Westerhoff, Jan. The Non-Existence of the Real World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 329.

Previously, Westerhoff has published seminal works explicating Buddhist traditions from an analytic perspective.What makes The Non-Existence of the Real World rather interesting is that, outside of the preface, Westerhoff does not appeal to Buddhist figures, or directly appeal to Buddhist thought.In fact, if you miss the preface and you are unfamiliar with Buddhism, you might even think the book has nothing to do with Buddhism.Nonetheless, Westerhoff states in the preface that his aim in this work is to spell out how analytic philosophy and cognitive science can be used to defend essential elements of Madhyamaka doctrine.The core elements include a denial of the self and an endorsement that reality, as we normally understand it at least, is empty of own being.The Non-Existence of the Real World is broken up into four large chapters.Chapter One centers on external world skepticism.Westerhoff introduces the Demon Deception Hypothesis in an attempt to destabilize our intuitions about whether we know that the external world exists.There are primarily two models in which Westerhoff engages.The first model is a direct realist model which says we encounter the world and objects within it in an immediate way.That is, our minds directly link up to the objects of the world without any mediation of other processes.The second model discussed is a representational model where we encounter real objects of the world, but in a way that is mediated or indirect.The analogy Westerhoff gives is that there is the world we experience, but a veil separates us from the world as it is.Westerhoff develops various objections to both models.With respect to direct realism, he argues that we do not actually observe objects as they are in a way that is simultaneous to our perception of them.For example, he discusses how the speed of light plays a role in our perception.Due to the time it takes for the light to reach us, we can observe stars on earth as if the stars are still alive, but by the time the light reaches us, the stars could already be dead (p.23).In this case, the object of our perception is distinct from the cause of our perception.The same could be said about our perception of objects more generally.What we perceive is the object as it was, not as it is right now, even if there is only a millisecond difference between the two.With respect to objecting to representationalism, Westerhoff argues that the purpose of our human capacities is to pass on our genes, not to possess true beliefs (p.35).He compares our perception of the world to a computer's interface where the graphics on the monitor do not represent accurately what is going on with the