Realism
"Realistic" redirects here. For the brand of the same name, see Radio Shack.Realism is commonly defined as a concern for fact or reality and a rejection of the impractical and visionary. As a word in common use, however,
realism is employed to suggest a wide variety of meanings, the choice among them depending on the context of use and the pertinent community of interpretation, from the
arts, especially
film,
literature, and
painting, to
philosophy,
politics, and
international relations.
As a term of art in philosophy,
realism refers to the thesis that general properties, technically known as
universals, have a mode of existence or a form of reality that is in a certain sense independent of the things that possess them. Opposing theses, known as
nominalism, Irrealism, and
conceptualism, hold that universals are not real or do not properly exist, that only individuals and particulars exist, and that it is only the corresponding general concepts of thought or universal terms of language, serving as equivocal denotations of many particular things, that deceive the mind into thinking so. Philosophical realism is also referred to as
Platonic realism or
Scholastic realism, depending on the nuances of the particular variant in mind. In some versions of realism, in stark contrast to everyday usage, a distinction is drawn between
existence and
reality, based on the idea that potentials can be real but that only actuals can exist.
In a separate context of discussion,
realism is contrasted with both
idealism and
materialism, and is more controversially considered by others to be synonymous with the position in the
philosophy of mind known as
dualism. In recent transmogrifications of the word,
realism is contrasted with
anti-realism and
irrealism.
Increasingly these last disputes, too, are rejected as misleading, and some philosophers prefer to call the kind of realism espoused there
metaphysical realism and eschew the whole debate in favour of simple
naturalism or
natural realism, which is not so much a theory as the position that these debates are ill-conceived if not incoherent, and that there is no more to deciding what is
really real than simply taking our words at face value.
Realism in
art and
literature is the depiction of subjects as they appear in
everyday life, with minimal embellishment or interpretation. The term is also used to describe works of art which, in revealing a truth, may emphasize the sordid or ugly.
Realism also refers to a mid-19th century cultural movement with its roots in
France.
The 2nd Half of the 19th Century has been called the positive age.
The term "realism" comes from the German compound word "
Realpolitik", from the words "real" (meaning "realistic", "practical", or "actual") and "Politik" (meaning "politics"). It focuses on the balance of power among nation-states.
Bismarck coined the term after following Metternich's lead in finding ways to balance the power of European empires. Balancing power meant keeping the peace, and careful realpolitik practitioners tried to avoid
arms races. that the international system is
anarchic, in the sense that there is no authority above states capable of regulating their interactions; states must arrive at relations with other states on their own, rather than it being dictated to them by some higher controlling entity (that is, no true authoritative
world government exists). It also assumes that
sovereign states, rather than international institutions, non-governmental organizations, or multinational corporations, are the primary actors in international affairs. According to realism, each state is a
rational actor that always acts towards its own
self-interest, and the primary goal of each state is to ensure its own
security. Realism holds that in pursuit of that security, states will attempt to amass
resources, and that relations between states are determined by their relative level of power. That level of power is in turn determined by the state's capabilities, both military and economic. Moreover, Realists believe that States are inherently aggressive ("offensive realism"), and that territorial expansion is only constrained by opposing power(s). The principal Realist theorists are
E.H. Carr,
Hans Morgenthau,
Reinhold Niebuhr, and
John Mearsheimer.
After the Second World War, a new school of "structural" realism or
neorealism, developed in the American political science tradition, sought to redefine realist theory as a rigorous
positivist social science by incorporating a concept of political
structure into the central idea of
anarchy.
Philosophy and science
*
Critical realism*
Idealism*
Naive realism*
Philosophical skepticism*
Platonic realism*
Rationalism*
Representationalism*
Scientific realism*
TechnorealismArts and literature
*
Abstract art*
Dystopia*
Everyday life*
Figurative art*
Hyperreality*
Impressionism*
Irrealism*
Neorealism (art)*
Representation (arts)*
Romanticism*
Sentimentalism*
Sentimental novel*
Surrealism*
Utopia*
Utopianism*
Virtual realityJurisprudence and law
*
Legal realismPolitics and international relations
*
International relations theory*
Neorealism*
Realo*
Realpolitik*
Socialist realism*
Technorealism*
Realism in American Literature at the Literary Movements site*
Realism in Philosophy at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
