The Deconstruction of lrreality

Abstract

The paper takes issue with Samuel Cabanchik's reliance on Goodman's "irrealism" in his attempt to clarify and extend Austin's remarks on the meaning of 'real'. Metaphysical realism is distinguished, following Cora Diamond, from 'the realistic spirit' -an attitude towards philosophical problems which precludes allegiance to anything resembling Goodmanian irrealism, and which Austin's work is claimed to exemplify. Goodman's nominalism about kinds, the mainstay of his irrealism, is traced back to his earlier work on induction, yet shown to be underdetermined by his epoch-making proof that the Hempel-Oppenheim project of a formal logic of confirmation was doomed to failure. A defence is sketched, drawing on Quine's remarks on the Raven Paradox, of the significance for philosophy of whathever empirical constraints there may be on entrenchment. The argument turns full circle with a brief discussion of Austin's examination of the varieties of irreality, aimed at making plain why Cabanchik's Austin could not possibly be Austin.