Closure by Hilary Lawson, Routledge, £15.99, ISBN 0415136504
IMAGINE for a moment that philosophy’s challenge to “realism” is serious. The
idea that there is an external world out there, existing independently of our
observations and waiting to be discovered by science, would be just that: an
idea. Hilary Lawson’s modest project in Closure is to suggest how we would then
proceed with our inquiries.
If you’re interested in linguistic philosophy, or the psychology and
physiology of perception, do borrow this book. It will usefully shake up your
preconceptions about what is going on when, for example, you point at a small
grass-munching thing and exclaim, “Rabbit!”
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Lawson’s notion of “closure” builds on what happens when an infant groups
together into one concept a smell and a blur from the blooming, buzzing
confusion of perceptions—”Mamma!” It originates from the literary term
“closure”, the coming together found in the final passage of George Orwell’s
1984, when Winston Smith learns to love Big Brother—or not.
But Lawson’s grander project seems to disappear in the mire of self-reference
that bedevils such philosophy. What part of “the world” has the impression of
perceiving a world? Discuss.
