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This chapter advocates austere metaphysical realism – a form of metaphysical realism claiming that a correct ontological theory will repudiate numerous putative entities and properties that are posited in everyday thought and discourse, and also will even repudiate numerous putative objects and properties that are posited by well-confirmed scientific theories. There are various potential versions of the generic position of austere metaphysical realism; and the generic view that constitutes the ontological part of the overall approach to realism and truth is described.

This chapter continues with the synthesis stage in the dialectic of reflective common sense as started in the previous chapter. It sets forth the theses of austere realism in a way that draws directly upon what is said about truth in the previous chapter, and explains how austere realism can provide natural and reflectively plausible solutions to the problems that undermine simple realism. The specific version of austere realism promoted here incorporates the wider framework of contextual semantics—although the defining theses of austere realism do not presuppose this entire framework, and in principle these theses could be embraced even without embracing all of contextual semantics. The distinction between direct and indirect correspondence fits especially well within this wider semantic framework because the framework treats numerous terms and concepts as governed by implicit contextual parameters, making it natural to treat truth itself this way within the framework.

This chapter discusses and presents theoretical conditions that reinforce and further strengthen austere realism. A metaphysical-cum-semantic theory must meet certain desiderata before it can be considered plausible. It should also address internal tensions within naive philosophical thought. One desideratum is theoretical parsimony, which entails not multiplying posits beyond necessity. This is especially useful in the case of ontology, within which less is always better. Another desideratum is much more concerned with epistemology but is more general in scope. According to this desideratum, one's views on ontology and truth should not make it difficult to determine how human beings come to know the kinds of truth they take themselves to know. It is also argued here that the overall plausibility of arguments regarding truth and ontology is dependent on its comparative advantages over alternative arguments.

The goal of this chapter is to show that the blobjectivist position is, in fact, a type of austere realism. It begins by presenting some initial methodological remarks, and then follows the commonsense-driven road from simple realism to austere realism. This road inevitably forks along the way, and these forks in the road lead to a range of potentially viable austere ontologies, including blobjectivism—all of which could be wedded to generic austere realism to yield a specific species of that genus position. After careful examination of these ontologies, three principal alternatives stand out as theoretically preferable—blobjectivism is one of these three.

This book is primarily concerned with the concept of austere realism, specifically a version of it referred to as blobjectivism. Austere realism claims that the right ontology is austere in the sense that it excludes numerous putative objects, properties, and relations that are posited in ordinary belief and discourse, and it also excludes many that are posited in scientific theorizing. Blobjectivism, on the other hand, claims that the world contains no real parts, but it is nevertheless structurally rich and dynamical. It implies that we are speaking of an object with a relevant structure, namely the structure of world, to which it is identical. Although they may seem implausible at first glance, both austere realism and blobjectivism are commonsensical, and are actually compatible with each other. The former consists of several ontological and semantic theses; the latter embraces all of these and adds its own specific ontological claims.

This chapter focuses on the position referred to as simple commonsense metaphysical realism—one that initially puts common sense naturally at odds with austere realism regarding what exists and what constitutes truth. It is said that common sense reflects naively on matters of ontology and semantics, emphasizing the fact that its position at the beginning of ontological inquiry is an initial position. This reflective position eventually leads to refinement as common sense goes through the antithesis stage and the synthesis stage, where it comes into tension with itself and then overcomes this internal tension, respectively. Spelling out the ontological and semantic theses of simple realism and underscoring the incompatibility between these theses and austere realism initiates the dialectical progression examined in this chapter.

This chapter expands on the defense of austere realism by addressing the three challenges most likely to be raised against it. The first challenge relates to austere realism's support of austere ontology; this makes austere realism contrary to common sense beliefs about the world or to what facts science puts forth about the world. The second challenge concerns the problems faced by the appeal to contextual variability of semantic standards, which will be discussed in detail here. Finally, the third challenge concerns the skeptical doubts apt to arise regarding whether an adequate general account can be given of matters like the variety of indirect correspondence semantic standards and the dynamics of contextual variation in semantic standards.

This chapter focuses on reflective commonsensical reasoning and argues that reflective common sense leads the way toward a refined commonsense metaphysical realism, to be put in lieu of the naive version that is here referred to as simple realism. Austere realism is essentially dependent on the idea of truth is an indirect form of correspondence rather than being direct correspondence. This idea is further developed in this chapter, and is positioned within a more general approach to thought-world relations and language-world relations that is referred to here as contextual semantics. The discussion is initiated with methodological remarks regarding how to pursue a suitable refinement of simple realism. It is shown here that, in order to address the challenges presented in the previous chapter, it is necessary to apply commonsensical modes of reasoning.

This chapter criticizes the position taken by the authors of Chapter 7 along several fronts. A principal criticism is that the theory of contextual semantics requires that we are cognizant in some way of shifts in semantic context, which allows us to subtly interpret utterances as true or false depending on our evaluation of which is the appropriate context at the moment. But if so, then we should be sensitive to the possibility that some claims of the form that there are Fs are true even when the ultimate ‘real’ ontology would reject Fs as nonexistent. It is implausible that we are sensitive to such a possibility. The chapter ends with a reflection on the methodology of the realism debate.