Get Real

Paul Doolan reveals that the real problem with ‘the real world’ is knowing what ‘real’ really means.

- Paul Doolan

It seems to me that we encounter two serious philosophical problems when we thoughtlessly use the term ‘the real world’. Firstly, what is ‘the world’? It is this problem that Ludwig Wittgenstein confronted in the opening sentences of his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922):

1 The world is all that is the case.

1.1 The world is the totality of facts, not of things.

1.11 The world is determined by the facts, and by their being all the facts.

If it is the case that the world is all that is the case, then we add nothing at all when we place the word ‘real’ in front of the word ‘world’. Here ‘real’ is implied by ‘world’. The world, being the totality of facts, includes everything that is real. Thus, in this article, I will focus upon the second problem, namely, the enigma that confronts us when we attempt to pin down the meaning of ‘real’.

Experience vs Reality

Only solipsists deny the existence of a reality beyond the experiencing subject. Through our senses, we encounter the physical reality that Immanuel Kant referred to as