Mario De Caro
Liberal naturalism and pluralistic realism
Many contemporary versions of philosophical realism (especially, but not exclusively in the analytic world) only accept the ontology of our best scientific theories and assume a reductionist or eliminations stance towards the entities postulated by common sense. Other versions of realism (especially, but not only in the Continental world) claim that the world consists in just what the ordinary view of the world assumes, while the unobservable entities postulated by scientific theories are nothing more than fictions. Both views have insurmountable difficulties in conceptualizing the fact that our agential capacities are exercised in a world that is ruled by the laws of nature.
I will argue that this problem can be satisfyingly approached only by a pluralistic view that, in a liberal naturalist spirit, assumes a realist attitude regarding both the common sense and the scientific views of the world.
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