The possibility of the multiverse bean with early steady-state theories postulating causally unconnected regions, a standard Big Bang where spatial cross-sections are flat or open, or even an eternal inflationary universe. These cosmological options present a philosophical challenge to a realist understanding of the universe that is addressed through a discussion of the CMB’s central relevance in it in the chapter.

Philosophical arguments for religious pluralism – including that of John Hick – are outlined. It is noted, however, that the question of ontology, as explored within the philosophy of science, has not been included in these arguments. The views of ontology in scientific description that are associated with the work of Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn are outlined, but a deeper insight, it is argued, may be developed through the work of Mary Hesse and of Rom which suggests insurmountable limitations to our grasp of the ontology of created things. This understanding may be extended, it is argued, to God (or what Hick calls Reality) so that an attitude of ‘apophatic critical realism’ may be applied both to God (as it is in Eastern Orthodoxy) and to created entities. (In relation to God, something comparable can, it is noted, be found in certain Western Christian scholars such as Yves Congar.) This understanding, in its theological component, may be applied to apparent incompatibilities between different faith traditions, such as that between ‘personal’ and ‘non-personal’ and between ‘monotheistic’ and ‘polytheistic’ understandings.

Before developing my ideas further I must explain why I object to the common metaphysical picture behind standard scientific realism, which I call ‘correspondence realism’: the assumption that there is well-defined reality ‘out there’ with all its constituents existing mind-independently. This picture can be put under effective critical scrutiny if we disambiguate the notion of mind-independence. All entities that we can even think about are ‘mind-framed’ (characterized in terms of some concepts supplied by the mind), but real entities are not ‘mind-controlled (they do not do as we wish). The ‘fallacy of pre-figuration’ is to mistake the lack of mind-control as the lack of mind-framing. This fallacy is at the heart of the notion of correspondence between our theories and the mind-unframed ‘world’, and the purely extensional notion of reference according to which our words simply point to pre-figured realities. Such notions are produced through a metaphorical projection of the representation relation in real practices, in which correspondence holds among mind-framed entities. In standard realist discourse in the philosophy of science the fallacy of pre-figuration is reinforced by the faith that science does give us something resembling the ultimate true picture of reality, which must be free of mind-framing.

‘Scientific realism’ has somehow come to designate a fundamentally unrealistic doctrine claiming for humans an ability to gain true knowledge about an ultimately inaccessible kind of reality. This unrealistic notion actually does harm by setting science an impossible task, inviting disappointment and challenges to its authority. This book offers an operational ideal of scientific inquiry inspired by the tradition of pragmatism: thinking about what we do in real practices offers ways of reconceiving the very notions of truth and reality so that they become achievable ideals and provide guidance for real scientific progress.

Although the received view of Ernst Mach comported well with Mach’s historical influence on members of the Vienna Circle , it is inadequate, and it is now giving way to a more realistic and nuanced ‘neutral monist’ view. I defend the neutral monist tradition and show that it is actually a form of scientific realism, not positivism. I also argue that it is more in line with Mach’s contemporary reception, and that it leads to the views of American Realists, as well as to the views of our contemporary neutral monists. I start with a characterisation of some tenets of neutral monism in general, many of which were shared by William James and Bertrand Russell, both deeply influenced by Mach. I then detail the evidence for these views in Mach’s texts (including his notebooks and other documents). Seeing Mach as a kind of realist also casts much light on his scientific views and corrects a number of historical misconceptions regarding both atomism and Mach’s philosophy of space and time. Finally, I discuss Mach’s place in the neutral monist movement of James, Russell, and the American Realists, and the revival of these views in recent philosophy of mind.

The ascendancy of new materialist theory in the humanities since the turn of the century parallels the rise of anthropogenic climate change as a central political concern. This is not a coincidence: climate change exposes the limitations of both social constructivism and scientific realism. This essay examines the new materialist approaches to climate change proposed by Bruno Latour, Astrid Neimanis, and Rachel Walker Loewen. In Latour’s account, the categorical distinction between nature and culture has prevented climate science from openly embracing the political task of assembling a new polity encompassing both human and nonhuman entities. Neimanis and Walker Loewen, on the other hand, argue that the abstract quality of climate science is the principal reason for society’s failure to respond to anthropogenic climate change, and suggest that it must be reconceived in terms of concrete entanglements between human and nonhuman bodies. In placing their emphasis on embodied experience, however, both approaches fail to account for the rhetorical frames and the larger dynamics of communication that shape how climate change becomes socially relevant.

There are good reasons to endorse scientific realism and good reasons to endorse common-sense realism. However, it has sometimes been suggested that there is a tension between the two which makes it difficult to endorse both. Can the common-sense picture of the world be reconciled with the strikingly different picture presented to us by our best confirmed theories of science? This chapter critically examines proposals for doing so, and it offers a new one, which is essentially this. It is a psychological fact that we have certain common-sense beliefs. In the framework of reductive physicalism, all beliefs, including the common-sense ones, are nothing but brain states and processes. Being scientifically realist about these brain states and accepting the reductive-physicalist view of the mind, we can account for the psychological fact that we have certain common-sense beliefs with certain contents, without committing to the idea that the contents of these common-sense beliefs have to be true of the world. In this coherentist approach we are not required to relinquish our common-sense beliefs, since although they are false according to science, this very same science shows that holding those beliefs is fully rational.

Realism – as its name suggests – ought to be thought of primarily as a metaphysical thesis. Realism is a commitment to reality, and reality is the domain of metaphysical study. Though realism is connected to matters both epistemological and semantic, it is suggested that realism, at its core, be construed as fundamentally a metaphysical view. Hence it is suggested that, when we contemplate the thorny question of what realism is, we employ the notion of truthmaking. Truthmaker theory, which falls squarely within the domain of metaphysics, is perfectly suited to articulate what realism is all about. It therefore enjoys an advantage over attempts to define realism in terms of truth, reference, or any semantic notion. This chapter presents a truthmaker-based conception of the debate between realism and antirealism, and showcase its virtues in helping us to understand a perennial metaphysical topic. It first shows how truthmaking is a more useful tool than truth in defining realism. Then the book’s account of realism, which is applied to the realism debates in metaethics and the philosophy of science, is defended. Along the way, a projectivist attitude toward truthmaking for quasirealists is motivated.