ABSTRACT
When theory and hypothesis is outside the mainstream of academic opinion, as is much of that which follows, then it is imperative that the theoretical pediment is clearly explained at the outset. Not to do so increases the possibility of inviting inappropriate assumptions and critique through the complacency of conventionalism. Such philosophical complacency has recently been convincingly challenged in the work of Quine (1969, 1980), Putnam (1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1990), Devitt (1978, 1982, 1984), Goldman (Alan H., 1978, 1979, 1986, 1988), Gilbert (1990), van Fraassen (1980, 1984), Boyd (1980, 1984), Hacking (1983, 1984), Churchland (1979), Gewirth (1978), Shapere (1984), Miller (D.A., 1987), McMullin (1984), Field (1974) and Lewis (1984) amongst others, which collectively can be said to have laid the intellectual foundations for an emerging new realism, what Putnam (1990) has recently described as ‘realism with a small r’, in order to clearly differentiate it from both Berkleian, transcendental Kantian, and objective Hegelian Realism. Philosophers such as Boyd, Shapere, Sturgeon (1982), Gilbert, and Werner (1983) have, in the context of moral knowledge, gone so far as to suggest the possibility of moral objectivity (moral facts) whereas others (such as Devitt, 1984), have expressed honest doubts about the extension of ontological realism to epistemological realism generally, whether ethical or not.
