Realism

1. Introduction

In philosophical usage, Realism designates a family of positions that affirm the existence or objectivity of certain entities or structures independently of human minds, languages, or conceptual schemes. What counts as “real” and what it is independent of varies across contexts: universals, the external world, unobservable scientific entities, moral values, possible worlds, or truth itself have all been treated as objects of realist or anti‑realist dispute.

Historically, the term enters technical philosophy within medieval scholasticism, where realism about universals is contrasted with nominalism and conceptualism. In early modern philosophy, positions now retrospectively described as realist focus on the existence and knowability of an external material world and of substances, often in opposition to skepticism and idealism. From Kant onward, realism is increasingly articulated in relation to the conditions of knowledge and representation, giving rise to distinctions such as empirical realism versus transcendental idealism.

In contemporary philosophy, “realism” functions less as a single doctrine than as a structural stance that recurs across domains:

Opposed positions—idealism, various forms of anti‑realism, constructivism, expressivism—challenge one or more of these commitments, often by emphasizing the dependence of alleged “facts” on conceptual schemes, practices, or linguistic norms.

Because the label “realism” has been repeatedly reinterpreted, its meaning is historically and contextually sensitive. Later authors sometimes reclassify earlier figures as realists or anti‑realists using criteria foreign to those figures themselves. This entry therefore traces both the philological development of the term and the major philosophical articulations of realist positions, from medieval debates on universals to contemporary discussions in metaphysics, science, ethics, politics, and the arts.

2. Etymology and Linguistic Origins

The philosophical term Realism ultimately derives from the Latin noun res (“thing, matter, affair”) and the Medieval Latin adjective realis (“pertaining to a thing, actual”). In scholastic Latin, the contrast between what exists in re (in the thing) and what exists in intellectu (in the mind) or in voce (in speech) provided the conceptual backdrop for later realist–anti‑realist debates.

From res to realis to “Realism”

In classical Latin, res was used broadly for concrete objects, legal cases, and abstract “matters.” Medieval jurists and theologians extended this vocabulary:

The adjective realis marked what was actual or thing‑like, as opposed to merely verbal, mental, or possible. From this, early modern vernaculars formed:

“Realism” as a noun appears in 19th‑century English and French partly as a historiographical label (for medieval positions on universals) and partly for aesthetic and political movements emphasizing factual or unidealized representation. Only gradually is it stabilized as a technical term for a variety of philosophical theses about mind‑independent existence and objective truth.

Philologically, scholars note that “realism” is polysemous: depending on context, it may denote (1) an ontological thesis (about what exists), (2) a semantic thesis (about truth conditions), (3) an epistemic attitude (about what can be known), or (4) a stylistic or methodological commitment (as in art and politics). The common root in res nevertheless suggests a persistent focus on “things” taken to be independent of or prior to our representations.

3. Pre-Philosophical and Legal Usage of res and realis

Before becoming technical philosophical terms, res and related expressions belonged primarily to legal, administrative, and everyday Latin. Their original functions help explain how “realism” later came to signify a concern with concrete, mind‑independent “things.”

Legal and Administrative Contexts

Roman civil law distinguished various categories of res:

In these settings, res denoted whatever could be the object of rights, transactions, or disputes, regardless of metaphysical status. The term did not yet carry a worked‑out doctrine about mind‑independent existence, but it foregrounded fact‑of‑the‑matter issues (“the thing at stake”).

Medieval lawyers and canonists extended this vocabulary. For instance, actiones in rem (real actions) concerned rights over things, in contrast to actiones in personam (personal actions) concerning obligations. Over time, adjectives derived from res, such as “real” in property law, came to mark what pertained to things rather than persons or purely formal relations.

Everyday and Theological Uses

In broader Latin usage, res could mean:

• a concrete object (“the thing on the table”),
• an event or affair (“the state of things,” res gestae),
• a topic or subject matter (“the thing we are discussing”).

