The dispute between realism and anti-realism has been centerstage in Western philosophy ever since Kant's alleged Copernican Revolution. It is center stage now--both in Anglo-American philosophy, and on the continent, where anti-realism runs rife among the hermeneutical epigoni of Heidegger. It is therefore not surprising that the dispute has become a popular topic for APA presidential addresses. Lining up on the antirealist side we have Hilary Putnam, with his 1976 Eastern Division Address entitled Realism and Reason and Richard Rorty, who delivered Pragmatism, Relativism and Irrationalism to the Eastern Division in 1979. On the realist side we have my illustrious immedicate predecessor but two in this august chair, William P. Alston, whose 1979 presidential address was entitled Yes, Virginia, there is a Real World. You will notice here a certain imbalance; so far it's been anti-realism two to one. You will also notice a certain flavor of interdivisional dissension: as you can see, it's been the Western Division-that sturdy and stalwart bastion of such traditional values as home, family and realism-against the more effete and epicene Eastern Division, with its old world tendency towards cynicism and world weariness. Of course the Pacific division is yet to be heard from; but it would be rash indeed to predict the behavior of anything containing southern California. Now I hope to mediate the dispute. I shall argue that anti-realism in its presently popular forms is wholly unacceptable; unbridled realism, however is also unlovely; and I shall suggest what I take to be the right way to be an anti-realist.
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