The Nature of Reality

Last time we saw that Ayer’s argument for the empirical adequacy of a sense datum language is question-begging, since it only requires and argues for, empirical adequacy with respect to sense data.

Nonetheless, let us soldier on with the project of seeing how we constitute a real world of material objects from sense data, since Austin hasn’t shown that some version of the project might be of interest, only that Ayer hasn’t produced one.

One central concept of the project is the idea of the real world of material objects, not dreams, hallucinations, mirages. Ayer is also very concerned with how we determine the real properties of material objects, their real shape, real color, and so on.

Since the idea of reality is what makes a lot of that project seem important, what is reality?

Note first, that "real" is "an absolutely normal word" 62. Unlike "sense data" or "material object" it has a well-established usage outside of philosophy, and so we can't just use it in any way we like.

What is it for something to be large? A large virus, a large galaxy, a large enough error to matter, …. It is a familiar fact that what counts as large has to do with the interests at hand. Austin emphasizes that "real" is, in most respects, like "large"—it is, as he says, "substantive hungry"—and so that Ayer’s unqualified use of the word is, to say the least, suspect.

In that sense, "'real' is not a normal word at all" 64. "Yellow," "horse," and "walk" are normal, "real" and "good" and "cricket" and "large" are not.

yellow banana yellow car yellow paper yellow shirt
pack horse racehorse large horse well-trained horse
short walk easy walk fast walk pleasant walk
cricket ball cricket bat cricket pavilion cricket weather
large virus large galaxy large error large sum
good book good novel good at pruning roses good at mending cars
real color of her hair real shape of a coin real delusion real color of a tuxedo

What do the items on each line of the table have in common? Consider also, for good measure, "a good person" and "a good safe cracker."

Austin mentions several properties an adjective can have that should lead us to be suspicious of its unqualified philosophical use. He mentions as one of the earliest examples in philosophy, $\sigma o \phi \'{o} \varsigma$ sophos, wisdom. The root uses in Greek are things like, a wise move, which is wise, that is, appropriate, for a certain purpose. The unqualified use, the search for a single notion of wisdom, is, Austin claims, one of the earliest cases of this philosophical vice.

  1. It is always important to see how a word is really used. Otherwise, we may find ourselves committed to the view that if it isn’t real cream it is a fleeting product of our cerebral processes.
  2. "Real" is not like "yellow," which names a single property. It is more like "cricket." Looking for the property named by yellow succeeds: we find the property. Looking for the property named by "real" can only lead to strange results. Compare real ducks, real cream, and real progress.

What are the marks of the way in which "real" behaves that distinguish it from words that function in an easily understood way, words like "yellow," restricted to its use as a color word?

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"These are real diamonds." "These are pink diamonds." (68) Both are ok. But compare, "This is real" to "This is pink." "This is pink" makes sense on its own. One can’t always just say "This is real," one can only say it in a context that indicates real what? "Real diamonds," "real jewelry." "One" is great example of a substantive-hungry word: one pair of socks is two socks. "Same" too: the same team may be a different collection of players.

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it gains is meaning from what is implicitly doubted, from what is not real. It is what is not real that wears the trousers. In the cartoons, Pooh visits Santa Claus. However, Pooh doesn’t really visit Santa Claus. (That is, he doesn’t in the Milne stories.) Pooh really does live in the 100-acre wood. Of course, in a different context, one could say, with equal truth, Pooh doesn’t really live in the 100-acre wood, it's just a story. Both uses of really are normal uses, and both claims are, in the given contexts, true. Real doesn’t have an independent meaning; it gets its meaning from the contemplated notion of what could go wrong. When there is nothing that can go wrong, the use of "real" is not appropriate: what could one mean by "a real afterimage?"

Not a real duck, a decoy duck. Not a real decoy duck, a toy duck. Not a real toy duck, a prototype for a duck toy. Not a real prototype, a movie prop. Not a real movie prop, a reproduction of the prop for public sale.

That example may suggest that there are levels of reality, stacked like matrioska (Ukrainian nesting dolls), but I could have continued in other, incomparable directions: not a real toy duck, an advertising mock-up. Not a real advertising mock-up, a digitally produced image.

My wife is a psychiatrist, and she sometimes has to determine whether a patient has a real delusion or is just overly attached to something vividly imagined.

One of the reasons my son, Zachary, likes "Legend of Zelda" is that it uses real mythical creatures (rocs and goblins).

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there are a whole variety of more specific ways of being real: proper, genuine, live—as opposed to dead but also as opposed to blank (ammunition) or taped (performance), true (true statement, true love, true friend, true pig—not a javelina, true blade, true friend), authentic, natural, organic. The more specific words suggest what the opposed problem is.

Compare also good. "Expert" (marksman), "moral" (person), and "enjoyable" (movie) are all ways of being good.

There are also words on the negative side of the "real" dimension, for example, "toy," "fake," "pretend," and "artificial." Note that, unlike "unreal," such words suggest something particular about what is wrong. Why are there false teeth, but artificial limbs? (Perhaps because the teeth are intended to fool people?) Why is the water in a toy beer bottle pretend beer, not toy beer? (My son thinks that it is because you can drink the water. I think it is because the water doesn't resemble beer in the way that a toy $X$ resembles an $X$: a doll house is a toy house, but a cardboard box used as a doll house is a pretend house. Is it because you don't play with it?)

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we have all sorts of ways of saying that what is being said isn’t exactly right. Javelinas are like pigs. When we want to get back to the unadjusted use, we can use real: like pigs but not really pigs. Ripple is like wine, but not really wine.

Other Areas of Philosophy

Many terms that form the subject matter of areas of philosophy are like real:

Metaphysics is the study of what is real; epistemology is the study of what we know; ethics is the study of what is good; aesthetics is the study of what is beautiful; philosophy of language is, in part, the study of meaning; logic is, in part, the study of what is true; and it is traditional to characterize philosophy itself as the study of what is wise.

I’m not claiming that there is no interest to metaphysics or ethics, and so forth, but I am claiming that you should always be very suspicious when there is talk about what is good or real without a context that says a good what, a real what, and so forth.

Ayer on What Is Real

Real color of her hair? Of a gray piece of cloth woven of black and white thread? Of a pointillist painting? Of the sky? Of the sun? Of a deep sea fish? Of an afterimage? Real shape of a rabbit? Real taste of saccharine?

-- ShaughanLavine - 14 Apr 2003- 05 Apr 2007