Theological and scholastic writers employed res in phrases like res divinae (divine things) or res fidei (matters of faith), again without a specialized metaphysical connotation, but emphasizing what is at issue or what is actually the case.

From Legal–Practical to Philosophical

This legal‑practical background shaped how medieval philosophers later spoke of what exists in re (in the thing) versus in intellectu (in the intellect). When scholastics debated whether universals were “real” (realia), they drew on a vocabulary already used to distinguish things from words, rights, or procedures. Thus, the pre‑philosophical use of res and realis provided both the linguistic resources and an implicit contrast between concrete matters and merely nominal or procedural items, which realist doctrines would subsequently refine and systematize.

4. Realism in the Medieval Problem of Universals

Within medieval scholasticism, realism first becomes a technical label in debates over the Problem of Universals: whether general terms such as “humanity,” “redness,” or “animal” correspond to anything that exists outside the mind.

Core Medieval Realist Theses

Medieval realists agree, in broad outline, on two points:

1. Universals are not mere words (contra radical nominalists).
2. Universals have some grounding in reality (in re), not solely in thought (in intellectu).

Yet they differ about how universals exist:

Moderate Scholastic Realism

Thomas Aquinas exemplifies moderate realism. He holds that the “nature” (e.g., humanity) exists really and identically in each individual human, but is individuated by matter and particular conditions. Universality (being predicable of many) is added by the intellect:

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“The nature of a genus or species is found in each individual really and in truth; but it has in the intellect a universal intention.”

— Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae I, q. 85

On this view, realism about universals is compatible with the claim that universality itself is a mental feature.

Scotus and Enhanced Realism

John Duns Scotus develops a more intricate realism about common natures. He proposes a formal distinction between the common nature (e.g., humanity) and its individuating “thisness” (haecceitas). The common nature is really the same across individuals but formally distinct from each, giving universals a stronger ontological footing than in Aquinas’s account.

Motivations and Debates

Realists appeal to:

• the objectivity of scientific and theological classification,
• the stability of definitions (e.g., “man is a rational animal”),
• and the need to account for similarity and predication without reducing them to mere linguistic convenience.

Opponents argue that realist ontologies risk multiplying entities beyond necessity or positing mysterious abstracta. The ensuing debates with nominalists and conceptualists define much of later medieval metaphysics and logic and establish “realism” as a central term of art.

5. Realism, Nominalism, and Conceptualism

The medieval Problem of Universals crystallizes into three principal families of views: realism, nominalism, and conceptualism. These positions differ over the ontological status of universals and their relationship to language and thought.

Comparative Overview

Realism in the Triad

As detailed in the previous section, realists maintain a robust connection between general terms and objective features of the world. They explain:

• Predication (“Socrates is human”) by appeal to a common nature present in both subject and predicate.
• Scientific classification as tracking real structures rather than arbitrary groupings.
• Causal and explanatory power of shared properties (e.g., medicinal qualities of plants) as grounded in objectively similar forms or natures.

Nominalist Alternatives

Nominalists contest the need for universals as distinct ontological items. According to William of Ockham, for example:

• Only individual substances and qualities exist.
• General terms signify many individuals by convention.
• Similarity among individuals suffices to explain why one word can apply to many.

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“No universal is a thing existing outside the soul.”
— William of Ockham, Ordinatio I, dist. 2 (paraphrased)

Proponents contend that nominalism offers a more parsimonious ontology, avoids obscure entities, and aligns better with empirical observation focused on particulars.

Conceptualist Middle Positions

Conceptualists accept that universals do not exist as independent entities, yet they assign them more than a purely verbal status. For Peter Abelard, universals are mental representations formed on the basis of perceived similarities. These concepts have logical roles (in inference, categorization) and may be grounded in real resemblances, but they are not themselves components of extra‑mental reality.

Philosophical Consequences

The realist–nominalist–conceptualist dispute shapes later questions about:

• the objectivity of classification (e.g., in science),
• the status of abstract objects (numbers, propositions),
• and the relation between language, thought, and world.

