Realism And Representation: Essays On The Problem Of Realism In Relation To Science, Literature And Culture (Science And Literature Series)

Features of Realism and Representation: Essays on the Problem of Realism in Relation to Science, Literature and Culture (Science and Literature Series)

Among the questions in contemporary cultural debate, crossing the disciplines from literature to philosophy to the history of science and the social sciences, are those concerned with realism. Is there a knowable reality? This is no mere abstract and theoretical issue; the current cultural wars surround it. The questions of realism, representation and reference are at the intellectual route of contentions within the academy about what is knowable, what are the methods by which knowledge is ever absolute or always to be measured instrumentally, and whether it is possible to affirm a realist position that does not cloak a prior ideological investment.