Hi Dick,

***I just find it impossible to communicate with you!***

As a figure of speech, that may be how you feel, but I think your communication with Harv is only difficult -- not impossible.

In spite of how it must seem to you, your exchanges with him help some of the rest of us understand both of you better and also to understand better some of the things that foul our communication up.

One example of the latter, as I am recently learning, is the attempt to classify certain positions into "isms". The objective is noble, and if there were an unambiguous, agreed upon chart describing the meaning of each "ism" then I think the use of ism-terms would help us in our communications. But, alas, there is no such chart.

So we frequently get bogged down in debates about how particular ideas should be classified, rather than in the merits of the ideas themselves. That's where you and Harv so often get sidetracked.

Your post, however, is an excellent presentation of the fundamental ideas at issue here. I think you did a great job of expressing them even though none of us can agree on whether they are "realist", "anti-realist", or any other "ist".

Warm regards,

Paul

P.S. I did not go to the mountains this week because I have a cold. That gives me the chance to make a few posts here.