Subsequent philosophical realisms, including those about scientific entities or moral values, often reprise these medieval patterns: a realist affirmation of objective correlates, against more deflationary nominalist or conceptualist accounts.

6. Early Modern Mind–World Realism

In the early modern period, the vocabulary of “realism” is not yet standardized, but many philosophers advance positions that later commentators describe as mind–world realisms: theses affirming the existence and knowability of an external world of substances and properties.

Descartes and Dual-Substance Realism

René Descartes posits two created substances: res extensa (extended substance, matter) and res cogitans (thinking substance, mind). He argues that:

• The external material world exists independently of our perceptions.
• Clear and distinct ideas, guaranteed by a non‑deceptive God, provide knowledge of the essences of these substances.
• Sensory ideas are effects of external bodies, even though they may represent them imperfectly.

This yields a form of substance realism: minds and bodies are really distinct, each with its own essential attributes.

Realism and Representationalism

Many early moderns accept a representational theory of perception: we know external objects via ideas or representations in the mind. Realist tendencies assert that:

• These representations are caused by or correspond to external things.
• There is a fact of the matter about primary qualities (shape, motion) existing in objects, even if secondary qualities (color, taste) depend on perceivers.

Locke, for example, distinguishes between real essences (unknown microstructural constitutions) and nominal essences (our classificatory ideas), while maintaining that external objects and their primary qualities exist independently of our minds.

Realism under Pressure: Idealism and Skepticism

Contemporary commentators often frame early modern realism against:

• Skeptical challenges (e.g., Cartesian doubt about the external world).
• Idealist alternatives, especially in Berkeley, who denies mind‑independent material substance and treats objects as collections of ideas perceived by finite spirits and sustained by God.

This dialectic helps sharpen the mind–world relation: realist authors seek principles (often theological or epistemological) that can secure knowledge of a world beyond immediate experience.

Varieties of Early Modern Realism

Not all early modern realisms are alike:

These positions set the stage for Kant’s later attempt to reconcile empirical realism with a form of transcendental idealism, reframing the status of the external world in relation to the conditions of possible experience.

7. Kant’s Empirical Realism and Transcendental Idealism

Immanuel Kant reconfigures the realism debate by distinguishing between different senses of “reality” and “objectivity.” His position is often summarized as transcendental idealism combined with empirical realism.

Transcendental Idealism

Kant’s transcendental idealism maintains that:

• Space and time are forms of sensible intuition, contributed by the mind.
• The categories (e.g., causality, substance) are a priori concepts structuring all possible experience.
• Hence, objects of possible experience—appearances—are not things as they are “in themselves” (Dinge an sich), but as they are for us, given our cognitive faculties.

This is sometimes read as anti‑realist about noumena (things in themselves), which are posited but declared unknowable.

Empirical Realism

Within the domain of experience, however, Kant asserts an empirical realism:

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“I say that all appearances may be regarded as being, in experience, real things.”
— Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, B274 (paraphrased)

Empirical realism holds that:

• Objects in space and time are objectively real for us, in that their existence and properties are not reducible to individual whims.
• Claims about such objects are subject to standards of truth and falsity, grounded in the shared forms and categories structuring experience.
• Skepticism about the external world is misplaced, because “external” here means “outside my individual mind” yet still within the framework of possible experience.

The Empirical/Noumenal Divide

Kant’s two‑aspect distinction yields a nuanced picture:

Some readers classify Kant as anti‑realist about the world “in itself,” others as a kind of structural realist about the phenomenal world, given that the spatiotemporal‑causal structure is fixed a priori.

Interpretive Disputes

Kant’s self‑description as an “empirical realist” and “transcendental idealist” has generated divergent interpretations:

• Two‑world readings emphasize an ontological gap between appearances and things in themselves.
• Two‑aspect readings treat the distinction as perspectival: the same things considered under different epistemic standpoints.
• Some neo‑Kantian and contemporary realists adopt Kant’s framework to defend a realism about empirical science while denying access to “reality in itself.”

