Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Realist |
RealistNoun1. A philosopher who believes that universals are real and exist independently of anyone thinking of them. 2. A painter who represents the world realistically and not in an idealized or romantic style. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "realist" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1781. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The word realism is used in several of the liberal arts; particularly painting, literature, and philosophy. It is also used in international relations.In the visual arts and literature, realism is a mid-19th century movement, which started in France. The realists sought to render everyday characters, situations, dilemmas, and events; all in an "accurate" (or realistic) manner. Realism began as a reaction to romanticism, in which subjects were treated idealistically.
Realism in visual arts: Gustave Courbet, Edouard Manet
The movement is anticipated by the work of the French author Stendhal, but the "father" of realism is generally thought to be Honoré de Balzac. His Comédie Humaine is a panoramic view of 19th-century France in over 70 novels. Gustave Flaubert clearly defined the movement with his brilliant novel of the bourgeois Madame Bovary. Balzac and especially Flaubert influenced to a high degree the later realists and naturalists: Guy de Maupassant, Joris Karl Huysmans, and, in England, George Eliot.
By 1890, many began to reject realism, thinking it too external and superficial. Modified versions, however, were employed by such authors as Thomas Hardy, who realistically presented extreme pessimism, and Henry James, who sought to understand his characters psychologically.
At the turn of the 20th century, realism as a dominant movement in France gave way to symbolism and neo-romanticism.
Realism in Philosophy
Confusingly, various philosophical unrelated positions, in some cases diametrically opposed ones, are termed "realism." In large measure this depends on which debates are active at the time, and may be encouraged by the fact that a philosophical position often looks stronger if you attach the word "real" to it.
The oldest use of the term comes from Medieval interpretations of Greek philosophy. Here "realism" is contrasted with "conceptualism" and "nominalism" (or Platonism). This can be called "realism about universals." Universals are terms or properties that can be applied to many things, rather than denoting a single specific individual--for example, red, beauty, five, or dog, as opposed to Socrates or Athens. Realism holds that these universals really exist, independently and somehow prior to the world; it is associated with Plato. Conceptualism holds that they exist, but only insofar as they are instantiated in specific things; they do not exist separately. Nominalism holds that universals do not "exist" at all; they are no more than words we use to describe specific objects, they do not name anything. This particular dispute over realism is largely moot in contemporary philosophy, and has been for centuries.
In another sense realism is contrasted with idealism'' In still a third, and very contemporary sense realism is contrasted with anti-realism
Both these disputes are often carried out relative to some specific area: one might, for example, be a realist about physical matter but an anti-realist about ethics.
Increasingly these last disputes too are rejected as misleading, and some philosophers prefer to call the kind of realism espoused there "metaphyiscal realism," and eschew the whole debate in favour of simple "naturalism" or "natural realism", which is not so much a theory as the position that these debates are ill-conceived if not incoherent, and that there is no more to deciding what's really real than simply taking our words at face value.
See also: anti-realism, legal realism, magical realism, socialist realism, fantastic realism.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Realism."
Crosswords: Realist |
| Non-English Usage: "Realist" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses. Albanian (down to earth, hardheaded, realist, realistic), Dutch (realist), German (realist), Romanian (matter of fact, practical, realist, realistic, realistically), Swedish (realist), Turkish (realist, realistic). |
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Books |
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Music |
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Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |||
| Author | Quotation |
William Arthur Ward | The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sail. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | |
| "Realist" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 86.85% of the time. "Realist" is used about 213 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 86.85% | 185 | 22,646 |
| Adjective (general or positive) | 12.68% | 27 | 66,962 |
| Noun (proper) | 0.47% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 213 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| Hypenated Usage | |
Ending with "realist": anti-realist. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Language | Translations for "realist"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | realist (down to earth, hardheaded, realistic). (various references) | |
Arabic | تابع لمذهب الواقعية, ذو حس عملي, الواقعي, الحقيقي. (various references) | |
Bulgarian | реалист. (various references) | |
Chinese | 现实主义者. (various references) | |
Czech | realista. (various references) | |
Dutch | realist. (various references) | |
Esperanto | realisto. (various references) | |
Farsi | واقع بین(realistic), تحقق گرای (Realistic), راستین گرای (Realistic). (various references) | |
