The problem of realism and the a priori

Peter Strawson

pp. 167-173

in: Paolo Parrini (ed), Kant and contemporary epistemology, Berlin, Springer, 1994

Abstract

The term "realism" has, in philosophy, a number of senses or applications. Two of them only will be considered here. Both concern the same question: that of the relations between the nature of reality (variously conceived) on the one hand, and human cognitive and intellectual powers on the other; i.e. between how things really are, and what we can, in principle, know or understand about how they are.