In all cases, Kant reframes realism as a question about the conditions under which objects can be given and known, rather than as a straightforward opposition between mind‑dependent and mind‑independent entities.

8. Realism in German Idealism and Its Critics

Post‑Kantian German Idealism both radicalizes and contests Kant’s distinction between appearances and things in themselves. Realism, in this context, is negotiated in relation to the absolute, spirit, or systematic totality.

Fichte, Schelling, Hegel: Idealist Reconstruals

• Fichte eliminates the thing in itself by grounding everything in the self‑positing I. The apparent “external” world is a necessary product of the I’s activity. This is often viewed as anti‑realist about a mind‑independent world, though some interpreters argue that Fichte posits an objective moral order or structure of action.

• Early Schelling moves toward a philosophy of nature, seeking to give nature equal dignity with spirit. His “identity philosophy” treats subject and object as expressions of a deeper absolute, sometimes read as a form of objective idealism with realist leanings about nature’s structures.

• Hegel develops absolute idealism, where reality is the unfolding of absolute spirit. Nature and history are rationally structured processes. Some commentators view Hegel as anti‑realist about a world independent of rational structures; others see him as a conceptual or structural realist, maintaining that our best logical categories capture the real order of things.

Realist Reactions: Fries, Trendelenburg, Lotze

A number of 19th‑century philosophers react critically to German Idealism, often reviving or reformulating realist motifs:

These figures contribute to a “back to the things themselves” sensibility that influences later neo‑Kantianism and early analytic philosophy.

Neo-Kantian and Phenomenological Crosscurrents

Late 19th‑ and early 20th‑century neo‑Kantians (e.g., Cohen, Natorp, Windelband, Rickert) often adopt epistemic or methodological forms of realism—particularly about scientific laws and cultural values—while rejecting naive metaphysical realism. Simultaneously, early phenomenologists (e.g., Husserl) debate realism vs. idealism about the objects of intentional consciousness and the status of the natural world.

Overall, in the German Idealist and post‑Idealist milieu, realism is not simply opposed to idealism; rather, it is frequently reformulated as realism about structures, laws, or values within an idealist or transcendental framework, setting up later disputes in analytic and Continental traditions.

9. Analytic Metaphysical Realism

Within 20th‑century analytic philosophy, “metaphysical realism” becomes a central term for views about the independence, determinacy, and structure of the world relative to our conceptual schemes and linguistic practices.

Early Analytic Realism: Moore and Russell

Reacting against British Idealism, G. E. Moore and Bertrand Russell articulate a commonsense and logical realism:

• Moore defends the existence of ordinary external objects, other minds, and moral properties as independent of our beliefs about them. He argues that we know such facts more securely than we know philosophical theories denying them.

• Russell develops a realist theory of propositions and universals, treating properties and relations as genuine constituents of reality, not mere mental constructs.

These positions reassert that the world’s structure is not a projection of mind or language.

Metaphysical Realism vs. Anti-Realism

Later, Hilary Putnam and others formulate metaphysical realism as the view that:

1. The world consists of a fixed, mind‑independent totality of objects.
2. There is exactly one true and complete description of the world.
3. Truth involves a correspondence between language (or thought) and this world, independent of our epistemic situation.

Contrasting views (e.g., internal realism, conceptual relativism, various anti‑realisms) challenge one or more of these theses, proposing that:

• truth is constrained by idealized justifiability rather than a stance‑independent world, or
• multiple, equally adequate conceptual schemes can carve reality in different ways.

Contemporary Metaphysical Realism

Debates continue across several dimensions:

Figures such as David Lewis develop highly systematic realist metaphysics (e.g., modal realism, counterpart theory), while others (e.g., Peter van Inwagen, David Armstrong) defend realism about universals, laws of nature, or composite objects. Critics argue that such robust ontologies may outrun empirical or pragmatic justification, advocating more austere or deflationary metaphysical programs.

Analytic metaphysical realism thus encompasses a spectrum of positions united by a commitment to a mind‑independent, structured reality, even as they diverge in specific ontological and semantic commitments.

