The issue in which I do agree with Huemer, however, is not insignificant. For instance, one pet peeve I have regarding this tendency is in the area of politics. But at the risk of being accused of an ad hominem attack, I quickly found him disingenuous and not to be believed. Incidentally, on the subject of Kant, Huemer misleads us in yet another way. But with the exception of the few philosophers who still work in the realist tradition to whom I m not now referring, Madden and Rand were right with regard to the stance of modern philosophy.
Every philosopher knows reality is out there.
It s common sense. And words, which can have meanings, can also refer to things. The authority here is Mortimer Adler s Ten Philosophical Mistakes , and that must make it true. Oh, and concepts can t be true or false, but judgments can. So my concept of say, a unicorn, or of my Aristotelian philosophical ability, is neither true nor false, it just is .