Realism
Encyclopedia
Realism, Realist or Realistic are terms that describe any manifestation of philosophical realism
, the belief that reality exists independently of observers, whether in philosophy itself or in the applied arts and sciences. In this broad sense it is frequently contrasted with Idealism
.
Realism in the arts
concerns the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life. Political realism is a dominant school of thinking within the international relations discipline that prioritizes national interest and security over ideology, moral concerns and social reconstructions. In ethics moral realism
takes the view that there are objective moral values. Scientific realism
is the view that the world described by science is the real world and mathematical realism a branch of philosophy of mathematics.
is rooted in the "common sense" philosophy of perception
known as naive realism
, which has been developed as "direct" realism when distinguished from representative realism, the view that we cannot perceive the external world directly. Critical realism
is the philosophy of perception concerned with the accuracy of human sense-data. In epistomology
realism is accounted a subcategory of objectivism. Hyper-realism or Hyperreality, on the other hand, doubts the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy. Transcendental realism
is a concept implying that individuals have a perfect understanding of the limitations of their own minds.
In metaphysics Platonic realism
describes a philosophy articulated by Plato, positing the existence of universals. Moderate realism
is a position holding that there is no realm where universals exist. New realism
denotes a school of early 20th-century epistemology rejecting epistemological dualism and Organic realism or the Philosophy of Organism, describes the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, now known as process philosophy. Australian realism or Australian materialism is a 20th Century school of philosophy in Australia. Truth-value link realism is a metaphysical concept explaining how to understand parts of the world that are apparently cognitively inaccessible.
Cornell realism
is a view in meta-ethics associated with the work of Richard Boyd and others.Quasi-realism
is an expressivist meta-ethical theory which asserts that though our moral claims are projectivist we understand them in realist terms. In religious philosophy Christian Realism
was advocated by Reinhold Niebuhr and mystical realism
, a philosophy concerning the nature of the divine, was advanced by Nikolai Berdyaev. Constructive realism
and entity realism
are philosophical positions within scientific realism. Modal realism
is a philosophy propounded by David Lewis, that possible worlds are as real as the actual world
is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science (perhaps ideal science) is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be. Within philosophy of science
, it is often framed as an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities
apparently talked about by scientific theories. Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make reliable claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological
status) as observables, as opposed to instrumentalism
.
Scientific realism involves two basic positions. First, it is a set of claims about the features of an ideal scientific theory; an ideal theory is the sort of theory science aims to produce. Second, it is the commitment that science will eventually produce theories very much like an ideal theory and that science has done pretty well thus far in some domains. It is important to note that one might be a scientific realist regarding some sciences while not being a realist regarding others. For example, one might hold realist attitudes toward physics, chemistry and biology, and not toward economics, psychology and sociology.
is the theory that law is made by human beings and thus subject to human imperfections. Left realism
and Right Realism
are contrasting theories about the prevention and control of crime. Classical political realism
holds that it is fundamentally the nature of man that pushes states and individuals to act in a way that places interests over ideologies while Liberal realism or the "English school of international relations theory" centres upon the theory that there exists a 'society of states'. Defensive realism
is a theory that anarchy on the world stage causes states to increase their security while offensive realism
takes the view that states will exploit opportunities to expand whenever they are presented. Neorealism or structural realism is theory that international structures act as a constraint on state behavior. Post-realism
sees international realism as a particular rhetoric of international relations while Subaltern realism
concerns the theory that Third World states are more concerned with short term gains.
, an English cultural movement in the 1950s and 1960s that concentrated on contemporary social realism, or Poetic realism
, a film movement in France in the 1930s that used heightened aestheticism. In the visual arts
the term denotes any approach that depicts what the eye can see, such as in American realism
, a turn of the 20th century idea in arts, Classical Realism
, an artistic movement in late 20th Century that valued beauty and artistic skill. Literary realism
particularly denotes a 19th century literary movement. Neorealism
is a movement emphasising realism in cinema and literature while the New Realism
is an artistic movement founded in 1960 by Pierre Restany and Yves Klein. Romantic realism
is an aesthetic art term popularized by writer/philosopher Ayn Rand. Aesthetic Realism
is a philosophy founded by Eli Siegel.