10. Scientific Realism and Philosophy of Science

In philosophy of science, scientific realism concerns the interpretation of scientific theories, particularly their reference to unobservable entities (e.g., electrons, genes, black holes) and the truth of theoretical claims.

Core Commitments

Standard formulations of scientific realism typically include:

1. Metaphysical thesis: The world has a mind‑independent structure; many entities posited by successful theories exist.
2. Semantic thesis: Scientific statements are literally true or false, aiming to describe that structure.
3. Epistemic thesis: Mature, well‑confirmed theories are at least approximately true, and we have good reason to believe in their unobservable posits.

Arguments for Scientific Realism

A central argument is the No Miracles Argument:

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The success of science—its predictive accuracy, technological applications, and theoretical unification—would be “miraculous” if scientific theories were not at least approximately true descriptions of an external reality.

Proponents (e.g., J. J. C. Smart, Richard Boyd, Hilary Putnam) maintain that realism best explains:

• Novel predictive success (e.g., predicting phenomena not used in theory construction),
• Convergence of independent lines of evidence (e.g., different experimental techniques),
• and the cross‑theoretic stability of certain entities (e.g., electrons across physical theories).

Anti-Realist and Selective Alternatives

Opponents develop several alternative stances:

The pessimistic meta‑induction—noting that many once‑successful theories (e.g., phlogiston, caloric) were later rejected—challenges naive inferences from success to truth. Realists respond with selective realism, distinguishing theoretical posits that were retained (e.g., certain structural relationships) from those discarded.

Varieties of Scientific Realism

Contemporary debates yield multiple nuanced positions:

• Entity realism (e.g., Hacking): confidence in the existence of entities we can manipulate, irrespective of full belief in the truth of theories.
• Explanationist realism: explanatory power, not just predictive success, supports belief in theoretical entities.
• Model‑based realism: focuses on the reality of structures captured in scientific models, which may be idealized.

Scientific realism remains a central topic in assessing how scientific practice bears on questions of truth, reference, and ontology.

11. Moral, Modal, and Semantic Realisms

Across different philosophical subfields, “realism” is applied to moral, modal, and semantic domains, each with its own debates about objectivity and independence.

Moral Realism

Moral realism holds that:

1. There are moral facts or truths (e.g., about right and wrong, good and bad).
2. These are, in some sense, objective and not wholly dependent on individual or cultural attitudes.
3. Some moral beliefs are true in virtue of these facts.

Variants include:

Critics (error theorists, non‑cognitivists, relativists) deny that there are such facts or that moral discourse aims at truth in a realist sense.

Modal Realism

In modal metaphysics, modal realism is most famously associated with David Lewis, who argues that:

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All possible worlds are just as real as the actual world, differing only in what they contain.

On this view:

• Possibility and necessity are explained by quantification over worlds.
• “Actual” is an indexical meaning “this world.”

Alternative modal theories—e.g., ersatz realism, which treats possible worlds as abstract representations, and actualist accounts using primitive modal operators—reject Lewis’s robust ontology while often retaining some realist commitment to objective modal facts.

Semantic and Alethic Realism

In semantics and theories of truth, realism often concerns:

• Truth conditions: statements are true or false depending on how things are, independent of our ability to verify them.
• Bivalence: every meaningful statement is either true or false.
• Reference: terms successfully refer to objects or properties in a mind‑independent world.

Michael Dummett famously characterizes realism about a given discourse (e.g., mathematics, history) as acceptance of truth conditions that transcend possible verification. Anti‑realist or verificationist views link truth more tightly to what can, in principle, be known or justified.

Semantic realism is closely tied to correspondence theories of truth, though some philosophers accept deflationary theories of truth while still endorsing a robust metaphysical realism about the entities to which language refers.

12. Realism in Aesthetics, Literature, and the Arts

In aesthetics and literary theory, realism names a set of attitudes and movements concerned with the faithful representation of reality, especially ordinary life, social conditions, and psychological experience.

