Reality
Reality is the totality of existence or what all existing entities have in common. It is often contrasted with appearance, opposing what is with what seems to be, although the accuracy and fundamentality of this contrast are disputed. Various criteria for distinguishing real from unreal entities have been proposed, including causal powers, mind-independence, and being non-illusory. The concept of reality overlaps with notions such as being, existence, world, actuality, and truth.
Debates about the constituents and structure of reality ask what kinds of things there are and how they are organized. Proposed constituents include particulars and universals, concrete and abstract objects, facts, events, and elementary particles. Structural questions address the relation between parts and wholes, the distinction between fundamental and non-fundamental entities, the idea that reality forms a hierarchy of levels, and the roles of unity and multiplicity in monist–pluralist debates. Other discussions examine space and time as frameworks that organize relations among entities, and laws of nature describing regularities or general patterns of how entities interact and changes unfold.
Realism is the view that reality does not depend on human knowledge or consciousness and exists apart from them. Anti-realism, by contrast, holds that certain aspects of reality depend on mental processes, subjective perspectives, or social conventions. Debates between realists and anti-realists span multiple domains, addressing the objective existence of universals, abstract objects, values, and unobservable entities posited by scientific theories. A related topic concerns the possibility and limits of knowledge as a successful cognitive contact with reality. Contemporary technology in the form of augmented and virtual reality can inform experience and raises questions about the ontological status of virtual objects.
The concept of reality is relevant to many fields, including metaphysics, epistemology, physics, psychology, and anthropology. Theories of the nature of reality have been discussed since antiquity and continue to shape contemporary inquiry, with influential early traditions originating in ancient Indian, Chinese, and Greek thought.
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