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What an incredible display of navel gazing (the paper you link). I'm well aware that modern science was born from philosophy, but much of what is left in the re

What an incredible display of navel gazing (the paper you link). I'm well aware that modern science was born from philosophy, but much of what is left in the realm of philosophy seems to me so incredibly useless. Logic, reason, critical thinking, ethics, these are all valuable things. But anti-realism? I challenge anyone to tell me something useful that has come from the study of "anti-realism". Not that everything has to be useful. Far be it from me to try to control anyone's hobby. But I, for one, don't want any of my tax dollars to go toward supporting that fruitless pasttime.

xamuel 8y ago
It's too early to expect real-world applications of anti-realism. Instead I would redirect your attention to a similar pattern in the foundations of mathematics. Mathematical foundations were once very shaky, but real-world mathematicians didn't care in practice. Bertrand Russell showed that an early mathematical foundation attempt was inconsistent. At the time, to a working mathematician, this would have been about as airy-fairy as anti-realism seems to us today. A mathematician back then could well and rightly have said: "Proofs, equations, solutions, these are valuable things. But Russell's paradox? I challenge anyone to tell me something useful that has come from the study of Russell's paradox." Indeed, the paradox was actually known to Zermelo before Russell, and Zermelo didn't consider it important enough to make a fuss about! Now in hindsight, we know that foundational work DID pay off in practical ways. It was a crucial step toward the development of, for example, automated proof verification software like COQ, which has extremely important real-world applications and whose importance will only grow in the future. Here's my speculation: things like anti-realism are equivalent to Russell's Paradoxes which seem like navel-gazing today. In a hundred years' time, they might have proven to be a crucial step toward formal science verification software. Just like fixing mathematical foundations was a crucial step toward formal mathematical verification software.

xamuel 8y ago

It's too early to expect real-world applications of anti-realism. Instead I would redirect your attention to a similar pattern in the foundations of mathematics. Mathematical foundations were once very shaky, but real-world mathematicians didn't care in practice. Bertrand Russell showed that an early mathematical foundation attempt was inconsistent. At the time, to a working mathematician, this would have been about as airy-fairy as anti-realism seems to us today. A mathematician back then could well and rightly have said: "Proofs, equations, solutions, these are valuable things. But Russell's paradox? I challenge anyone to tell me something useful that has come from the study of Russell's paradox." Indeed, the paradox was actually known to Zermelo before Russell, and Zermelo didn't consider it important enough to make a fuss about! Now in hindsight, we know that foundational work DID pay off in practical ways. It was a crucial step toward the development of, for example, automated proof verification software like COQ, which has extremely important real-world applications and whose importance will only grow in the future. Here's my speculation: things like anti-realism are equivalent to Russell's Paradoxes which seem like navel-gazing today. In a hundred years' time, they might have proven to be a crucial step toward formal science verification software. Just like fixing mathematical foundations was a crucial step toward formal mathematical verification software.