What I’m proposing isn’t necessarily a move away from realism. I would say that it is more realistic than realism and properly naturalistic to boot. My understanding of relational-realism follows in line with, say, Wittgenstein and Rorty, who want to remove the metaphysical baggage from language and firmly re-situate language in its contexts of use. We need to stop thinking about language as referring to the Intrinsic Nature of Things and start thinking about language as doing things—like coordinating and disrupting human actions.

At the same time, by situating language in its contexts of use, I am able to assert along with John D. Caputo that beyond the social world that we know, is the possibility of a genuine Otherness, a de-anthropomorphized reality able to surprise us with the Unexpected.

So, it is not a move away from realism so much as an embrace of a really-real-realism and the possibilities for Otherness that it holds. I hope to make a post about this in a while. I would like to contrast two kinds of realisms—the dualistic realism that is more commonplace (e.g. NT Wright version) and a relational realism that I talking about. Thanks for asking!!