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TheOtherDave comments on How to deal with non-realism? - Less Wrong Discussion
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In general, my approach to dealing with such people is to stop talking about what's really true, and instead talk exclusively about what experiences I anticipate if I perform various actions.
We may not be able to agree on whether there's really a hammer in my hand or not, but if we can agree that if I do something I experience as swinging this hammer at someone's skull, the other person will reliably experience having their skull hit by a hammer, then our disagreement doesn't matter much.
Of course, as you say, ego gets tied up in having other people talk about the world in ways that match my preferences.
I try to reject that when I find myself doing it.
Talking about your anticipated experiences rather than the Truth is what many people mean by anti-realism.
Sure, I can see that.
Using the language with people that concentrates both of our attention on our actual goals is an example of what I mean by pragmatism.
I mean, if someone wants to discuss ontology and epistemology, that's cool, I'll do that too.
But I'm fairly confident that's usually not what's going on.
Agreed - I've found that most people do have fairly solid anticipations, even when they refuse to accept a realist philosophy.
Failing that, it's their fault for perceiving that hammer in the first place, am I right? ;)
Clearly, since we create our own realities, we are responsible for all the hammers that smash into our skulls.
More seriously: well, I don't know about most people... but yeah, close enough.
I have found that people whose anticipations are substantially different from mine on simple quotidian experiences either tend to encapsulate those special anticipated experiences in hypothetical conditionals that are never actually actualized (e.g., "Well, I don't know that I'll get the number three if I count the coins in that cup, maybe you're a stage magician or God removed them or I'll make a mistake in counting or whatever") or tend to genuinely have expectations that make me cringe (e.g., they really do take seriously the possibility of underpants gnomes). The latter group are usually receiving psychiatric care of some kind or another.