Realism

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Realism is commonly defined as a concern for fact or reality and rejection of the impractical and visionary. However, the term realism is used, with varying meanings, in several of the liberal arts; particularly painting, literature, and philosophy. It is also used in international relations. In philosophy, realism is the view that there is an external world that exists independent of our perception of it.

1 Realism in visual arts and literature
2 Realism in philosophy
3 Realism in politics
4 Realism in international relations
5 External links

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Realism in visual arts and literature

Main article: Realism (arts)

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Realism in philosophy

Main article: philosophical realism

Realism in philosophical thinking is the belief that properties, usually called Universals, exist independently of the things that manifest them. Thus a realist would hold that even if one were to destroy all of the manifestations of the color red the universal red would still exist. Competing views contrasted with realism, such as nominalism, hold that universals do not "exist" at all; they are no more than words used strictly to describe specific objects, and do not name separately existing things.

In another sense, realism is contrasted with both idealism and materialism, and considered synonymous with weak dualism. In still a third and very contemporary sense, realism is contrasted with anti-realism and "irrealism".

Both these disputes are often carried out relative to some specific area: one might, for example, be a realist about physical matter but an anti-realist about ethics.

Increasingly these last disputes, too, are rejected as misleading, and some philosophers prefer to call the kind of realism espoused there, "metaphysical realism," and eschew the whole debate in favour of simple "naturalism" or "natural realism", which is not so much a theory as the position that these debates are "ill-conceived" if not "incoherent," and that there is no more to deciding what is really real than simply taking our words at face value.

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Realism in politics

Another term for political pragmatism.

Applies to party politics, as to moderate political factions, e.g. Realo.

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Realism in international relations

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The term "realism" comes from the German compound word "realpolitik", from the words "real" (meaning "realistic", "practical", or "actual") and "politik" (meaning "politics"). It focuses on the balance of power among nation-states. Bismarck coined the term after following Metternich's lead in finding ways to balance the power of European empires. Balancing power meant keeping the peace, and careful realpolitik practitioners tried to avoid arms races. However, during the early-20th Century, arms races (and alliances) occurred anyway, culminating in World War I.

Realism makes several key assumptions. Primarily, it assumes that mankind is not inherently benevolent and kind but self centered and competitive, in contrast to other theories of international relations such as Liberalism. It also fundamentally assumes that the international system is anarchic, in the sense that there is no authority above states capable of regulating their interactions; states must arrive at relations with other states on their own, rather than it being dictated to them by some higher controlling entity (that is, no true authoritative world government exists). It also assumes that sovereign states, rather than international institutions, non-governmental organizations, or multinational corporations, are the primary actors in international affairs. According to realism, each state is a rational actor that always acts towards its own self-interest, and the primary goal of each state is to ensure its own security. Realism holds that in pursuit of that security, states will attempt to amass resources, and that relations between states are determined by their relative level of power. That level of power is in turn determined by the state's capabilities, both military and economic. Moreover, Realists believe that States are inherently aggressive ("offensive realism"), and that territorial expansion is only constrained by opposing power(s). The principal Realist theorists are E.H. Carr, Hans Morgenthau, and Reinhold Niebuhr.

After the Second World War, a new school of "structural" realism or neorealism, developed in the American political science tradition, sought to redefine realist theory as a rigorous positivist social science by incorporating a concept of political structure into the central idea of anarchy.

See also: International relations theory, neorealism hi

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