metaphysical necessity See NECESSITY, PHILOSOPHY. OF MIN. metaphysical realism, in the widest sense, the view that (a) there are real objects (usually the view is concerned with spatiotemporal objects), (b) they exist independently of our experience or our knowledge of them, and (c) they have properties and enter into relations independently of the concepts with which we understand them or of the language with which we describe them. Anti-realism is any view that rejects one or more of these three theses, though if (a) is rejected the rejection of (b) and (c) follows trivially. (If it merely denies the existence of material things, then its traditional name is ‘idealism.’)
Metaphysical realism, in all of its three parts, is shared by common sense, the sciences, and most philosophers. The chief objection to it is that we can form no conception of real objects, as understood by it, since any such conception must rest on the concepts we already have and on our language and experience. To accept the objection seems to imply that we can have no knowledge of real objects as they are in themselves, and that truth must not be understood as correspondence to such objects. But this itself has an even farther reaching consequence: either (i) we should accept the seemingly absurd view that there are no real objects (since the objection equally well applies to minds and their states, to concepts and words, to properties and relations, to experiences, etc.), for we should hardly believe in the reality of something of which we can form no conception at all; or (ii) we must face the seemingly hopeless task of a drastic change in what we mean by ‘reality’, ‘concept’, ‘experience’, ‘knowledge’, ‘truth’, and much else. On the other hand, the objection may be held to reduce to a mere tautology, amounting to ‘We (can) know reality only as we (can) know it’, and then it may be argued that no substantive thesis, which anti-realism claims to be, is derivable from a mere tautology. Yet even if the objection is a tautology, it serves to force us to avoid a simplistic view of our cognitive relationship to the world.
In discussions of universals, metaphysical realism is the view that there are universals, and usually is contrasted with nominalism. But this either precludes a standard third alternative, namely conceptualism, or simply presupposes that concepts are general words (adjectives, common nouns, verbs) or uses of such words. If this presupposition is accepted, then indeed conceptualism would be the same as nominalism, but this should be argued, not legislated verbally. Traditional conceptualism holds that concepts are particular mental entities, or at least mental dispositions, that serve the classificatory function that universals have been supposed to serve and also explain the classificatory function that general words undoubtedly also serve.
See also ARMSTRONG , CONCEPTUALISM , METAPHYSICS , MORAL REALISM , PROPERTY, SCIENTIFIC REALIS. P.Bu.