REALISM
Realism denotes two distinct sets of philosophical theories, one
regarding the nature of universal concepts and the other dealing with
knowledge of objects in the world. In late - classical and medieval
philosophy, realism was a development of the Platonic theory of Forms
and held, generally, that universals such as "red" or "man" have an
independent, objective existence, either in a realm of their own or in
the mind of God. Medieval realism is usually contrasted with
Nominalism, and Peter Abelard and William of Occam provided the
classic critiques of realism from this point of view. In modern
philosophy realism is a broad term, encompassing several movements
whose unity lies in a common rejection of philosophical Idealism. In
its most general form, realism asserts that objects in the external
world exist independently of what is thought about them.
The most straightforward of such theories is usually known as naive
realism. It contends that in perception humans are made directly aware
of objects and their attributes and thus have immediate access to the
external world. This view fails, however, to explain perceptual
mistakes and illusions, and most realists argue that causal processes
in the mind mediate, or interpret, directly perceived appearances.
Thus, the objects remain in essence independent, although the causal
mechanism may distort, or even wholly falsify, the individual's
knowledge of them. Anselm's form of realism led him to the belief that
by giving proper attention to universal concepts one could prove the
truths of theology. He accepted revealed truth, but was convinced that
one should exercise reason in apprehending the truth. For example, he
was convinced that by "necessary reasons" he could demonstrate the
existence of God. Because God is the greatest of beings, Anselm
reasoned in his Pros logion, he must exist in reality as well as in
thought, for if he existed in thought only, a greater being could be
conceived of. Thus from consideration of an ideal or universal Anselm
believed that he could derive truth about what actually exists.
Augustine had modified Plato's realism by holding that universals
existed before the material universe in God's creative mind.
Twelfth century ultrarealists, such as Duns Scotus, Odo of Tournai,
and William of Champeaux, expanded this viewpoint (in his early
years), to posit that the logical and real orders are exactly
parallel. By proposing that universals come before individuals, the
ultrarealists maintained that the reality of individuals came from the
universal. Thus, humanity as a universal preceded individual men.
Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologica amended this ultrarealist
position by developing Aristotle's doctrine that universals have a
being only in material objects. According to Aquinas, we cannot assert
that universals exist wholly apart from individual objects inasmuch as
we know of them only through sensory impressions of individual
objects. Thus, universals are abstracted from the knowledge rooted in
individual things. This "moderate realism" stressed that human reason
could not totally grasp God's being. One could profitably use reason,
then, to determine universals and one could use reason in theology
whenever it was concerned with the connection between universals and
individual objects. Realism had a great effect on the "natural
theology" of medieval scholasticism.
It affected both the method of demonstration and the shape of the
theological dogmas, which resulted. In philosophy, the theory that
universals (properties such as 'redness') have an existence
independent of the human mind. Realists hold that the essence of
things is objectively given in nature, and that our classifications
are not arbitrary. As such, realism is contrasted with Nominalism, the
theory that universals are merely names or general terms. More
generally, realism is any philosophical theory that emphasizes the
existence of some kind of things or objects, in contrast to theories
that dispense with the things in question in favor of words, ideas, or
logical constructions. In particular, the term stands for the theory
that there is a reality quite independent of the mind. In this sense,
realism is opposed to idealism, the theory that only minds and their
contents exist.
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