply that a substanceontology of the physical world has the same status?

And how can that be squared with the above sug-gestion that a substance ontology holds only rela-tive to the choice of one way of construing that sub-ject matter, as against equally viable alternative ways?


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To solve this puzzle I must distinguish betweendifferent aspects of our ways of conceptualizing what

we are talking about. The crucial distinction I willmake is between the ontologicalaspect and what Iwill call the commonsenseor detailed factualaspect.The basic claim will be that although we cant avoidusing concepts belonging to one of a set of compet-ing metaphysical views in reporting facts, we can, ifwe choose, restrict what we are claiming to the lat-ter aspect. That makes it possible for us to pick outa fact in a way that is neutral between opposed meta-physical construals and thus specify the subjectmatter about which they are proffering rivalconstruals.

Go back to my bedside table. In using that ex-

pression I am, no doubt, operating within a sub-stance metaphysics construal, whether I realize it ornot. That is inevitable just because our language isstructured in terms of such a metaphysics. It is notas if we can take what I am calling the detailedfactual aspect out by itself and speak in terms thatare restricted to that, as I can, to a considerable ex-

tent, eschew figures of speech and speak plainly andliterally. Even if I were able to avoid substance pre-suppositions by availing myself of a language con-structed on process lines (bedside table stages, laQuine), I would still be utilizing one of the rivalmetaphysics rather than others. What I can do is todisavow the metaphysical implications of my ter-

minology, thereby leaving the other aspect as all Iam claiming in my report. Hence I can say that thereare both substantive and process ways of conceptu-alizing bedside tables without having prejudiced the


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issue in favor of the former by the way in which Istated the issue. If we consider the full content of a

report like My bedside table has a clock on it, thatincludes a commitment to a metaphysics that di-vides the world up into enduring substances liketables and clocks and works with a scheme of prop-erties and activities exhibitable by such substances.If we wanted to endorse a process metaphysics likeWhitehead, we would not consider this a felicitousway to talk about the subject matter. But, of course,even if this metaphysical commitment is part of thecontent, it is by no means the whole. It is by nomeans any part of a substance metaphysics that thereis a table beside my bed or that my bedside table hasa clock on it. It is not as if I could bring these things

about by adopting a substance metaphysics ratherthan by making purchases at a furniture store!I assume that the above does something by way

of explaining my talk of a metaphysical and a con-crete aspect of a statement or fact. But since I admitthat we cannot make any statement that exhibitsone of the aspects without its being entangled with

the other, one may feel that this talk of aspects isstill too nebulous, to lacking in determinateness toprovide a sufficient basis for my claim to be able tospecify a subject matter in ontologically neutralterms. What else can I do here?

I think that the most useful tack is to bring inpatterns of contrast, a technique familiar from lin-

guistics and other sources. The syntactical categoryof a word can be specified in terms of what otherwords are or are not substitutable for that word, salvagrammaticality. Here too we cannot exhibit syntac-


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tic category by finding a word that only has thatfeature and no phonological constitution or mean-

ing. But the substitutability test is effective in pin-ning down the syntactic category. In an analogousway we can get at the concrete, non-conceptual-scheme-relative aspect of the fact that there is a clockon my bedside table by considering the way this factcontrasts with the (possible) facts that this table isblack, that it has four legs, that it contains a drawer,and so on. That is, we stay within the same meta-physical aspect and display the different concrete,specific contents that facts concerning my bedsidetable (or concerning anything else for that matter)have within that metaphysics. The ways in whichthe original fact differs from other facts within the

same metaphysical scheme constitutes the concrete,non-metaphysical aspect of its content. To exhibitthe metaphysical aspect we display contrasts betweenthe ways in which the same concrete state of affairsis construed in different metaphysical schemes.Imagine yourself in the original situation and usingan event scheme or a scattered particular scheme to

report what is reported in the substantival schemeby saying, There is a clock on my bedside table.This set of contrasts exhibits the metaphysical as-pect of the original fact.

Assuming that this does the job, I have put fleshon the suggestion that one can make assertions, us-ing terminology that carries with it an involvement

in one out of several rival metaphysical schemes,without thereby committing oneself to favoring thatmetaphysical scheme over its rivals. And if so, I havegiven reason to think that one can use substantival


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language to specify the facts that are construed dif-ferently in substance and process ontologies with-

out begging the question in advance in favor of thesubstance alternative.

