Austere Realism: Overcoming Simple Realism’s Problems

Abstract

This chapter continues with the synthesis stage in the dialectic of reflective common sense as started in the previous chapter. It sets forth the theses of austere realism in a way that draws directly upon what is said about truth in the previous chapter, and explains how austere realism can provide natural and reflectively plausible solutions to the problems that undermine simple realism. The specific version of austere realism promoted here incorporates the wider framework of contextual semantics—although the defining theses of austere realism do not presuppose this entire framework, and in principle these theses could be embraced even without embracing all of contextual semantics. The distinction between direct and indirect correspondence fits especially well within this wider semantic framework because the framework treats numerous terms and concepts as governed by implicit contextual parameters, making it natural to treat truth itself this way within the framework.