Critical Realism - American Critical Realism

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."

Read more about this topic:  Critical Realism

Famous quotes containing the words american, critical and/or realism:

    The compulsion to do good is an innate American trait. Only North Americans seem to believe that they always should, may, and actually can choose somebody with whom to share their blessings. Ultimately this attitude leads to bombing people into the acceptance of gifts.
    Ivan Illich (b. 1926)

    It would be easy ... to regard the whole of world 3 as timeless, as Plato suggested of his world of Forms or Ideas.... I propose a different view—one which, I have found, is surprisingly fruitful. I regard world 3 as being essentially the product of the human mind.... More precisely, I regard the world 3 of problems, theories, and critical arguments as one of the results of the evolution of human language, and as acting back on this evolution.
    Karl Popper (1902–1994)

    I hate vulgar realism in literature. The man who could call a spade a spade should be compelled to use one. It is the only thing he is fit for.
    Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)