The Nature of Reality

Moore's proof that we have knowledge of the external world:

There is a lot of debate about exactly how to take Moore, but there is no question what sort of moral Austin wants to draw: The word "know" is a perfectly ordinary word, with well-established use. What Moore says conforms to that use, and so any theory of knowledge on which Moore's proof doesn't work is, for that very reason, wrong. It may be an interesting theory of something (for example, justified true belief), but if it is intended to be a theory of knowledge, it has missed its mark.

We've been talking about realisms (realism about X for various Xs) on and off all semester. Presumably, anyone who is a realist about X thinks that Xs are real, or at least that it is reasonable to believe Xs might be real. Even if Dummett, Wright, and the rest are wrong about that, they may have interesting theories about which Xs are such that the truths about them are bivalent, and so forth, but the main reason the problems seems important is that they are supposed to have something to do with whether Xs are real, for various Xs. Why is that central? Because, as Austin says, "real" is a perfectly normal word, we were already interested in whether various things are real.

It is positively weird that Dummett, Wright, and the rest pay no attention at all to checking whether, by their criteria, a realist about Xs is committed to thinking that Xs are (or could be) real. Austin undertakes that task. The results are not encouraging for the realists. Like a theory of knowledge that makes Moore's proof wrong, a "realist theory" may be of independent interest even if it isn't about what is real, but it is worthwhile getting clear about what such theories are and are not about.

Austin makes a few critical observations about how the word "real" functions normally:

"Real" is substantive hungry.

I don't know what that means either, but it means that, like "good" its meaning depends on what it is being used about.

Compare:

There is, as these examples show, no such thing as "The Good" even though the word "good" is not ambiguous (or at least not in the respect I'm emphasizing). What there might be, consistent with the examples, is "Good for X." "Good" is incomplete in that it doesn't name a property (as, for example, "yellow") does. It requires a substantive to form a name for a property. (Sometimes when moral philosophers talk about the good, they really have made the mistake. Sometimes they mean the morally good, and whatever problems there may be with notion are on "morally" more than "good.")

Now:

There just isn't any such property as being real any more than there is of being good. The whole project of "realism about X," construed so that realists about X think that Xs are real is just confused. The obvious fix would be to do something like I mentioned for "good": realists about X are those who think that Xs are metaphysically real.

"Real" is a Trouser Word

That means that it is the other half that wears the trousers. In case of "good," we can produce a property by supplying what it is that things are supposed to be good for. The analogous move would be to form a property by supplying what it is that things are supposed to be real for. That makes no sense: unlike "good," "real" acquires its use by contrast with what could go wrong, not what could go right. Look at the parentheticals in my list of ducks above. I made it clear how "real" is being used, not by saying what the duck is for, but by saying what the suspicion is about what might have gone wrong. Thus, "metaphysically real" won't cut it. A realist about Xs is someone who thinks that __ has not gone wrong with Xs. If we could fill that in in a general way, we would have an account of what realism is.

In ordinary discourse, there is a standard way of filling in the substantive for good that approximates morally good, though it is by no means the only or the primary use of good, and it only approximates moral goodness: * Be good.

In the case of real, there just isn't anything comparable:

Worse, when we look at the ways in which something can fail to be real, they are a motley crew.

Each worry only arises in very special circumstances. It is not the case that every colored object has a real color, everything we taste has a real flavor, or that every material object has a real shape. (What color is the sun? What is the real flavor of saccherine? What is the real shape of a cat?)

In cases in which there just isn't any obvious doubt, the addition of the word "real" sounds odd: Sure, the afterimage looked orange, but what that its real color?

The claim that a realist about Xs thinks that there are or might be real Xs or even metaphysically real Xs is a vacuous claim. To the extent that the interest in realism about Xs is interest in whether Xs are real, the interest is just confused. Wondering whether something is real makes no more sense than wondering whether an action is good (that is, good full stop, not morally good).

So, what sense can we make of what we've been talking about all semester? The idea that "real" is a trouser word suggests that instead of resting content with "realism, irrealism, quasirealism," and the rest, what we really need to pay attention to is what the worries are that are being discussed.

Austin makes one more point about "real":

Real is a Dimension Word
A dimension word is a general word for which there are other more specific ones. Dimension words have a tendency to seem important and to fascinate philosophers.

All of these are ways of being real: proper, genuine, live, true, authentic, natural.

All of these are ways of failing to be real: artificial, fake, false, bogus, makeshift, dummy, synthetic, toy.

Real is an Adjuster Word
We use adjuster words when we don't know exactly what to say. "Like" is the most general adjuster word. A javalina is not a pig, but it is like a pig. It is not a real pig. It is not a true pig.

So, what are all of our realists and antirealists worried about?

-- ShaughanLavine - 26 Mar 2008