Realism and Idealism

Conversation 9, Socrates Worldview 6/22

SOCRATES. Good morning, Adeimantus! I see you’ve brought a friend with you.

ADEIMANTUS. Yes, Socrates. This is Giles. I told him we were going to talk about science, and he asked if he could come along. Giles doesn’t believe in science, and he wants to challenge your arguments.

S. You are most welcome to join our discussion, Giles, but has Adeimantus told you the price? You must agree to adopting a more suitable name.

GILES. He did mention it.

S. We will consider the name when we know more about you. So, you do not believe in science! You are not a postmodernist, are you?

G. I am not sure what a postmodernist is.

S. Well then, let me ask you¹, do you admit the existence of an objective natural reality that exists and operates independently of the human mind?

G. I am not sure if I do.

S. Do you believe that statements of scientists and historians are objectively either true or false?

G. No, I don’t believe in objective truth.

S. And do you admit the universal validity of reason and logic, by which I mean that the rules of reason and logic are the same for all people and all time?

G. No, I think that what seems logical to you might not be logical to me.

S. What about human nature? Do you think that there are some dispositions that are innate in most people, for example those ideas that are sometime called ‘natural law’?

G. Again no. I think that pretty much all our attitudes are determined by our social context.

S. I could ask more questions, Giles, but I have heard enough to classify you as a postmodernist, or at least you would be one if you clarified your thinking. I think it would be appropriate if we called you Critobulus, if you don’t mind.

CRITOBULUS. Alright then, if that is the price I have to pay.

S. Very well, Critobulus. We have work to do before we can discuss science because one of the foundations of science is the proposition that there is an objective natural reality. Before we can accept that, even as a starting position, we must discuss the philosophical concepts of Realism and Idealism.

A. I suppose it was inevitable!

S. Yes, Adeimantus, I suppose you are on top of all this, but we need to bring Critobulus up to speed. Now then Critobulus, since you say you do not accept that there is an objective natural reality, it is evident that you are not a realist.

C. You are wrong there, Socrates. I am very much a realist. My moto is, ‘It is what it is.’

S. Let me clarify, Critobulus. You are talking about your emotional acceptance of whatever life dishes up to you. You ‘take it as it comes.’ One is tempted to say that you take things philosophically, but that would clearly be an overstatement. I would say you are more a fatalist than a realist. However, in our discussion today we are talking about Realism and Idealism as they relate to metaphysics, by which I mean the study of what it is for a thing to be or to exist (Zimmerman, et al. 2021).

C. Okay, I think I’m with you.

S. Let us continue with Realism. A great many hairs have been split by philosophers discussing this topic, and we don’t want to waste what is left of our lives trying to unravel the many threads they’ve created. Broadly speaking, Realism is the viewpoint which accords to things an objective natural existence, by which I mean ‘an existence or nature which is independent of whether anyone is thinking about or perceiving them’ (Hale 2020).

A. That is just common sense, Socrates. Not many people would argue with that viewpoint these days.

S. Quite so, Adeimantus, except for our friend Critobulus here, and people of his ilk.

C. Are you saying that I lack common sense?

S. Not so blatantly, Critobulus, but I would say that once you deny there are things that have objective reality, then you have put yourself into a philosophical position where you have a bit of explaining to do! But let us leave that for another time. For today, there is an important clarification I would like to offer. This concerns whether the properties of things are real, in the sense of existing independently of whether anyone is thinking about or perceiving them.

C. What do you mean by ‘properties’?

S. For example, a blue car and a blue chair could be said to share the property of blueness, but does the property of blueness have an objective existence? Some realists, especially in ancient times, would have said so. I would not, even though I consider myself to be a realist in relation to things. My realism is closer to everyday common sense. In relation to properties, I am a nominalist. I consider properties to be descriptive words that apply to some things, not things in themselves. Going back to our blueness example, the blue car and the blue chair happen, somewhat incidentally, to produce the same colour sensation in our eyes, but not because they share ‘blueness’. If we put them under a microscope, the appearance of blueness disappears as we zoom in. If we zoom in far enough, we might find that the car and the chair both contain atoms that absorb and retransmit blue light. That makes them both look blue. We say they are blue, even though they do not share a thing called blueness.

