Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-dlnhk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T21:30:41.840Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The real and the quasi-real: problems of distinction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Jamie Dreier*
Affiliation:
Brown Philosophy Department, Brown University, Providence, RI, USA

Abstract

This paper surveys some ways of distinguishing Quasi-Realism in metaethics (and I hope also in other areas) from Non-naturalist Realism, including ‘Explanationist’ methods of distinguishing, which characterize the Real by its explanatory role, and Inferentialist methods. Rather than seeking the One True Distinction, the paper adopts an irenic and pragmatist perspective, allowing that different ways of drawing the line are best for different purposes.

Type
Article
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2018

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alwood, Andrew. 2016.“Should Expressivism be a Theory at the Level of Metasemantics?” Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 5(1): 1322.Google Scholar
Chrisman, Matthew. 2008. “Expressivism, Inferentialism, and Saving the Debate.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77(2): 334358. 10.1111/phpr.2008.77.issue-2CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreier, J. 2010. “Mackie's Realism: Queer Pigs and the Web of Belief”, In A World without Values, edited by Joyce, Richard, Kirchin, Simon, and Hetherington, Stephen, 7186. Philosophical Studies Series. Springer Netherlands. 10.1007/978-90-481-3339-0CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreier, James. 1996. “Expressivist Embeddings and Minimalist Truth.” Philosophical Studies 83(1): 2951.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dreier, Jamie. 2015. “Another World.” In Passions and Projections: Themes from the Philosophy of Simon Blackburn, edited by Johnson, Robert and Smith, Michael, 155171. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Fine, Kit. 2001, June 1. “The Question of Realism.” Philosopher's Imprint 1(2). http://quod.lib.umich.edu/p/phimp/3521354.0001.002/1.Google Scholar
Gibbard, Allan. 2003. Thinking How to Live. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Golub, Camil. 2017. “Expressivism and Realist Explanations.” Philosophical Studies 174(6): 13851409. 10.1007/s11098-016-0764-6CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harman, Gilbert. 1987. “(Nonsolipsistic) Conceptual Role Semantics.” In Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic, edited by Harman, Ernest, 242256. London: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Horwich, Paul. 1998. Truth. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jackson, Frank. 1998. From Metaphysics to Ethics: A Defence of Conceptual Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kramer, Matthew H. 2017. “There's Nothing Quasi about Quasi-Realism: Moral Realism as a Moral Doctrine.” The Journal of Ethics 21(2): 185212. 10.1007/s10892-017-9247-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewis, David. 1970. “How to Define Theoretical Terms.” The Journal of Philosophy 67(13): 427446. 10.2307/2023861CrossRefGoogle Scholar
O’Leary-Hawthorne, John, and Price, Huw. 1996, June 1. “How to Stand up for Non-Cognitivists.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 74(2): 275292. 10.1080/00048409612347251CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Perez Carballo, Alejandro. 2014. “Semantic Hermeneutics.” In Metasemantics: New Essays on the Foundations of Meaning, edited by Burgess, Alexis and Sherman, Brett, 119146. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Price, Huw, Blackburn, Simon, and Brandom, Robert. 2013. Expressivism, Pragmatism and Representationalism. 1st ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511842498CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prior, A. N. 1960. “The Autonomy of Ethics.” Australasian Journal of Philosophy 38(3): 199206. 10.1080/00048406085200221CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridge, Michael. 2014. Impassioned Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridge, Michael. 2015. “Summary.” Analysis 75(3): 433442.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scanlon, Thomas. 2014. Being Realistic About Reasons. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Simpson, Matthew. 2017. “Solving the Problem of Creeping Minimalism.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017: 122.Google Scholar
Tiefensee, Christine. 2016. “Inferentialist Metaethics, Bifurcations and Ontological Commitment.” Philosophical Studies 173(9): 24372459.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wedgwood, Ralph. 2007. The Nature of Normativity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, M. 2013. “How Pragmatists Can Be Local Expressivists.” In Price 2013: 128144.Google Scholar
Zangwill, Nick. 2006. “Moral Epistemology and the ‘Because’ Constraint.” In Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, edited by Dreier, J.. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar