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.
Philosophers debate what kinds of things are part of reality and how they are organized. Proposed constituents include particulars and universals, concrete and abstract objects, facts, events, and elementary particles. Discussions of the structure of reality 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 topics are 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. Anti-realism rejects this idea and holds that certain aspects of reality are shaped by mental processes, subjective perspectives, or social conventions. Debates between realists and anti-realists address the objective existence of various types of entities, including 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, with influential early traditions originating in ancient Indian, Chinese, and Greek thought.
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