C. My coffee is developing the property of coldness, Socrates!

S. Then drink up! I will order you another.

A. Where is all this heading, Socrates?

S. That will become apparent, Adeimantus. Bear with me. Now let us consider the property of ‘chairiness’. The chairs upon which we currently sit might be said to share that property. You do not deny that the things we call chairs upon which we sit exist, do you Critobulus?

C. I would admit that I am aware of an appearance of being seated on a chair.

S. Well said, Critobulus! But I continue. I contend that the things we are sitting on have no inherent chairiness. We just call them chairs because they have the general shape and evident purpose of things we have learned to call ‘chair’. In objective reality, they are merely pieces of wood, plastic, and metal. If we were to examine them at the atomic and molecular level, we would find nothing ‘chairy’ about them. In fact, at the atomic level we would find nothing that could be described as wood, plastic, or metal either. Chairiness evaporates as we zoom in.

A. I accept that, Socrates. Go on!

S. We have come to the point I wanted to make, Adeimantus. What I have said about chairs applies also to people. In the sense of Realism of the nominalist kind, there is no such thing as Socrates, or any other person for that matter! ‘Socrates’ is just the name you and I use to refer to a particular bunch of atoms that persists in time and talks in a certain way. If we zoom into Socrates, we find Socrates disappears and there are just atoms with nothing of Socrates about them. To be more precise, I would call Socrates a ‘concept’. The purpose for talking about this will become more apparent when we pursue science to it conclusion. For now, let us say more about Realism and contrast it with Idealism.

C. Do you mean there is more to say about Realism?

S. Indeed there is, Critobulus. I need to point out that Realism does not necessarily rule out that mind or minds might have objective reality. Only when the objective reality of mind is excluded do we come to the materialism that is so prevalent in our society today. When modern science got going as a realist enterprise, many scientists would have accepted the reality of mind or minds. I should point out that a religion can be realist, although not all religions or modes of religious thought are. The Judeo-Christian religious tradition in its more original and orthodox form is realist. It says God has objective existence and insofar as human souls are recognised, they have objective existence also, along with the whole of creation.

A. These days most people are practical realists, wouldn’t you say Socrates, because science, which is fundamentally realist, so manifestly works in practice.

S. I agree, Adeimantus, that most people these days are practical realists, even if they go astray when they think philosophically, or if they prefer a non-realist argument because it supports their cause or preference. But it was not always so obvious. Idealism, in its many and various forms, did have a valid claim. The ancients thought that if an idea presented itself to the consciousness, the idea was just as present and real as an object perceived through the senses. The ‘mind’s eye’ was treated like a sense.

C. They must have been crazy!

S. Far from it, Critobulus. Until recently, most people thought that an immaterial mind was necessary for perception and thought, because nobody could imagine how a physical machine could think and be conscious. It is only now when we have computers and ‘artificial intelligence’ that we are becoming comfortable with the idea that human consciousness, or mind, could arise from purely material processes.

C. Granted, I suppose.

S. So you see, if you think that immaterial mind is necessary for anything to be perceived, it is only a short step to believing that it is the process of mental perception that creates the reality of the thing being perceived, or that the idea of a thing held in a mind is the source of its existence in reality.

A. Quite so. Did not Plato maintain that the most real things were ideas held in the mind of God? Another mind, especially a philosopher’s mind, either shared in the mind of God, or could interact with it to be aware, to a greater or lesser extent, of those ideal things. Plato thought that the trained or gifted mind of a philosopher was more able to see the true nature of ideal things than the mind of the common person. Therefore, society should be ruled by philosophers!

S. God save us from that, Adeimantus! Well now, we have moved on to Idealism. Idealism comes in many shapes and forms. The common theme of all forms of Idealism is that the mind is involved in creating reality (Guyer and Horstmann 2022). One of the more extreme forms asserts that a thing does not exist unless it is perceived by some mind.