Artistic and Literary Realism

From the mid‑19th century, literary realism (e.g., Balzac, Flaubert, George Eliot, Tolstoy) aims to depict:

• Everyday characters and settings rather than heroic or mythical subjects,
• Social and economic relations, often focusing on class, gender, and power,
• Psychological depth and plausible motivation.

In visual arts, realist painters (e.g., Courbet) emphasize unidealized depictions of workers, landscapes, and urban life, rejecting romantic or academic idealization.

Philosophical Themes

Aesthetic discussions of realism raise questions about:

• Mimesis: To what extent art imitates or reconstructs reality.
• Objectivity vs. selection: Realists acknowledge that representation always involves selection and framing, yet aim to minimize distortion.
• Truth in fiction: Realist works are often said to convey truths about human life or society, even though they are fictional.

Some theorists propose “critical realism” in art, where works not only depict but also critique social reality, exposing hidden structures of power or ideology.

Anti-Realist and Alternative Aesthetic Movements

Realism is frequently defined in contrast to:

• Romanticism, with its emphasis on imagination, emotion, and the sublime,
• Symbolism and modernism, which foreground subjectivity, fragmentation, or formal experimentation over straightforward representation,
• Postmodernism, which questions the possibility of unmediated representation and highlights the constructed nature of “reality” in discourse.

Philosophical debates in aesthetics thus examine whether and how art can be a source of knowledge about reality and what kind of “realism” (if any) is appropriate for understanding diverse artistic practices.

13. Political and International Relations Realism

In political theory and international relations (IR), realism refers to a family of views emphasizing power, interests, and constraints over ideals or moral aspirations.

Political Realism

Political realists maintain that:

• Politics is fundamentally about power struggles, coercion, and conflict.
• Moral principles and ideals must be subordinated to considerations of stability, security, and order.
• Political agents (especially states) often face “dirty hands” situations where morally dubious actions may be necessary.

Niccolò Machiavelli is commonly cited as an early exemplar, distinguishing politics from morality and advising rulers to act according to ragion di stato (reason of state). Later theorists (e.g., Max Weber) stress the “ethic of responsibility” over an “ethic of conviction.”

Realism in International Relations

In IR, realism is more systematically developed:

Key realist claims include:

• The international system is anarchic (lacking a central authority).
• States are primarily concerned with survival and security.
• Power balancing and self‑help are rational responses to anarchy.
• International law and institutions have limited independent effect, often reflecting underlying power distributions.

Alternatives and Critiques

Other IR theories challenge realist assumptions:

• Liberalism emphasizes cooperation, institutions, and interdependence.
• Constructivism highlights the role of norms, identities, and discourse in shaping state behavior.
• Critical and postcolonial theories question realism’s focus on great powers and its neglect of justice and emancipation.

Realists respond that their framework is descriptive and explanatory, not necessarily normative, claiming that it captures enduring features of international politics regardless of changing moral or ideological currents.

14. Key Debates: Realism versus Idealism and Anti-Realism

Across philosophical domains, realism is typically defined in contrast to idealism and various forms of anti‑realism. The specific fault lines differ by context but share common themes of independence, objectivity, and access.

Realism vs. Idealism

Historically, idealism asserts that reality is fundamentally mental or that the structure of reality is inseparable from the structure of thought or spirit. Contrasts include:

Debates between realists and idealists concern whether objects conform to cognition or vice versa, and whether talk of a thing in itself beyond cognition is coherent or necessary.

Realism vs. Anti-Realism

Modern anti‑realist positions, often drawing on verificationist or pragmatist ideas, focus on the epistemic and semantic aspects of realism:

• Verificationism / anti‑realism (inspired by Dummett) links truth to possible evidence or justification, rejecting truth conditions that outrun what can in principle be known.
• Instrumentalism in science treats theories as instruments for prediction, not literal descriptions of unobservables.
• Non‑cognitivism or expressivism in ethics views moral statements as expressions of attitudes rather than assertions of fact.

