Realism and Nominalism

A pair of opposite epistemological philosophical categories. Realism is a theory that takes objective existence, which is independent of human knowledge and consciousness, as the object of human knowledge. The opposite theory is nominalism. In philosophy, realism is a concept widely used but vague in meaning. Ordinary people believe in the objective existence of the external world in their daily life, which is called “naive realism”. Lenin pointed out that “The ‘naive realism’ any healthy person who has not been an inmate of a lunatic asylum or a pupil of the idealist philosophers consists in the view that things, the environment, the world, exist independently of our sensation, of our consciousness, of our self and of man in general.” Materialism deliberately makes the “naive” belief of mankind the foundation of its theory of knowledge. Different from “naive realism”, different philosophical schools differ dramatically in interpreting “realism”. Idealists define “universals” as independent spiritual entities that are primary, and specific other things as secondary—this is the spiritual “realism” of idealists; materialists believe that objective things are an existence independent of spirit, and matter is primary and consciousness is secondary—this is the material “realism” of materialists. The philosophy of realism has a long history in the west. Plato emphasized the independence and transcendental existence of essence or form Philo Judeaus a contemporary of Jesus evaluated regarded Plato’s formal existence as the spirit of God. Under the influence of neo-Platonism, Augustine combined philosophy with theology, regarding God as the core and faith as the premise, to systematically demonstrate the basic tenets of Christianity. He argued that the material world is temporary, the soul is eternal, and God is infinite and eternal beyond existence. Knowledge can only come from faith. Only by believing in its existence can one pursue it devoutly…

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