UNWARRANTED CONFIDENCE: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE POVERTY OF ANTI-REALISM

Abstract

The Poverty of Anti-Realism: Critical Perspectives on Postmodernist Philosophy of History, edited by Tor Egil Førland and Branko Mitrović, celebrates the new dawn of historical realism, which it claims supersedes the erroneous and harmful anti-realism. The volume indeed contributes to reinvigorating the debate surrounding realism and anti-realism and draws attention to a relatively neglected philosophical approach in the philosophy of historiography: realism. However, both the tone and content of this New Historical Realism leave much to be desired. The book displays unwarranted confidence regarding the quality of its content and its grasp of philosophical issues. Many of the essays in this volume exhibit a lack of understanding about the basic issues of realism and anti-realism and are riddled with conceptual confusions. Philosophical notions such as anti-realism, irrealism, postmodernism, idealism, and constructivism are used casually and even interchangeably. Although there are some glimmers of light and more measured approaches in the book, its broad-brush categories are premised on an us-against-them view of the scholarly debate, presenting the rival anti-realistic position simplistically as detrimental, deficient, and wholly objectionable. I end my article with a plea for prudent scholarship and reviewing in the philosophy of historiography and philosophy more generally.