From Rationalism to Realism in The Wire
From Rationalism to Realism in The Wire

Summary/Abstract: One of the most striking and frequently praised aspects of HBO’s cult TV series The Wire is its purported realism. Why this series is virtually unanimously perceived as realistic is the main question that this paper will attempt to answer. The question is addressed from the perspective of Robert Brandom’s neo-pragmatist rationalist philosophical project in general, and his account of the appearance/reality distinction in particular. The first part of the paper introduces Brandom’s neo-pragmatist rationalist account of the relation between appearance and reality as explicated in his book Reason in Philosophy. The second part addresses the question of the verisimilitude of The Wire in these Brandomian rationalist terms. It is thereby suggested that, first, The Wire appears to be real because it is rational—i.e. because it rationally integrates all its commitments into a single unified whole—and second, it is recognized as real because it exhibits an expressively progressive structure—i.e. it gradually makes explicit the commitments that were held implicitly throughout the course of its five seasons.

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