Forms of political realism in the arts have included Nazi heroic realism or the art of the third Reich, a style of propaganda art associated with Nazi Germany, Social realism
, an artistic movement which depicts working class activities, and Socialist realism
, a style of propaganda art associated with Communism.
Photorealism
is a genre of painting that resembles photography, Hyperrealism (painting)
resembles high resolution photography while Pseudorealism
, is a term coined by American film critics to describe films in which digital unreal images are created and amalgamated with regular scenes thereby creating an illusion that is difficult to distinguish from reality, or a genre of art initiated by Indian artist Devajyoti Ray
where reality is approached via abstraction Surrealism
and Magic realism
are artistic genres in which magical or impossible elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting.
Philosophical realism
Contemporary philosophical realism is the belief that our reality, or some aspect of it, is ontologically independent of our conceptual schemes, linguistic practices, beliefs, etc....
, the belief that reality exists independently of observers, whether in philosophy itself or in the applied arts and sciences. In this broad sense it is frequently contrasted with Idealism
Idealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
.
Realism in the arts
Realism (arts)
Realism in the visual arts and literature refers to the general attempt to depict subjects "in accordance with secular, empirical rules", as they are considered to exist in third person objective reality, without embellishment or interpretation...
concerns the depiction of subjects as they appear in everyday life. Political realism is a dominant school of thinking within the international relations discipline that prioritizes national interest and security over ideology, moral concerns and social reconstructions. In ethics moral realism
Moral realism
Moral realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences express propositions.# Some such propositions are true.# Those propositions are made true by objective features of the world, independent of subjective opinion....
takes the view that there are objective moral values. Scientific realism
Scientific realism
Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be...
is the view that the world described by science is the real world and mathematical realism a branch of philosophy of mathematics.
Philosophical realism
Realism as a philosophy of mindPhilosophy of mind
Philosophy of mind is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of the mind, mental events, mental functions, mental properties, consciousness and their relationship to the physical body, particularly the brain. The mind-body problem, i.e...
is rooted in the "common sense" philosophy of perception
Philosophy of perception
The philosophy of perception is concerned with the nature of perceptual experience and the status of perceptual data, in particular how they relate to beliefs about, or knowledge of, the world. Any explicit account of perception requires a commitment to one of a variety of ontological or...
known as naive realism
Naïve realism
Naïve realism, also known as direct realism or common sense realism, is a philosophy of mind rooted in a common sense theory of perception that claims that the senses provide us with direct awareness of the external world...
, which has been developed as "direct" realism when distinguished from representative realism, the view that we cannot perceive the external world directly. Critical realism
Critical realism
In the philosophy of perception, critical realism is the theory that some of our sense-data can and do accurately represent external objects, properties, and events, while other of our sense-data do not accurately represent any external objects, properties, and events...
is the philosophy of perception concerned with the accuracy of human sense-data. In epistomology
Epistemological realism
Epistemological realism is a philosophical position, a subcategory of objectivism, holding that what you know about an object exists independently of your mind. It opposes epistemological idealism....
realism is accounted a subcategory of objectivism. Hyper-realism or Hyperreality, on the other hand, doubts the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy. Transcendental realism
Transcendental Realism
Transcendental realism is a concept stemming from the philosophy of Immanuel Kant that implies individuals have a perfect understanding of the limitations of their own minds.-Kantian roots:...
is a concept implying that individuals have a perfect understanding of the limitations of their own minds.
In metaphysics Platonic realism
Platonic realism
Platonic realism is a philosophical term usually used to refer to the idea of realism regarding the existence of universals or abstract objects after the Greek philosopher Plato , a student of Socrates. As universals were considered by Plato to be ideal forms, this stance is confusingly also called...
describes a philosophy articulated by Plato, positing the existence of universals. Moderate realism
Moderate realism
Moderate realism is a position in the debate on the metaphysics of universals which holds that there is no realm in which universals exist , nor do they really exist within the individuals as universals, but rather universals really exist within the particulars as individualised, and multiplied...
