Realism and Antirealism

Throughout the past century, a debate has raged over the thesis of realism and its alternatives. Realism—the seemingly commonsensical view that all or most of what we encounter in the world exists and is what it is independently of human thought—has...

the late William P. Alston was Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Syracuse University. His books include A Realist Conception of Truth, Illocutionary Acts and Sentence Meanings, The Reliability of Sense Perception, and Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience, all from Cornell.

This book will be especially useful as a primary text in any seminar pertaining to the contemporary realism debate. It will also serve usefully as a supplementary text for a philosophy of language course.... Realism and Antirealism is a significant collection and it will stimulate much vigorous discussion in the years to come.

Nicholas Wolterstorff, Yale University:

Realism and Antirealism looks at the issues from a number of different angles, and arrives at a variety of fascinating conclusions. The book is tightly unified and makes a genuine contribution to the discussion of realism and antirealism.