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In ESO (1950), Carnap introduces a distinction between what he calls “internal” and “external” questions. The internal questions for Carnap are relatively straightforward since they arise within a language and are amenable to our ordinary methods of proof. In contrast, external questions are interpreted as practical questions that ask whether we should adopt a certain language based on its expected benefits. While Carnap had originally made this distinction to avoid metaphysical worries that the use of semantics posed to empiricists philosophers (1950), he later extended the application of the distinction to speak about theoretical entities as well (1966/1974). However, a straightforward application of the distinction to the Realism/Anti-Realism controversy may be more problematic than what Carnap may think. In recent scholarship, Penelope Maddy, made an objection to Carnap's extended use of the distinction using the example of the atomic hypothesis and argued that not only the internal/external distinction was unsuccessful for talking about atoms, but that it should be dismissed altogether (2008). According to William Demopoulos, however, we can develop an understanding of the distinction that does not reduce the atomic hypothesis to a mere linguistic proposal (2011). In my talk, I will use Crispin Wright's pluralist account of truth (1992) to propose other semantic ways that realists and instrumentalists differ from each other beyond what Demopoulos has already suggested. I will also respond to a worry that both Wright and Carnap ought to share: “Won't the significance of the realist/anti-realist debates be undermined if they are not understood metaphysically?”
