REALISM

in philosophy, the viewpoint that accords to the objects of knowledge an existence that is independent of whether anyone is perceiving or thinking about them. Though it may seem strange to the unphilosophical layman that the independent existence of objects out there should be questioned, the philosopher, faced with the many profound challenges that Idealists have posed against the independence of objects, knows that the problem of the existence of objectswhether in thought or in concrete formis far from trivial. Clearly, Idealists have argued, musical tones such as middle C do not have existence as tones in the air; they appear, instead, to be qualities that the mind itself generates when the appropriate hair cells in the organ of Corti are stimulated. Nor does the colour purple have existence as a quality in the world outside of the mind; there can be, in fact, no such thing as a beam of pure (monochromatic) purple light inasmuch as purple is a unique kind of colour that is perceived when vibrations at the opposite extremes of the visual spectrum (red and violet) are mixed together in the same beam. At least in this one case, the colour seems created by the mind. But if this is so of purple, the Idealists ask, is it not true, also, of all colours? Similarly, under certain circumstances heat is felt as cold and rotation as oscillation. It is not surprising, therefore, that philosophers have asked what, if any, residual properties an object might have in and of itself after due allowance has been made for those qualities that the mind and perspective of the observer have imposed upon it; nor is it surprising that they have asked what, if anything, it would mean to insist on the objective existence of an object of which all of the qualities were mental. Realists, on the other hand, have held that, in spite of the foregoing considerations as proposed by the Idealists, there still remains a sense in which objects can have an existence that is independent of minds. Realism exists, however, in several strikingly different versions: its objects may be, for example, either individual things (such as the Moon), or merely particular qualities of things (such as roundness, yellowness), or species and genera of things (such as moons, planetary bodies). In one way or another, however, whether it regards things from the viewpoint of the things themselves or from that of the human activities related to them, Realism tends to stress some definite function of the independent existence of objects. in the arts, the accurate, detailed, unembellished depiction of nature or of contemporary life. Realism rejects imaginative idealization in favour of a close observation of outward appearances. As such, realism in its broad sense has comprised many artistic currents in different civilizations. In the visual arts, for example, realism can be found in ancient Hellenistic Greek sculptures accurately portraying boxers and decrepit old women. The works of such 17th-century painters as Caravaggio, the Dutch genre painters, the Spanish painters Jos de Ribera, Diego Velzquez, and Francisco de Zurbarn, and the Le Nain brothers in France are realist in approach. The works of the 18th-century English novelists Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Tobias Smollett may also be called realistic. Realism was not consciously adopted as an aesthetic program until the mid-19th century in France, however. Indeed, realism may be viewed as a major trend in French novels and paintings between 1850 and 1880. One of the first appearances of the term realism was in the Mercure franais du XIXe sicle in 1826, in which the word is used to describe a doctrine based not upon imitating past artistic achievements but upon the truthful and accurate depiction of the models that nature and contemporary life offer the artist. The French proponents of realism were agreed in their rejection of the artificiality of both the Classicism and Romanticism of the academies and on the necessity for contemporaneity in an effective work of art. They attempted to portray the lives, appearances, problems, customs, and mores of the middle and lower classes, of the unexceptional, the ordinary, the humble, and the unadorned. Indeed, they conscientiously set themselves to reproducing all the hitherto-ignored aspects of contemporary life and societyits mental attitudes, physical settings, and material conditions. Realism was stimulated by several intellectual developments in the first half of the 19th century. Among these were the anti-Romantic movement in Germany, with its emphasis on the common man as an artistic subject; Auguste Comte's Positivist philosophy, in which sociology's importance as the scientific study of society was emphasized; the rise of professional journalism, with its accurate and dispassionate recording of current events; and the development of photography, with its capability of mechanically reproducing visual appearances with extreme accuracy. All these developments stimulated interest in accurately recording contemporary life and society. Additional reading There is no single monograph that covers comprehensively the whole topic of Realism. The following works will be helpful for the study of its particular phases.For Medieval Realism, see M.H. Carr, Realists and Nominalists (1946, reissued 1967). For neo-Realism and critical Realism, see E.B. Holt et al., The New Realism (1912, reprinted 1970); Durant Drake et al., Essays in Critical Realism (1920, reprinted 1968); Ren Kremer, La Thorie de la connaissance chez les no-ralistes anglais (1928); and T.E. Hill, Realistic Theories, Contemporary Theories of Knowledge, pp. 77205 (1961, reissued 1980), good general coverage of the American and English fields.Neoscholastic Realisms are treated in Lon Nol, Le Ralisme immdiat (1938); and works by tienne Gilson: Le Ralisme mthodique (1936), which presents the author's own views, of which ch. 5 has been trans. by W.J. Quinn as Vade Mecum of a Young Realist, in R. Houde and J. Mullally (eds.), Philosophy of Knowledge (1960), and Ralisme Thomiste et critique de la connaissance (1939), a critique of the leading Neoscholastic views. For the linguistic approach, see Martin Lean, Sense-Perception and Matter (1953, reprinted 1973); and J.L. Austin, Sense and Sensibilia (1962).Universals in contemporary thought are treated in I.M. Bochenski, Alonzo Church, and Nelson Goodman, The Problem of Universals (1956); Farhang Zabeeh, Universals (1966); Panayot Butchvarov, Resemblance and Identity: An Examination of the Problem of Universals (1966, reissued 1982); and Nicholas Wolterstorff, On Universals: An Essay in Ontology (1970).For Scientific Realism, see Bertrand Russell, Our Knowledge of the External World, rev. ed. (1926, various printings); W.H. Werkmeister, The Basis and Structure of Knowledge (1948, reissued 1968), bibliography, pp. 420438; Moritz Schlick, Are Natural Laws Conventions? in H. Feigl and May Brodbeck (eds.), Readings in the Philosophy of Science, pp. 181188 (1953); Romano Harr, Theories and Things (1961); Grover Maxwell, The Ontological Status of Theoretical Entities, in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, 3:327 (1962); J.J.C. Smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism (1963); and David M. Armstrong, Universals and Scientific Realism, 2 vol. (1980).Other 20th-century Realisms are discussed in G.D. Hicks, Critical Realism (1938); James Feibleman, The Revival of Realism (1946, reissued 1972); Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception and Reality (1963); R.M. Chisholm (ed.), Realism and the Background of Phenomenology (1961), convenient bibliography, pp. 290304; J.D. Wild (ed.), The Return to Reason: Essays in Realistic Philosophy (1953); E.B. McGilvary, Toward a Perspective Realism (1956); D.M. Armstrong, A Materialist Theory of the Mind (1968); Ingeborg Wirth, Realismus und Apriorismus in Nicolai Hartmanns Erkenntnistheorie (1965); and Gustav Bergmann, Realism: A Critique of Brentano and Meinong (1967).