An Appearance–Reality Distinction in an Unreal World

When it comes to the structure of reality, foundationalist intuitions have predominated throughout the history of philosophy, and this remains largely the case in contemporary metaphysics, despite the fact that in contemporary epistemology, infinitism and coherentism are treated as serious theoretical contenders. Recently, however, a growing number of voices have challenged foundationalist presuppositions about the structure of reality, particularly construed as a structure of metaphysical grounding relations, with the possibility of coherentist and infinitist structures finding new defenders.1 Jan Westerhoff’s The Non-existence of the Real World is an important contribution to this conversation for his extended and systematic defense of the viability not only of a kind of first-order ontological non-foundationalism but also of a second-order non-foundationalism about truth. In this compelling and engaging book, Westerhoff makes a case for a comprehensive non-foundationalism much like that defended by Nāgārjuna’s (c. second century) Madhyamaka Buddhist philosophy without ever mentioning Madhyamaka...