‘The truth is an odd number’: positivism reconsidered in the novels of Flann O’Brien

In line with recent studies comparing the Dublin Modernist with the philosophical writings of Ludwig Wittgenstein, rather than suggesting a direct, reading influence, I argue that O’Brien’s fiction displays a shared sensitivity to foundational problems that preoccupied the logical positivists – namely, the reliability of the senses, the limits of language as a vehicle for representation, and the cultural position of the scientist and technology.

Arguing for a shared “structure of feeling,” the study situates O’Brien’s linguistic experimentation within the wider crisis of meaning that defined the interwar period.<br><br>Across four chapters, the thesis examines the romanticism of O’Brien’s “Celtic realism” in his MA Thesis and At Swim-Two-Birds; his critique of speculative and detective fiction as vehicles of empiricist dogma; his embrace of discursive multiplicity and stylistic indeterminacy as a form of resistance to totalising systems; and his later pessimisms about technological progress, modernisation and posthuman futures.