Models, method and truth : how to be an internalist with realist attitudes

Abstract

In the years since the truth wars of Bertrand Russell and William James the realism/antirealism debate has taken on at least two main forms. There is a debate between those that claim that truth transcends knowledge and those that hold that truth is inseparable from a mind and its concepts. But there is another discussion that has less to do with language and the property of truth, and more to do with the primacy of matter or mind. Philosophers of Science Ronald Giere and Jeffrey Foss share an interest in this latter debate and reject the linguaphilia that permeates philosophy. l will exploit their use of models and argue that from a properly pragmatic perspective it is possible to reconcile an internalist approach to truth with realist attitudes. To do so, I will explore the methodological materialism of Jeffrey Foss and Ronald Giere. I will argue that models make statements true and I will replace the principle of transcendence with a principle of methodological transcendence. I conclude that the external aspects of language that philosophers of language have persistently posited can be dispensed with.