usually perceived absolutely correctly. We perceive them as they really are. Immanent realism Is the ontological understanding which holds that universals are immanently real within particulars themselves, not in a separate realm, and not mere names. Most often associated with Aristotle and the Aristotelian tradition. Scientific realism Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be. Within philosophy of science, it is often framed as an answer to the question "how is the success of science to be explained?" The debate over what the success of science involves centers primarily on the status of unobservable entities apparently talked about by scientific theories. Generally, those who are scientific realists assert that one can make reliable claims about unobservables (viz., that they have the same ontological status) as observables. Analytic philosophers generally have a commitment to scientific realism, in the sense of regarding the scientific method as a reliable guide to the nature of reality. The main alternative to scientific realism is instrumentalism. Scientific realism in physics Realism in physics (especially quantum mechanics) is the claim that the world is in some sense mind-independent: that even if the results of a possible measurement do not pre-exist the act of measurement, that does not require that they are the creation of the observer (contrary to the "consciousness causes collapse" interpretation of quantum mechanics). That interpretation of quantum mechanics, on the other hand, states that the wave function is already the full description of reality. The different possible realities described by the wave function are equally true. The observer collapses the wave function into their own reality. One's reality can be mind-dependent under this interpretation of quantum mechanics. Moral realism Moral realism is the position that ethical sentences express propositions that refer to objective features of the world. Aesthetic realism Aesthetic realism (not to be confused with Aesthetic Realism, the philosophy developed by Eli Siegel, or "realism" in the arts) is the view that there are mind-independent aesthetic facts. History of metaphysical realism Ancient Greek philosophy In ancient Greek philosophy, realist doctrines about universals were proposed by Plato and Aristotle. Platonic realism is realism regarding the existence of universals or abstract objects. As universals were considered by Plato to be ideal forms, this stance is confusingly also called Platonic idealism. This