REALISM

in philosophy, the conception that objects of sensory perception or of cognition in general are real in their own right and exist independently of their being known or related to mind. Though of modern origin, the term realism is freely applied today to certain aspects of Greek and medieval philosophy, as well as to modern tenets. In the history of philosophy the most persistent and profound realist concern is that of the reality of universals, or principles and rules governing the classification of things. It seems essential to believe that one is doing something rightly when, for instance, one classifies a new object as a chair (if that is what it is) rather than as an elephant. However, the nature of this rightness itself remains elusive. Realists assert that such classification reflects distinctions inherent in the world; conceptualists, by contrast, grant universals reality only as categorial concepts within the mind; and nominalists restrict the reality of the so-called natures of things even further, to mere names. The first of these views was embraced by Plato, who considered correct classification to involve apprehending a real common form which items classified together shared; the second is the view propounded in the Essay of John Locke (16321704); and the last appears in writers ranging from William of Ockham (12851309) to Ludwig Wittgenstein (18891951). In light of the nominalist assertion, it would seem that uttering words would not consist in making judgments at all, for nothing would count as correctness or incorrectness (Wittgenstein struggled hard to avoid this consequence). It is necessary, according to the realists, to arrive at some conception of the further fact that makes talk of correctness appropriate. Realists believe that such a fact resists both reduction and the attribution of any idealist, mind-dependent status, the two positions most favoured by opponents of realism. This dispute underlies any analysis of the judgment of truth or falsehood and thus infuses virtually all philosophical issues. Another issue central to the realist-antirealist debate is that of the status of immediate, individual objects of perception. Realists, as opposed primarily to the idealists and phenomenalists, hold that the senses afford knowledge of the distinct, real existence of independent objects in space and time. The difficulty for the realist is that the experiences on the basis of which one knows about such objects are themselves apparently private and dependent for their existence and nature upon the mind. The realist therefore seeks a link that permits knowledge of one kind of thing on the basis of another, and opponents charge that this leads inevitably to skepticism. This standard philosophical pattern is the usual source of reductionist and instrumentalist programs.