No abstract

No abstract

I will not consistently add the qualification "realistically construed" in what follows. But this is always intended. (Obviously, no argument supports or threatens our beliefs under any construal.) Realism about an area, D, is roughly the view that D-sentences should be interpreted literally, and that some atomic or existentially quantified ones are true relevantly counterfactually, constitutively, and causally independent of anyone's believing them to be. For a detailed explication of "D-realism," see Clarke-Doane (2012a: section 1).

In "Mathematical Truth," Paul Benacerraf presented an epistemological problem for mathematical realism. " [S]omething must be said to bridge the chasm, created by […] [a] realistic […] interpretation of mathematical propositions… and the human knower," he writes. 1 For prima facie "the connection between the truth conditions for the statements of [our mathematical theories] and […] the people who are supposed to have mathematical knowledge cannot be made out." 2 The problem presented by Benacerraf-variously called "the Benacerraf Problem" the "Access Problem," the "Reliability Challenge," and the "Benacerraf-Field Challenge"-has largely shaped the philosophy of mathematics. Realist and antirealist views have been defined in reaction to it. But the influence of the Benacerraf Problem is not remotely limited to the philosophy of mathematics. The problem is now thought to arise in a host of other areas, including meta-philosophy. The following quotations are representative.The challenge for the moral realist […] is to explain how it would be anything more than chance if my moral beliefs were true, given that I do not interact with moral properties. […] [T]his problem is not specific to moral knowledge. […] Paul Benacerraf originally raised it as a problem about mathematics. Huemer (2005: 99) 3 It is a familiar objection to […] modal realism that if it were true, then it would not be possible to know any of the facts about what is […] possible […].