Realists typically affirm that:

• Truth outruns our best evidence (truth‑conditioned semantics).
• Some claims may be true but unknowable.
• Objectivity does not require epistemic access without remainder.

Criteria of Dispute

Many debates turn on how to interpret:

1. Mind-independence: Does a given discourse purport to describe things independent of our responses?
2. Bivalence: Do all statements in the domain have determinate truth values?
3. Explanation: Are realist assumptions required to explain practice (e.g., scientific success, moral disagreement)?

Idealists and anti‑realists often argue that realist metaphysics is excessive or mysterious, proposing instead to reconstruct the relevant discourse in terms of norms of justification, use, or pragmatic success. Realists counter that such reconstructions either presuppose the very independence they seek to avoid or fail to capture the phenomenology of objectivity and constraint.

15. Translation Challenges and Cross-Linguistic Nuances

The term “realism” and its relatives pose notable challenges in translation because their meanings vary across languages, periods, and disciplines.

Latin and German Distinctions

In scholastic Latin, precise contrasts underpin later realism debates:

In German, a distinction is often drawn between:

Hegel, for instance, famously associates Wirklichkeit with what is rationally actual, introducing interpretive complexities when rendered simply as “reality.”

Modern European Languages

Different languages deploy “realism” with overlapping but not identical connotations:

Translators must decide, for example, whether “Idealismus” should be rendered as “idealism” in a metaphysical, epistemic, or ethical sense, and whether “Realismus” refers to a technical doctrine or a more colloquial attitude (e.g., political “realism”).

Domain-Specific Polysemy

“Realism” also varies by field:

• In literary studies, “realism” primarily concerns style and representation, not metaphysical theses.
• In IR theory, “realism” denotes a theoretical framework about power and anarchy.
• In analytic metaphysics, “realism” targets mind‑independent existence and truth conditions.

When these usages are translated into languages where a single term (e.g., réalisme, Realismus) must serve multiple roles, there is risk of conflation or anachronism.

Strategies and Difficulties

Scholars often employ:

• Qualifying adjectives (“metaphysical realism,” “scientific realism”) to narrow meaning.
• Explanatory glosses when translating historically distant texts.
• Retention of original terms (res, Wirklichkeit, Ding an sich) to preserve nuance.

Nonetheless, difficulties remain: historical authors may not have used “realism” at all, yet are later classified as realists or anti‑realists. This retroactive labeling, transposed across languages and traditions, can project contemporary distinctions into earlier debates, complicating interpretation and comparison.

16. Conceptual Analysis and Criteria for Realist Positions

Given the diversity of “realisms,” philosophers have sought general criteria for when a position counts as realist in a given domain.

Common Structural Features

Several recurrent features are often used to characterize realism:

A position may be called realist if it satisfies a sufficient subset of these, though philosophers disagree on which are essential.

Domain-Relative Realism

Many contemporary discussions adopt a domain‑relative approach: rather than asking if realism is true “in general,” they examine specific areas:

• Scientific realism: unobservable entities, laws, theoretical structures.
• Moral realism: moral facts, reasons, or values.
• Modal realism: possible worlds, modal truths.
• Mathematical realism: abstract objects like numbers and sets.

A philosopher can be realist in one domain (e.g., science) and anti‑realist in another (e.g., morality).

Dummett’s Semantic Criterion

Michael Dummett proposes that realism vs. anti‑realism about a discourse is fundamentally a semantic issue: whether one accepts truth‑conditions transcending evidence. On his view:

• Realism: statements may be true even if no one can, even in principle, know or verify their truth.
• Anti‑realism: truth is tied to (idealized) verifiability or justification.

This criterion has been influential but contested; some argue that metaphysical and epistemic criteria cannot be reduced to semantic ones.

Minimal vs. Robust Realism

Some philosophers distinguish:

• Minimal or quietist realism: simply affirming that certain claims are objectively true without substantial metaphysical commitments.
• Robust realism: positing a substantive ontology (e.g., universals, possible worlds) and explanatory roles for realist entities.

