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The Context Principle and Dummett's Argument for Anti‐realism
Author(s) -
GREEN KAREN
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
theoria
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.34
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1755-2567
pISSN - 0040-5825
DOI - 10.1111/j.1755-2567.2005.tb01009.x
Subject(s) - realism , philosophy , epistemology , argument (complex analysis) , idealism , context (archaeology) , meaning (existential) , sentence , linguistics , history , chemistry , biochemistry , archaeology
In his earlier writings, Dummett made a distinction between deep and shallow arguments for being suspicious of bivalence. Deep arguments brought with them a commitment to anti‐realism, shallow arguments did not. This distinction was motivated by a certain understanding of the significance of the context principle, according to which it is the sentence which is the primary vehicle of meaning. In later writings Dummett has despaired of making clear the distinction between deep and shallow arguments for rejecting bivalence. He has adopted the position that all deviations from bivalence involve anti‐realism of some kind. In this paper I argue that this in effect removes any clear connection between Dummettian anti‐realism and idealism. A suspicion of bivalence should often be interpreted as the result of an anti‐realim of the error theoretic kind.