is a position holding that there is no realm where universals exist. New realism
New realism (philosophy)
New realism was a philosophy expounded in the early 20th century by a group of six US based scholars, namely Edwin Bissell Holt , Walter Taylor Marvin , William Pepperell Montague , Ralph Barton Perry , Walter Boughton Pitkin and Edward Gleason Spaulding .The central feature of the new...
denotes a school of early 20th-century epistemology rejecting epistemological dualism and Organic realism or the Philosophy of Organism, describes the metaphysics of Alfred North Whitehead, now known as process philosophy. Australian realism or Australian materialism is a 20th Century school of philosophy in Australia. Truth-value link realism is a metaphysical concept explaining how to understand parts of the world that are apparently cognitively inaccessible.
Cornell realism
Cornell realism
Cornell realism is a view in meta-ethics, associated with the work of Richard Boyd, Nicholas Sturgeon, and David Brink, who took his Ph.D. at Cornell University but never taught there...
is a view in meta-ethics associated with the work of Richard Boyd and others.Quasi-realism
Quasi-realism
Quasi-realism is the meta-ethical view which claims that:# Ethical sentences do not express propositions.# Instead, ethical sentences project emotional attitudes as though they were real properties....
is an expressivist meta-ethical theory which asserts that though our moral claims are projectivist we understand them in realist terms. In religious philosophy Christian Realism
Christian Realism
Christian Realism is a branch of philosophy developed by Reinhold Niebuhr in the late 1940s and early 1950s.Niebuhr argued that the kingdom of heaven can not be realized on Earth because of the innately corrupt tendencies of society...
was advocated by Reinhold Niebuhr and mystical realism
Mystical realism
In philosophy, mystical realism is a view concerning the nature of the divine. The philosophical use of the term originated with the Russian philosopher Nikolai Alexandrovich Berdyaev in his published article, titled "Decadentism and Mystical Realism"....
, a philosophy concerning the nature of the divine, was advanced by Nikolai Berdyaev. Constructive realism
Constructive realism
Constructive realism is a branch of philosophy, specifically the philosophy of science. It was developed in the late 1980s by Friedrich Wallner in Vienna. In his paper abstract on constructive realism, Wallner describes it as follows:...
and entity realism
Entity realism
Entity realism is a philosophical position within the debate about scientific realism. Whereas traditional scientific realism argues that our best scientific theories are true, or approximately true, or closer to the truth than their predecessors, entity realism does not commit itself to judgments...
are philosophical positions within scientific realism. Modal realism
Modal realism
Modal realism is the view, notably propounded by David Kellogg Lewis, that all possible worlds are as real as the actual world. It is based on the following tenets: possible worlds exist; possible worlds are not different in kind from the actual world; possible worlds are irreducible entities; the...
is a philosophy propounded by David Lewis, that possible worlds are as real as the actual world
Scientific realism
Scientific realismScientific realism
Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be...
is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science (perhaps ideal science) is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be. Within philosophy of science
Philosophy of science
The philosophy of science is concerned with the assumptions, foundations, methods and implications of science. It is also concerned with the use and merit of science and sometimes overlaps metaphysics and epistemology by exploring whether scientific results are actually a study of truth...
, it is often framed as an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities
Unobservables
An unobservable is an entity whose existence, nature, properties, qualities or relations are not directly observable by man. In philosophy of science typical examples of "unobservables" are atomic particles, the force of gravity, causation and beliefs or desires . However, some philosophers An...
apparently talked about by scientific theories. Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make reliable claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological
Ontology
Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...
status) as observables, as opposed to instrumentalism
Instrumentalism
In the philosophy of science, instrumentalism is the view that a scientific theory is a useful instrument in understanding the world. A concept or theory should be evaluated by how effectively it explains and predicts phenomena, as opposed to how accurately it describes objective...
.
Scientific realism involves two basic positions. First, it is a set of claims about the features of an ideal scientific theory; an ideal theory is the sort of theory science aims to produce. Second, it is the commitment that science will eventually produce theories very much like an ideal theory and that science has done pretty well thus far in some domains. It is important to note that one might be a scientific realist regarding some sciences while not being a realist regarding others. For example, one might hold realist attitudes toward physics, chemistry and biology, and not toward economics, psychology and sociology.
