Semantic anti-realism (epistemology)

Semantic anti-realism is about words and their meanings. It's like when grown-ups say that words mean certain things and we just trust them. But there are some people who think that there's no real way to know what words mean. They think that the meaning of words is made up by people and can change from person to person or over time.

Imagine you and your friends are playing a game with made-up rules. You all agree that whoever gets to the end first wins. But then someone else comes along and says, "Wait a minute, that's not how you play the game. You have to go backwards to win." That person has a different idea of how the game should be played.

In the same way, some people think that words don't have one true meaning that everyone agrees on. Instead, the meaning of words is just what people say it is. So if some people agree that "cat" means a furry animal with four legs and a tail, and others think that "cat" means a type of hat, there's no way to say that one group is right and the other is wrong.

This can be confusing, especially when we're trying to communicate with each other. But for semantic anti-realists, the most important thing is to recognize that we all have different ideas about what words mean, and to be open to other people's interpretations.