Radical Realism: Direct Knowing in Science and Philosophy

In this eloquent and original book, Edward Pols challenges the linguistic consensus that has dominated Anglo-American philosophy in this century. Against the consensus assumption that the only reality question is about the relation between language and the real, he argues that philosophy is about the world and not merely about the propositional structures we use to interpret the world. The heart of his "radical realism" is that the relation between the knower and the real is prior to the relation between language and the real, and that in this prior relation we are capable of knowing directly a reality independent of the human mind.

"Radical Realism is radical in two sense of the word. Negatively, it challenges the linguistic consensus in a way more intimate, detailed, and intrinsic than any other I know of. Positively, it provides a radical realist metaphysics as not simply a solution to the linguistic consensus, but also to the very problem of knowledge itself." (Kenneth L. Schmitz, University of Toronto)

"This is a clear-headed and forceful book about the nature and scope of rationality with particular focus on the issue of realism and antirealism. It offers an original and fresh approach to a subject that is central to many fields and styles of philosophy." (Eugene T. Long, University of South Carolina)

"Pols has made an unsettling case for current philosophers of science to answer. He shows that they carry their linguistic preoccupations to the point of making it doubtful how science can be connected to reality at the beginning of its development or at any later stage." (David Braybrooke, University of Texas at Austin)

In this eloquent and original book, Edward Pols challenges the linguistic consensus that has dominated Anglo-American philosophy in this century. Against the consensus assumption that the only reality question is about the relation between language and the real, he argues that philosophy is about the world and not merely about the propositional structures we use to interpret the world. The heart of his "radical realism" is that the relation between the knower and the real is prior to the relation between language and the real, and that in this prior relation we are capable of knowing directly a reality independent of the human mind.

Pols begins with a brief discussion of direct knowing and the function of rational awareness that achieves it. He next examines the linguistic consensus in detail, and then develops his positive thesis. He claims that direct knowing of independent reality is enjoyed not only in our ordinary dealings with other organic beings and with commonsense objects but also in our dealings with everything linguistic_theories, doctrines, and other propositional structures. Without losing its engagement with either the particulars of the temporospatial world or our linguistic constructs, direct knowing turns back upon itself to focus on the nature of this engagement. Such a reflexively intensified direct knowing, he shows, allows us a fresh approach to some of the traditional problems of first philosophy, particularly causality, substance, universality, and the ontological status of propositions. . . .