Socio-political realism
Legal realismLegal realism
Legal realism is a school of legal philosophy that is generally associated with the culmination of the early-twentieth century attack on the orthodox claims of late-nineteenth-century classical legal thought in the United States...
is the theory that law is made by human beings and thus subject to human imperfections. Left realism
Left realism
Left Realist Criminology emerged out of Critical Criminology as a reaction against what was perceived to be the Left's failure to take a practical interest in everyday crime, leaving it to the Right Realists to monopolize the political agenda on law and order...
and Right Realism
Right Realism
In criminology, Right Realism is the ideological polar opposite of Left Realism...
are contrasting theories about the prevention and control of crime. Classical political realism
Classical realism in international relations theory
Classical realism is a school of thought in international relations theory associated with thinkers such as Machiavelli and Hobbes....
holds that it is fundamentally the nature of man that pushes states and individuals to act in a way that places interests over ideologies while Liberal realism or the "English school of international relations theory" centres upon the theory that there exists a 'society of states'. Defensive realism
Defensive realism
In international relations, defensive realism is a variant of political realism. Defensive realism looks at states as rational players who are the primary actors in world affairs. Defensive realism predicts that anarchy on the world stage causes states to become obsessed with security...
is a theory that anarchy on the world stage causes states to increase their security while offensive realism
Offensive realism
In international relations, offensive realism is a variant of political realism. Like realism, offensive realism regards states as the primary actors in international relations. However, offensive realism adds several additional assumptions to the framework of structural realism...
takes the view that states will exploit opportunities to expand whenever they are presented. Neorealism or structural realism is theory that international structures act as a constraint on state behavior. Post-realism
Post-realism
Post-realism is a theoretical perspective on international relations. According to post-realism, global actors are joined in a global network of thoughts, actions, and talk. Post-realism focuses particularly on the talk, on discourse and debate in the conduct and study of international relations...
sees international realism as a particular rhetoric of international relations while Subaltern realism
Subaltern realism
Subaltern realism is a theory first proposed in the 1980s and further developed in the 1990s by Professor Mohammed Ayoob, a scholar of international relations....
concerns the theory that Third World states are more concerned with short term gains.
Artistic realism
Realism in theatre denotes any movement towards greater fidelity to real life, as in Kitchen sink realismKitchen sink realism
Kitchen sink realism is a term coined to describe a British cultural movement which developed in the late 1950s and early 1960s in theatre, art, novels, film and television plays, whose 'heroes' usually could be described as angry young men...
, an English cultural movement in the 1950s and 1960s that concentrated on contemporary social realism, or Poetic realism
Poetic realism
Poetic realism was a film movement in France of the 1930s and through the war years. More a tendency than a movement, Poetic Realism is not strongly unified like Soviet Montage or French Impressionism. Its leading filmmakers were Jean Renoir, Pierre Chenal, Jean Vigo, Julien Duvivier, and Marcel...
, a film movement in France in the 1930s that used heightened aestheticism. In the visual arts
Realism (visual arts)
Realism in the visual arts is a style that depicts the actuality of what the eyes can see. The term is used in different senses in art history; it may mean the same as illusionism, the representation of subjects with visual mimesis or verisimilitude, or may mean an emphasis on the actuality of...
the term denotes any approach that depicts what the eye can see, such as in American realism
American realism
300px|thumb|[[Ashcan School]] artists & friends at [[John French Sloan]]'s Philadelphia Studio, 1898American realism was an early 20th century idea in art, music and literature that showed through these different types of work, reflections of the time period...
, a turn of the 20th century idea in arts, Classical Realism
Classical Realism
For Classical Realism in International Relations, see Realism Classical Realism refers to an artistic movement in late 20th century painting that places a high value upon skill and beauty, combining elements of 19th century neoclassicism and realism.-Origins:The term "Classical Realism" first...
