Familiar Objects and Their Shadows. By Crawford L.Elder. (Cambridge UP, 2011. Pp. xi + 210. Price £50.00, $85.00 h/b.)

Abstract

In this new book, Elder moves against the prevailing ontological wind, defending familiar object realism – the thesis that many of the objects recognised by common sense are mind‐independently real. This is a daunting task, but Elder has risen to the challenge here: this is an impressively articulated counter‐offensive against positions which reject realist, ‘common‐sense’ ontology. Elder first focuses upon two ‘false friends’, positions which appear conducive to familiar object realism but are secretly opposed. He first attacks ‘modal conventionalism’ – according to which kind‐sameness and persistence judgements are true because they are analytic – and explosivism – according to which every way of carving up the world tracks real persistence and kind‐sameness. Elder argues (ch. 1) that real kind‐sameness and persistence judgments are Millikan‐style pushmipullyu representations and therefore they essentially involve imperative and indicative aspects, which explosivism and modal conventionalism respectively fail to account for. A subsequent target is ontological relativism, according to which our ontological judgments are true in virtue of our conceptual scheme. Finding it unfavourable to familiar object realism, Elder argues (ch. 2) that the properties which nonstandard, alternative conceptual schemes rely upon do not fall into contrary ranges, which prevents those who employ them from successfully tracking causation. As such, alternative conceptual schemes cannot be as empirically successful as schemes which are realist and focus upon familiar objects – a happy result for Elder's brand of realism.