Debates concern whether minimal realism suffices to capture our intuitions about objectivity, or whether a more ontologically committed stance is needed.

Conceptual analyses thus illuminate what is at stake in labeling a view “realist” and help differentiate genuinely substantive disagreements from merely verbal or methodological disputes.

17. Contemporary Variants and Hybrid Views

Recent philosophy features a range of hybrid or qualified realisms that attempt to reconcile realist intuitions with anti‑realist or constructivist insights.

Structural and Selective Realisms

In both metaphysics and philosophy of science, structural realism maintains that:

• What is preserved across theory change, and what we should be realist about, is the structure or relations, not necessarily the individual objects.

Some structural realists apply this to physics (e.g., realism about mathematical relations in fundamental theories), while selective realists argue for realism about some components of theories (e.g., certain posits or laws) but not others.

Perspectival and Pragmatic Realisms

Perspectival realism (e.g., in philosophy of science) holds that:

• Knowledge is always from a perspective, shaped by models, instruments, or conceptual frameworks,
• Yet these perspectives can yield genuine knowledge of a shared reality.

Pragmatic realisms combine a commitment to an external world with a focus on practical engagement, emphasizing that realism is justified insofar as it fits and guides practice successfully, rather than by metaphysical argument alone.

Quietist and “Thin” Realisms

Some philosophers adopt quietist or “thin” forms of realism:

• They accept that there are objective truths in a domain (e.g., mathematics, morality) but resist heavy metaphysical explanations of what those truths “consist in.”
• Deflationary accounts of truth or reference may be combined with a realist stance on discourse practice and inferential norms.

Constructivist-Realist Hybrids

In ethics, political theory, and social ontology, there are constructivist realisms:

• Standards of correctness or institutional facts are constructed through procedures, practices, or agreements,
• Yet once constructed, they can exhibit robust objectivity and constraint.

For example, Kantian constructivism in ethics treats moral principles as outcomes of rational procedures but grants them normative authority independent of particular desires.

Domain-Pluralism

Many contemporary philosophers endorse pluralism: different domains may call for distinct combinations of realist and anti‑realist elements. For instance:

Such hybrid and pluralist views reflect attempts to respect scientific practice, moral experience, and linguistic usage while acknowledging the limitations of traditional, monolithic conceptions of realism.

18. Legacy and Historical Significance

The notion of realism has had a lasting impact on the development of philosophy and related disciplines, shaping debates about ontology, knowledge, language, art, and politics.

Enduring Themes

Across historical periods, realism has:

• Framed questions about the status of universals, influencing medieval and early modern metaphysics.
• Guided reflections on the external world, perception, and skepticism.
• Informed accounts of scientific practice, especially regarding unobservable entities and theoretical structure.
• Structured debates about moral objectivity, modal facts, and semantic truth.

Each era reinterprets realism in light of its own concerns, from scholastic logic to Kantian critique, from German Idealism to analytic philosophy and philosophy of science.

Impact Beyond Philosophy

Realism has also shaped:

• Literature and the arts, through movements committed to detailed representation of social reality.
• Political theory and international relations, where realist frameworks have influenced diplomatic and military strategies.
• Legal and social theory, via concepts of real property, corporate personhood, and social kinds.

These applications illustrate how ideas about what is “real” and “objective” affect institutional design, cultural production, and public discourse.

Ongoing Significance

Contemporary discussions continue to revisit realism’s core questions in light of:

• Advances in the sciences (e.g., quantum theory, cosmology, cognitive science),
• New perspectives in social and political philosophy (e.g., critical theory, feminism, postcolonial studies),
• Emerging concerns in metaphysics and meta‑metaphysics about the scope and method of ontological inquiry.

Realism’s legacy thus lies not in a single settled doctrine, but in its role as a recurrent organizing idea: the claim that, in at least some domains, there is a way things are that is not of our making, and that our representations can succeed or fail in capturing this. The enduring contestation of that claim has been central to the evolution of philosophical thought.