, an artistic movement in late 20th Century that valued beauty and artistic skill. Literary realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
particularly denotes a 19th century literary movement. Neorealism
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
is a movement emphasising realism in cinema and literature while the New Realism
New realism
Nouveau réalisme refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan...
is an artistic movement founded in 1960 by Pierre Restany and Yves Klein. Romantic realism
Romantic realism
Romantic realism is an aesthetic term that usually refers to art which combines elements of both romanticism and realism. The terms "romanticism" and "realism" have been used in varied ways, and are sometimes seen as opposed to one another....
is an aesthetic art term popularized by writer/philosopher Ayn Rand. Aesthetic Realism
Aesthetic Realism
Aesthetic Realism is the philosophy founded by Eli Siegel in 1941. It is based on three core principles. First, according to Siegel, the deepest desire of every person is to like the world on an honest or accurate basis...
is a philosophy founded by Eli Siegel.
Forms of political realism in the arts have included Nazi heroic realism or the art of the third Reich, a style of propaganda art associated with Nazi Germany, Social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
, an artistic movement which depicts working class activities, and Socialist realism
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...
, a style of propaganda art associated with Communism.
Photorealism
Photorealism
Photorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
is a genre of painting that resembles photography, Hyperrealism (painting)
Hyperrealism (painting)
Hyperrealism is a genre of painting and sculpture resembling a high-resolution photograph. Hyperrealism is considered an advancement of Photorealism by the methods used to create the resulting paintings or sculptures...
resembles high resolution photography while Pseudorealism
Pseudorealism
Pseudorealism, also spelled pseudo-realism, is a term used in a variety of discourses connoting any artistic and dramatic technique, or work of art, film and literature perceived as superficial, not-real or non-realistic...
, is a term coined by American film critics to describe films in which digital unreal images are created and amalgamated with regular scenes thereby creating an illusion that is difficult to distinguish from reality, or a genre of art initiated by Indian artist Devajyoti Ray
Devajyoti Ray
Devajyoti Ray is an Indian painter and installation artist whose works attained significance in the post-liberalization phase of Indian economy. His works have been exhibited internationally and have been acquired by many art academies...
where reality is approached via abstraction Surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
and Magic realism
Magic realism
Magic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
are artistic genres in which magical or impossible elements appear in an otherwise realistic setting.
Miscellaneous
- Tactical realism, a genre of combat simulations in computer gaming
- Realists, a typeface in VOX-ATypI classificationVOX-ATypI classificationIn typography, the Vox-ATypI classification makes it possible to classify typefaces in eleven general classes. Devised by Maximilien Vox in 1954, it was adopted in 1962 by the Association Typographique Internationale and in 1967 as a British Standard, as British Standards Classification of...
- Realism (Steril album), a 2006 album by the German electronic band Steril
- Realism (The Magnetic Fields album)Realism (The Magnetic Fields album)Realism is an album by The Magnetic Fields. It was officially released on January 26, 2010 by Nonesuch Records.Described by songwriter Stephin Merritt as "my folk album", the instrumentation of Realism is largely acoustic, stark in contrast to the band's previous album, Distortion, released in 2008...
, a 2010 album by The Magnetic Fields
Other fields
- Depressive realismDepressive realismDepressive realism is the proposition that people with depression actually have a more accurate perception of reality, specifically that they are less affected by positive illusions of illusory superiority, the Locus of Control and optimism bias...
, a theory that individuals suffering from clinical depression have a more accurate view of reality - Ethnographic realismEthnographic realismWithin the field of anthropology and other social sciences, ethnography is a genre of writing used to describe human social and cultural interactions. Ethnographic realism is a style of ethnographic writing that narrates the author's experiences and observations as if the reader was witnessing or...
, a writing style, in anthropology, which narrates the author's experiences and observations as if they were first-hand
See also
- Anti-realismAnti-realismIn analytic philosophy, the term anti-realism is used to describe any position involving either the denial of an objective reality of entities of a certain type or the denial that verification-transcendent statements about a type of entity are either true or false...
- PseudorealismPseudorealismPseudorealism, also spelled pseudo-realism, is a term used in a variety of discourses connoting any artistic and dramatic technique, or work of art, film and literature perceived as superficial, not-real or non-realistic...
- Magic realismMagic realismMagic realism or magical realism is an aesthetic style or genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. The story explains these magical elements as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the "real" and the "fantastic" in the same stream of...
- Fantastic Realism (disambiguation)
- Irrealism (disambiguation)