REALISM, (1) a term in at least two fun damentally different seems in the history of phi losophy. (a) During the period of scholasti cism (q.v.), realism denotes the doctrine that universals have an existence which is in some sense independent of the particular things that appear to the senses. This theory is de rived from Plato's doctrine of ideas, and goes back ultimately to the Socratic view that only through the concept, or universal idea, is it pos sible to obtain real knowledge. Plato, develop ing this position, maintained that the universals, as ideas, exist apart from the world of sen sible appearances, and from the true and abid ing reality, while the latter is merely the world of imperfect copies, the transitory and inade (pate repreSentations bi this true world of supersensible existence. In spite of the differ ences in name, then, and the necessary differ ence of interest in the problem due to the special intellectual outlook of the times, media val Realism in its earlier and extreme form is identical in standpoint with Platonic Idealism. The later mediaeval realists, under the criticism of nominalism (q.v.), modified the extreme view that universals exist apart from things, in the same direction in which Aristotle modified Plato's doctrine of the separate existence of ideas. That is, instead of defending, the ex treme proposition that universals exist prior to and independent of things (universalia ante rem), they maintained with Aristotle that the universal, the type or form, is an essential factor in constituting the particular an in dividual thing, and that the two are, there fore, always found together (universalia iK rebus). The whole problem of the rela tion of the universal and the particular, as it presented itself to the scholastic mind, received its most adequate statement and solu tion at the hands of Thomas Aquinas. He pointed out that there is a sense in which all of the formulas that had been proposed by realists and nominalists alike are true and justifiable. We may say that the universal is prior to the thing and independent of it, inas much as we must suppose that the idea as a universal existed in the mind of God before particular things were created; and in this sense we may, therefore, accept the statement univer salia ante rem. But it is the presence of uni versals that gives to particulars their reality, and it is through their presence in things that they are known to us; therefore, the formula unsversalia in re *s is justified. Furthermore, it is the particular, not the universal, that is first known to us. So that from the standpoint of our knowledge, we may admit the nominal istic proposition universalia post rem.
(b) In modern philosophy, Realism has an entirely different meaning, and is directly op posed to Idealism (q.v.). Realism in modern ing, the mind deals directly with independent real things. This reality is guaranteed by eCommon Sense ,D or the fundamental intuitions of mankind. By Kant, on the contrary, the world ofperceptive experience is regarded as merely a phenomenon of consciousness. There remains for Kant, however, a world of things in-themselves beyond experience which can never be known, but which we are necessarily obliged to think as the basis of the phenomenal world. As completely unknown and unknow able, this world of ultimate reality is incapable of any description or theoretical treatment whatever. Herbert Spencer, who speaks of his view as °Transfigured Realism,) occupies fun damentally the same position as Kant. Her bart (1776-1841), while agreeing with Kant that the world of sense-experience is phenome nal and exists only for a knowing conscious ness, still holds that it is possible to define and determine by means of metaphysical investiga tion the nature of realty in itself. He, there fore, postulates the existence of a plurality of absolute (Reale), each of which is sim ple and unchangeable, and between which rela tions obtain which give rise to the phenomenal order of experience. Leibnitz (1646-1715) in his doctrine of monads, Fechner (1801-87), and Lotze (1817-81), regarded the ultimate of nature of reality to be a system of physical forms of existence or souls. At present, es pecially in England and America, there is an active philosophical school which calls itself and is called the New Realism. Its distinguish ing characteristic is a view of the mind which finds the unity of consciousness largely or en tirely in the structural relations of the system of mental states, which when combined after another fashion are not mental at all, but com ponents of the physical universe. It is apparent that this demands a view of relationship which considers the terms of a relation as capable of entering without change into another relational context. The New Realism is usually associated with a view that true knowledge consists in an identity of structure, and possibly also of con tent between the state of knowledge and the object known. In England the best known ad herents of this school are B. A. W. Russell and G. E. Moore. In America the New Realists comprise R. B. Perry, E. B. Holt, F. J. W. Woodbridge, W. P. Montague, W. T. Marvin, W. B. Pitkin, E. G. Spaulding, G. S. Fullerton, J. E. Boodin and E. B. McGilvary.