7Lest the reader be too easily convinced that I have

gone overboard in recognizing conceptual-schemerelative facts, let me present another sort of case thathas been treated in this way, but which I prefer tohandle differently. This is the familiar contrast be-tween the commonsense and scientific picturesof the physical world. The former consists of rela-tively enduring objects scattered around in space,each of which has a certain integrity, properties that

are essential for its self-identity, more or less defi-nite boundaries, and so on. In the latter picture thefamiliar chairs, tables, rocks, mountains, even dogsand cats have disappeared as distinct individuals.Instead, in an older version we have elementaryphysical particles with a lot of empty space in be-tween, or, in a more recent version, energy quanta

or even weirder items. The differences between dif-ferent things that bulk so large in the structuringof the physical world in the former picture are notstressed in the latter. From the scientific perspec-tive it is just a matter of our practical interests thatleads us to make a sharp distinction between, e.g., ahammer or a dog or a pebble and its immediate en-

vironment. The scientific picture is much more con-tinuous than the commonsense construal. That isnot to say that the former recognizes no distinctionsbetween one portion of space and another. But they


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all have the same basic constituents, the differenceslying in the ways these are organized and in the dy-

namics of their behavior.In the preceding paragraph I have deliberately

been representing the contrast in such a way as tomake it a plausible candidate for conceptually rela-tive existence. The pictures are incompatible if eachis taken as an account of independent reality. Hencewe can accommodate both of them only if each isaccepted as relative to one among a plurality of vi-able theoretical choices. But a closer look will revealother possibilities for reconciliation. The first stepwould be to point out that differences in structur-ing between the perspectives is due to the fact thatthe one is dealing with complex totalities that are

analyzed into their fine grained constituents in theother. After all, it is not a deep insight that complexthings have parts, and that they can be viewed ei-ther as unanalyzed wholes or, if we have the capac-ity to delve sufficiently into their fine structure, asorganized systems of ultimate constituents. The sci-entist need not deny the real (nonrelative) existence

of the dog when he reveals the micro structureanatomical, physiological, chemical, and physicalof this complexly organized beast.

Though this is the central point, it does not dissi-pate all the worries. To take a frequently noted one,the objects that appear as solid in the commonsenseperspective are revealed in the scientific perspective

as mostly empty space with minute particles mov-ing about in it. How can these judgments be recon-ciled as both giving us an absolute, nonrelative ac-count of the matter. The surface of my desk certainly


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appears to ordinary observation to be solid matterall the way through. Chopping it up will uncover

no hollow portions.Well, it depends on how the term solid is con-

strued whether the judgments can be reconciled onan absolute construal. If x is (completely) solidentails x contains no empty space, then we can ac-cept both pictures only at the cost of relativization.And, no doubt, before the development of modernphysics, that was the way in which complete solid-ity was understood. But now that the rudiments ofelementary particle physics is common knowledge,most of us are happy with a more modest under-standing of solid. To say that the desk top is solidis to say that ordinary observation and manipula-

tion reveals no empty portions. That is quite com-patible with such portions being revealed by moreminute observation and theoretical construction.After all, we are familiar with the fact that the use ofeven an ordinary microscope on organic tissue re-veals a lot of things that are hidden from the nakedeye. So only a minor adjustment in semantics is re-

quired to maintain the absolute, nonrelative, accep-tance of both pictures as far as this problem is con-cerned.

The point about solidity is a particular exampleof a general phenomenon, which we might term thesubjectivization of what were regarded as physicalproperties under the impact of modern science. An-

other, more widely discussed example concerns colorand other secondary properties. On a naiveconstrual the colors that physical objects seem topresent to visual perception are intrinsic properties


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of those objects, with all their qualitative distinc-tiveness. But no such properties appear in the

physicists description of the world. Moreover, evenwithout sophisticated developments of physics, it iseasily shown that apparent colors of objects vary withdifferences in factors other than the putative bearerof those colorsthe light, distance and angle of ob-servation, background contrasts, condition of theobserver, and so on. Therefore colors, as propertiesof physical objects, undergo a reconstrual analogousto that of solidity. They become relativized to con-ditions of observation. To say that the cloth is red(rather than looks red to me now) is to say some-thing about how it would look to a normal observerunder certain specifiable conditions of observation.

Thus by a combination of reconstrual of prop-erty terms and a recognition of the difference be-tween what appears to macroscopic and to micro-scopic observation, we can reconcile the common-sense and scientific pictures without taking each ofthem to be true only relative to one of a number ofequally acceptable conceptual-theoretical schemes.

8To sum up, I take it that I have given reason to

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ALSTON, W. - A Sensible Metaphysical Realism (2001)

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