For example, value theory is concerned with the reality of values, and the philosophy of mathematics explores in what sense mathematical objects, like numbers and sets, form part of reality. Different worldviews offer distinct answers to existential questions about meaning, morality, and the nature of reality, such as the contrast between religious and secular worldviews. One perspective holds that such objects are illusory or unreal because they lack existence in the physical world outside the simulation.
Various criteria for distinguishing real from unreal entities have been proposed, including causal powers, mind-independence, and being non-illusory. It is often contrasted with appearance, opposing what is with what seems to be, although the accuracy and fundamentality of this contrast are disputed.
In Hindu philosophy, the school of Advaita Vedanta emerged in the 8th century and held that the world of everyday appearances is an illusion, contrasting it with the ultimate reality of Brahman. The school of Vaisheshika arose roughly in the 2nd century BCE and developed a system of six fundamental categories of being. Various historiographical debates address the question of whether a truly objective account of the past is possible. Some doctrines hold that God constitutes the most fundamental level of reality as the divine origin of all creation. One strand of the field analyzes culture-specific worldviews and compares them across societies. The simulation hypothesis is the view that the whole world and everything within it is a simulated reality, including humans.
Values
Epistemology, another philosophical subdiscipline, explores how people can know reality. They examine what it means for something to be real, how entities are divided into different categories of being, and which entities exist at the most fundamental level. Accordingly, worldviews address not only theoretical matters but also practical and evaluative outlooks about what matters and how one should act.
- An even wider definition includes everything that has existed, exists, or will exist.
- Formalism, another form of anti-realism, understands mathematics as a practice of symbol manipulation, suggesting that mathematical truth is grounded in whether the manipulation rules permit the construction of a proof.
- In this sense, realism and anti-realism encompass many domain-specific positions across diverse fields.
- Some philosophers, such as Alexius Meinong, hold that being is a broader concept than reality, encompassing nonexistent objects, such as merely possible or incomplete objects, in addition to real or actual ones.
- For example, psychologism asserts that mathematical objects are mental constructions or ideas rather than abstract objects.
- The school of Vaisheshika arose roughly in the 2nd century BCE and developed a system of six fundamental categories of being.
External links
The term reality overlaps with various related concepts, such as being, existence, world, actuality, and truth. This view contrasts being real with being fake, like the distinction between a real duck and a fake one used as a decoy. In a broad sense, appearances are not limited to what people perceive but can also include memories, beliefs, and thoughts. Debates between realists and anti-realists span multiple domains, addressing the objective existence of universals, abstract objects, values, and unobservable entities posited by scientific theories. The concept of reality overlaps with notions such as being, existence, world, actuality, and truth.
Levels of reality
Discussed in ancient Greek philosophy as the Eleatic principle, it states that to be real is to be able to produce changes and to be affected by them. Criteria of reality are proposed features or standards that distinguish real entities from unreal ones. In this sense, it is the state of being real or what all real entities have in common, separating them from unreal or illusory ones. In a slightly different sense, reality is not the totality itself but an aspect shared by all its constituents. Theories of the nature mister golden of reality have been discussed since antiquity and continue to shape contemporary inquiry, with influential early traditions originating in ancient Indian, Chinese, and Greek thought. Contemporary technology in the form of augmented and virtual reality can inform experience and raises questions about the ontological status of virtual objects.
Other suggested criteria identify reality with what is observable, measurable,a coherent,b useful, objective, intersubjective, or fundamental. This view emphasizes that reality is encountered, rather than invented, and can resist or frustrate beliefs and desires, unlike malleable imaginary creations. Another influential proposal treats mind-independence as a criterion of reality, arguing that real entities do not depend on how people think about them. The Eleatic principle is controversial because it is typically taken to deny that abstract objects studied in fields like mathematics, such as numbers, are real. However, stories about Santa Claus, such as written texts in children’s books, are part of reality since they can influence how people think.
Viewpoints on reality
- Influenced by Kant, Edmund Husserl (1859–1938) argued that reality is tied to consciousness as an intersubjective correlate of experience that cannot be reduced to a wholly mind-independent substrate.
- Scientific realism is the view that the best scientific theories provide an accurate description of a mind-independent world.
- Anti-realism about abstract objects in mathematics takes various forms, including, but not limited to, fictionalism.
- According to subjectivism, values depend on the attitudes and preferences of individuals.
- Some doctrines hold that God constitutes the most fundamental level of reality as the divine origin of all creation.
- Anti-realists hold that there are no abstract objects and offer alternative explanations.
While some skeptical scenarios use the idea of a simulated reality to challenge the reliability of human cognition, contemporary technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality can also inform experience. Although it is not a widely accepted position, various thought experiments undermining the reliability of human cognitive faculties are discussed in the academic literature. Moral skepticism is the view that there is no moral knowledge, for instance, that one cannot know whether a given behavior is morally right or wrong. Some forms target specific domains of knowledge, such as religious skepticism, which denies that beliefs about God or other religious doctrines amount to knowledge. Philosophers examine various limitations of knowledge or obstacles to the cognitive contact with reality. Philosophers discuss various sources of knowledge as ways of how this cognitive contact is established, including perception, introspection, reason, memory, and testimony.
In the social sciences, critical realism holds that observable events in the social world only partially disclose reality. Local realism is a view that combines the principle of locality with the notion that there are definite physical properties, whether or not they are being observed by someone. For example, psychologism asserts that mathematical objects are mental constructions or ideas rather than abstract objects. It holds that this practice can be useful in some contexts without ascribing substantive or framework-independent reality to such entities. According to conceptualism, universals exist in the mind as concepts through which people categorize and order their impressions, acting as tools of cognitive organization rather than properties of external entities. Platonism about universals holds that they are part of reality in their own right, independent of the particular entities that instantiate them.
Levels of reality
More general constraints arise from limits of human cognitive faculties rather than situation-specific circumstances, such as facts too complex for anyone to conceive. Testimony is a transmission of knowledge from one person to another through communication.k Memory is the capacity to store information from other sources and make it available to cognitive processes when needed. Reason is the ability to draw logical inferences and arrive at truths independent of immediate sensory input. Anti-realism is understood as a view that identifies the meaning of a statement with the evidence that would support it or the conditions under which a person is justified in asserting it.
It is often contrasted with essence, which denotes the nature or characteristic features of an entity. A central topic in ontology is the categories of being—fundamental classes that map out a comprehensive inventory of reality. Becoming, by contrast, covers change, like when an entity shifts from one state of being to another.