How to Be a Good Realist

Abstract

The real problem in philosophy is how to be a realist without being an essentialist. Given the indefinitely many ways of representing the world that are available to us, limited only by our ingenuity, or by canons of consistency, or relevance, or simplicity, or beauty, or utility, essentialism would have little claim on us, if it were not for the conviction (or prejudice or instinct) that there is one right way to represent it, namely the way it really is. We rid ourselves of this conviction in a number of ways, the most radical of which is to disclaim the very project of representation; or at least, to disclaim “representation” as being any sort of correlate, depiction, account, that stands in any “correspondence” to the “real”, as its object; moreover, to discredit the notion of the “real” as anything more than a claim made by one or another representation, hence, as inevitably “representation-laden” (whether “theory” — or “framework” — or “style”- or “picture”- or “belief-laden). Reality recapitulates ontology, we might say; and ontology recapitulates philology (Quine) or recapitulates methodology (me) or recapitulates anthropology (Feuerbach), adding (with Marx) “and the root is human being”. But even if the “root” — to be radical — is human, one could start all over again, disclaiming human “reality” — human ontology — as anything more than a recapitulation of a recapitulation of…. Full circle (or full circularity) would rid us of essentialism to be sure, but also of reference (as anything more than an accident of choice, or a whim) and, a fortiori, of realism.