on authenticity and categorizations

To begin with, the question “It is real?” is not of itself a clear one. The classic examination of the word “real” is due to the doyen of ordinary language philosophers, J. L. Austin. As he insisted, you have to ask, “A real what?” Moreover, “a definite sense attaches to the assertion that something is real, a real such-and-such, only in the light of a specific way in which it might be, or might have been not real.” Something may fail to be real cream because the butterfat content is too low, or because it is synthetic creamer. A man may not be a real constable because he is impersonating a police officer, or because he has not yet been sworn in, or because he is a military policeman, not a civil one. A painting may fail to be a real Constable because it is a forgery, or because it is a copy, or because it is an honest work by one of John Constable’s students, or simply because it is an inferior work of the master. The moral is, if you ask, “Is it real?” you must supply a noun. You have to ask, “Is it a real N?” (or, “Is it real N?”). Then you have to indicate how it might fail to be a real N, “a real N as opposed to what?” Even that is no guarantee that a question about what’s real will make sense. Even with a noun and an alternative, we may not have a real anything: there is no such thing as the “real” color of a deep-sea fish.

- Hacking, I. 1995. Pg 11. Rewriting the Soul: Multiple Personality and the Science of Memory. Princeton: Princeton University Press