by Temujin

People have long been concerned with whether or not we all experience the same thing. For instance, I've often wondered whether or not people see the same colour when we talk about red. Obviously red is distinct from other colours, but how can we be sure we see the same colour? Maybe other people see a blue kind of red and a red kind of blue.

Realism is the belief in an absolute, external, objective reality. This proposes the theory that we all see the same ultimate reality. Realism is closely linked to science, because science believes in generalisable rules that apply to everything, such as gravity. If you stop believing in gravity, you don't suddenly start floating.

However, relativism proposes that we all experience our very own realities, and that all viewpoints are equally valid. It is linked to the concept of the phenomological field (Carl Rogers) which states that we have, if you will, a self-contained sphere of reality all to ourselves. These spheres might overlap (particularly in social settings) but they are each distinct and different. In relativism, society is the basis of all knowledge.

Postmodernism believes in no ultimate truth and that science is not necessarily progressive. For example, Watson, a leading intelligence expert in early psychology, probably made up some results and his research assistant did not, in fact, exist. Strangely, very few psychology textbooks refer to this. Also, much of early work on racism was done by Jewish communists who fled to America from Nazi Germany, and so their work is coloured by their experience and the concept of a neutral, objective scientist becomes a crock of shit.

Social constructionism believes that reality is just a socially created consensus. For example, the idea of a stable personality is largely a Western idea that might not exist in other parts of the world, but that does not mean that either we or others are wrong, just that we have differing and equally valid viewpoints. Scientists have no special access to the truth in social constructionism.

Traditionally, scientists have used 'how accurate' a theory is to evaluate its correctness. However, taking into account the more relativist perspectives outlined above, pragmatists have suggested that we should use 'how useful' a theory is instead.

Of late, relativism had seemed to be much more reasonable than realism, until Parker came up with New Realism. The main thrust of which is that whilst individuals experience events differently and come to have different views about the events, without the events actually occurring externally of the individuals there can be no experience or viewpoint, and therefore an external reality, limited or not, must exist.

Whilst reading about this and later listening to both lecture and seminar on it, I came to the conclusion that whilst academically interesting, we shouldn't be wasting time on it while there are far more pressing matters in the world, such as curing cancer, trying to make Iraq peaceful and just about everything else. Like fate/freewill, you can have a good debate, but we'll probably never know for sure and it wouldn't change anything even if we did find out.