American Critical Realism
The American critical realist movement was a response both to direct realism (especially in its recent incarnation as new realism), as well as to idealism and pragmatism. In very broad terms, American critical realism was a form of representative realism, in which there are objects that stand as mediators between independent real objects and perceivers.
One innovation was that these mediators aren't ideas (British empiricism), but properties, essences, or "character complexes."
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