In his recent article, Hilary Lawson argued that realism fell into paradox and that post-realism could retain both empiricism and rationalism, making it the future of philosophy. But not only are those paradoxes surmountable, logic itself demands realism - an inconvenient fact which makes Lawson’s post-truth project impossible - argues Timothy Williamson.

Hilary Lawson’s article ‘Post-realism’ could equally well have been entitled ‘Post-truth’, since it is truth that he is declaring obsolete. Since he is responding to my piece In defence of realism, I will explain where his objections go wrong.