A. ‘If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?’

S. Exactly, Adeimantus. Other forms assert there are things that exist independently of mind, but what we know of them depends so much on our mental constructs that the thing as we know it is a creation of our mind. The reality we perceive is created in our mind.

C. I think we all create our own reality.

S. Hold that thought, Critobulus. We will return to it another day.

A. I don’t suppose Idealism has many followers in the western world these days, given that science is realist and science has done so well at explaining things?

S. You are right about that, Adeimantus. Idealism was heavily attacked in the last century by the British philosophers G.E. Moore and Bertrand Russell (Guyer and Horstmann 2022) whose arguments swayed many.

C. Why do you use initials for Moore and the full first name for Russell?

S. You ask a deep philosophical question, Critobulus. Did I freely choose to use initials for Moore, or was I compelled by determinism to do so? And how would I know? But let us return to Idealism. It is very interesting, at least to me, that both Moore and Russell admitted they had not proved that Idealism is false, but just that idealists have no good reason for thinking it to be a true description of how the world is.

A. Is there any philosophical system that can be proven to be either true or false?

S. That is the best question yet, Adeimantus. It will be of some importance when we discuss science. As for Idealism, where minds are involved, there is always an element of subjectivism, by which I mean that my perception of reality might differ from yours because our two minds construct or interpret things differently. How are we to know whose version of reality is true, if any? Science, based on Realism, is very good at predicting things. The various forms of Idealism seem to have very little predictive power in the physical world.

A. Why do you say, ‘in the physical world?’

S. Well spotted, Adeimantus. I say that because science is analytical. It deconstructs physical processes into simple elements for which it can make good predictions. But the human person disappears under the deconstructive process of science. As I said before, if I deconstruct Socrates into little bits in order to study them, Socrates disappears. Science is not good for talking about the lived experience of being a person. In that respect Idealism, with its emphasis on mental concepts as the elements of experienced reality, is more suited to the job of synthesising, of putting the person back together, if you like. That is why I limited my criticism of Idealism to its use in describing the physical world. In the mental world, it might be much more useful.

A. I see.

S. Even though Idealism is not popular these days, it remains seductive. Moore and Russell, after having tried to demolish Idealism, immediately got themselves tied up in knots trying to explain how we know things. They both ended up coming to a position that is very like the Idealism they sought to criticise.

C. You mean they got tangled up in epistemology?

S. Well done, Critobulus. I see you are not a complete beginner in this business. It should come as no surprise that the ‘Big Idea’, by which I mean God, should have laid down as his first commandment, ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me.’ Yes, Idealism is very seductive. We latch onto a charming idea and want to make a god of it. If you will allow me to indulge myself for a moment, let me say that even my arch enemy, the humanist philosopher Grayling, is not immune to its charms. Unwittingly, the professor makes a god of Reason, and since his reason is more rational than that of the common person, he feels himself closer to his god, and that therefore his ideas should rule. Freud would have a field day.

A. Calm yourself, Socrates.

S. We have covered a lot of ground this morning. We have been debating around the philosophical bushes because we must be clear about the scope of science and understand when either it has been used beyond its scope, or it has been attacked on unfair grounds. Tomorrow we will dive into the much more straightforward business of science. I hope you will join us, Critobulus.

C. We postmodernists are used to trading insults, Socrates. I will see you tomorrow.

References

Duigan, Brian. 2022. "Postmodernism." In Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed September 8, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy.

Guyer, Paul, and Rolf-Peter Horstmann. 2022. "Idealism." In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2022/entries/idealism.

Hale, Bob. 2020. "Realism." In Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed September 8, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/topic/realism-philosophy.

Zimmerman, Dean W., A. C. Grayling, Richard Wolin, Peter Inwagen, and William Henry Walsh. 2021. "Metaphysics." In Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed September 1, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/topic/metaphysics.

1. Socrates bases these questions on the article ‘Postmodernism’ in (Duigan 2022).