Definition

Noun: 1. A philosophical doctrine: The belief that physical objects exist independently of our perception of them and possess the properties they appear to have. It is the common-sense view of the world, often contrasted with philosophical skepticism or idealism.

Usage Examples

• Noun:
  • Naive realism is the default worldview for most people in their everyday lives.
  • The philosopher argued that naive realism fails to account for the role of the mind in shaping experience.
  • Science often challenges the assumptions of naive realism by revealing that objects are mostly empty space.

Advanced Usage

• "The problem of perception": A central philosophical challenge to naive realism, questioning how we can have knowledge of an external world if we only directly experience our own perceptions or sense data.
• "Direct realism": A more refined philosophical position related to naive realism, which maintains that we perceive the external world directly, though it may acknowledge some role for perceptual processing.

Variants and Related Words

• Realism (philosophical): A broader category of philosophical thought asserting that certain kinds of things have mind-independent existence. Naive realism is a specific, common-sense form of this.
• Common-sense realism: A near-synonym for naive realism, emphasizing its roots in everyday, unreflective belief.

Synonyms

• Direct realism
• Common-sense realism

Related Concepts (Not Phrasal Verbs or Idioms)

• Representationalism/Indirect Realism: The opposing view that we perceive mental representations of the world, not the world itself directly.
• Idealism: The philosophical theory that reality is fundamentally mental or immaterial.
• Phenomenalism: The theory that physical objects are logical constructions from sense data.

Noun

1. (philosophy) the philosophical doctrine that physical objects continue to exist when not perceived