Anti-Realism

Plantinga, Wolterstorff and Westphal are three eminent Christian Philosophers in the United States today. This paper will examine Plantinga, Wolterstorff, and Westphal's response to Kant's anti-realist epistemology. While perhaps many Christian philosophers doing philosophy of religion in the United States follow the common-sense realism of Thomas Reid, some philosophers, like Merold Westphal, support a Christian-Kantian-Creative-Anti-Realism. I will criticize Plantinga's and Wolterstorff's position, and support Westphal's, arguing that Kant's epistemology does not harm religious belief but in fact supports it

This article examines Wittgenstein's teachings on realism and anti-realism through the lens of his philosophy of language. Realism posits that every linguistic statement is either true or false, independent of human consciousness and knowledge. Consequently, the Principle of Bivalence—accepting only truth and falsity as semantic values—is central to this view. In contrast, anti-realism rejects this principle, asserting that the truth or falsity of statements can only be determined if empirical or epistemic evidence is available, and statements cannot be evaluated independently of mind and language. Wittgenstein challenges both perspectives by critiquing the foundations of language and focusing on its functions within various contexts of life. He views language not as a passive mirror of reality, but as a constitutive agent within which reality takes shape. This article elucidates Wittgenstein's arguments against the notion of realism and utilizes Dummett's analyses of meaning and truth to clarify the anti-realist foundations in Wittgenstein's philosophy of language.