Philosophical realism
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Philosophical realism—usually not treated as a position of its own but as a stance towards other subject matters—is the view that a certain kind of thing has mind-independent existence, i.e. that it e
Plato (left) and Aristotle (right), a detail of The School of Athens, a fresco by Raphael. In Plato's metaphysics, ever-unchanging Forms, or Ideas, exist apart from particular physical things, and are related to them as their prototype or exemplar. Aristotle's philosophy of reality also aims at the universal. Aristotle finds the universal, which he calls essence, in the commonalities of particular things.
Solipsism
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Solipsism is the philosophical position that only one’s own mind is certain to exist. It holds that knowledge of anything outside one’s own mind, including the external world and other minds, is uncer
Portrait of George Berkeley by John Smybert, 1727
