Contemporary
philosophical realism is the belief that some aspect of our
reality is
ontologically independent of our
conceptual schemes,
perceptions,
linguistic practices,
beliefs, etc. Realism may be spoken of with respect to
other minds, the
past, the
future,
universals,
mathematical entities (such as
natural numbers),
moral categories, the
material world, and
thought. Realism can also be promoted in an unqualified sense, in which case it asserts the mind-independent existence of a visible world, as opposed to
skepticism and
solipsism. Philosophers who profess realism state that
truth consists in the mind's
correspondence to reality.