Let’s start with one of the first questions that comes up in philosophical inquiry—Is there a real world external to my sensual experiences and thoughts, or is everything only in my head?
This presents us with the first meaning of “realism”—belief in the existence of a “real” world independent of my thoughts and experiences. This can be generalized as belief in the existence of an external observer-independent world.
In effect, this sets up a ledger with a vertical line down the middle. On the right side of the ledger we have our thoughts and experiences—ourselves as observers. On the left side we have the proposed observer-independent world. “Realism” in this sense is the belief that there is something on the left side of the ledger in addition to our thoughts and experiences on the right side.
Confusion
Historically philosophers have made claims about the nature of stuff on the left side of the ledger and called those claims “realism” as well. This is the source of all the confusion.
For example, Plato and his followers concluded that behind our sensual experiences as observers there existed eternal forms. He surmised that these “forms” existed on the observer-independent side of the ledger, i.e. they were “real” independent of our thoughts and experiences.
Pythagoras and his followers concluded that there were eternal mathematical truths independent of us as observers, thus placing these on the left side of the ledger. Later philosophers referred to things of this sort as “universals” and concluded that universals are observer-independent and thus “real” and thus, again, located on the left (observer-independent) side of the ledger.
Today, most philosophers and scientists place scientific concepts (such as atoms, elements, electrons, protons, photons, molecules, genes, etc) on the observer-independent side—this is usually called “scientific realism”.
The result of this terminology is that if you take a position which rejects forms realism, mathematical realism, or scientific realism, you are called an anti-realist. But philosophers who take these “anti-realist” positions are almost always still realists. They still assert that there is an observer-independent reality on the left side of the ledger.
I am among that number.
I embrace realism. What I reject is the assumption that forms or universals or scientific concepts or information—or whatever else is being incorrectly pushed over to the left side—belongs there. I believe these belong on the “observer” side of the ledger and should not be moved to the observer-independent side. I think this movement is a category mistake.
Is there really confusion?
Yes, and examples are everywhere. Here’s one, which comes from an article in New Scientist, September 7, 2024, called “Reality’s comeback” by Karmela Padavic-Callaghan.
“Realism is, loosely speaking, the belief that the world exists independent of us and that there is a truth about how things ‘really’ are,” says Sabine Hossenfelder at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in Germany. “It is a philosophical position, not a scientific one, though I suspect that most scientists are realists.”1
Notice that Hossenfelder confuses realism (belief in an external, observer-independent world) with the secondary claim that “there is truth about how things ‘really’ are.” These are separate assertions, but the article conflates them into a single assumption. In this article Padavic-Callaghan also misunderstands Niels Bohr2, who in fact understood the importance of not conflating physical reality with our model or understanding of physical reality—a point she (and the scientists she quotes) fail to appreciate.)
So there is a terminology problem. If you lack the language to distinguish a from b, and conflate both with a, your ability to usefully understand a or b will be stymied.
I propose a solution
We should use the term epirealism (epi-realism) for any add-on assertion about the nature of the left side of the ledger. “Epi” is a prefix meaning “upon” or “on top of” and so epirealism is any position which makes an assertion on top of the existence of an observer-independent reality. It is realism plus a positive assertion about the nature of what is on the left side of the ledger.
The general position I take (along with many others termed “anti-realists”) is that the observer-independent side of the ledger must be imagined as strictly and literally observer independent. That is, we must remove all our observer biases from our understanding of what it is. This is not so easy to do, since the abilities we evolved to have, our observer-abilities, are unavoidably biased.
If we push our experiences (such as experiences of objects, properties, relationships, information) to the left side of the ledger, we are putting them where they don’t belong and don’t properly exist.
Of course we (including our thoughts and experiences) exist as part of the observer-independent world, but the point here is that the “observer” part of us must properly stay on the proper side of the ledger—this is precisely because the “observer” aspect of organisms such as us evolved to be a stand-in for an otherwise inscrutable external world.
Recap
We all have an “in here” composed of experiences and thoughts. One of the first questions we may ask is whether “in here” is all that exists—or are these experiences and thoughts “about” an external “out there” independent of our world “in here”? If we decide that there is an “out there” independent of our “in here” then we have adopted realism—the belief in an observer-independent reality.
If we decide that some of the things we experience or conceive of “in here” actually also exist “out there” then we have added additional beliefs onto our realism. These additions should be referred to as epirealisms so we don’t confuse things. Epirealisms are assertions about the nature of the observer-independent reality.
If we don’t make this distinction, then we end up with each advocate of realism defining advocates of realism who don’t accept his or her claim about the nature of observer-independent reality as anti-realist, when in fact they are realists (just not members of his or her cult of realism).
New Scientist, September 7, 2024, cover story “Can we solve quantum theory’s biggest problem by redefining reality?” (actual article is titled, “Reality’s comeback”) by Karmela Padavic-Callaghan.
Padavic-Callaghan quotes Bohr: ‘“It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is,” he said in an often-repeated quote from the early days of quantum theory. “Physics concerns what we can say about nature.”’ She then proceeds: “But many find [Bohr’s] viewpoint deeply unsatisfying and want to believe in a world composed of sensible objects that exist independently of what we know about them. They are, in other words, realists.”
Bohr was a realist. But he fully understood Alfred Korzybski apparently forgotten aphorism, “The map is not the territory.” Scientists (including quantum physicists) create maps—and then test to see how well the maps (models) work when traversing the territory. And then they improve the maps. Bohr realized that even the best map could never equal the territory, and this is because the territory remains fundamentally different in nature from the nature of any possible map or model.
This was first posted in my Substack, Preface to Atheism—https://dwightlyman.substack.com/p/realism-and-epirealism