French | réaliste (real, realistic). (various references) | |
German | Realist. (various references) | |
Greek | ρεαλιστήσ (pragmatist), ρεαλιστής (pragmatist), πραγματιστήσ (pragmatist). (various references) | |
Hebrew | ריאליסט. (various references) | |
Hungarian | realista (realistic), gyakorlatias ember, gyakorlatias (efficient, hard-headed, impractical, matter-of-fact, practical, realistic, worldly wise). (various references) | |
Icelandic | raunsæismaður. (various references) | |
Italian | realista (hard-headed, royalist). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | リーマン幾何学 (reactance, reaction, reactor, real, realism, realistic, reality, realtime, real-time system, rear, rear drive, rear engine, rear seat, rear window, reel, Rias, Riemannian geometry). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | リアリスト . (various references) | |
Manx | rieughee. (various references) | |
Papiamen | realista. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | ealistray.(various references) | |
Portuguese | realista (cavalier, down-to-earth, realistic, royalist). (various references) | |
Romanian | realist (matter of fact, practical, realistic, realistically). (various references) | |
Russian | реалист. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | realističan (realistic), realista. (various references) | |
Spanish | realista (down to earth, hard-headed, realistic). (various references) | |
Swedish | realist. (various references) | |
Turkish | realist kimse, realist (realistic), gerçekçi kimse, gerçekçi (down to earth, exact, hard-headed, literal, matter of fact, practical, realistic). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | реальний (existent, practical, real, realistic, realizable, substantive, tangible), реалістичний (realistic), реаліст. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | người theo thuyết duy thực người có óc thực tế. (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "realist": realistic, realistically, realists. (additional references) | |
Words ending with "realist": antirealist, hyperrealist, neorealist, surrealist, ultrarealist. (additional references) | |
Words containing "realist": antirealists, hyperrealistic, neorealistic, neorealists, nonrealistic, surrealistic, surrealistically, surrealists, ultrarealistic, ultrarealists, unrealistic, unrealistically. (additional references) | |
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"Realist" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: kemalist, reais, Realeat, realis, realise, realisn, realiso, realite, realiz, redlist, reflast, relait, relist, Rialas, ruralise, troilist. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "realist" (pronounced rē"li'st) |
| 4 | -l i' s t | backlist, blacklist, checklist, dualist, evangelist, experimentalist, fatalist, gradualist, minimalist, moralist, revivalist, royalist, sensationalist, stylist. |
| 3 | -i' s t | absurdist, astrophysicist, baptist, bassist, careerist, centrist, chartist, cheesiest, chemist, clearest, climatologist, collectivist, conformist, constructionist, consumerist, corporatist, costliest, counterterrorist, cubist, cutest, czarist, defeatist, dramatist, egotist, essayist, expansionist, flavorist, flutist, futurist, harpist, horticulturist, humanist, jurist, lyrist, monarchist, monetarist, nativist, nicest, nudist, optimist, optometrist, parodist, percussionist, perfectionist, pharmacologist, physicist, pinkest, podiatrist, practiced, pragmatist, publicist, purist, recidivist, reformist, religionist, revisionist, satanist, saxophonist, sexist, soloist, statist, suffragist, terrorist, trombonist, typist, vaguest. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: retails, saltier, saltire, slatier, tailers. | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-i-l-r-s-t" | |
-1 letter: airest, alerts, alters, ariels, artels, estral, laster, lister, liters, litres, ratels, relist, resail, retail, retial, sailer, salter, saltie, satire, serail, serial, slater, staler, stelai, stelar, striae, tailer, talers, terais, tilers, trails, trials. | |
-2 letters: airts, aisle, alert, alist, alter, ariel, arils, arise, arles, artel, aster, astir, earls, irate, islet, istle, lairs, lares, laris. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-i-l-r-s-t" | |
+1 letter: articles, ateliers, blastier, dilaters, earliest, entrails, frailest, glariest, lamister, lardiest, larkiest, latrines, leariest, librates, literals, marliest, marlites, misalter, pilaster, plaister, plaiters, ratlines, realists, realties, recitals, redtails, retinals, retrials, saltiers, saltires, stalkier, starlike, sterical, talliers, tertials, trailers, trenails, uralites. | |
+2 letters: aerialist, aerolites, aeroliths, allergist, amitroles, arterials, beastlier, bleariest, brawliest, brutalise, cartelise, cisternal, clarinets, clarities, crawliest, darkliest, detailers, drawliest, elaterids, elaterins, entailers, eristical, estradiol, estuarial, filatures, filtrates, forestial, frailties, ghastlier, glairiest, gnarliest, hairstyle, herbalist, horsetail, idolaters, inflaters, installer, integrals, interlaps, interlays, internals, intervals, laborites, lacertids, laetriles, lamisters, larcenist, laterites, laterizes, lazurites, levirates, liberates, ligatures, literates, literatus, litharges, livetraps, loricates, marbliest, materials, materiels, misalters, mislearnt, misrelate, nearliest, oralities, orientals, paltriest, parietals, particles, pearliest, pearlites, periplast, pilasters, plaisters, pretrials, psalteria, psaltries, quartiles, realistic, realities, reinstall, relations, relatives, remittals, requitals, reslating, retailers, retailors, retinulas, rolamites, royalties, ruralites, saintlier, saprolite, sclerotia, sectorial, serialist, seriately, serotinal, snarliest, solitaire, stairwell, statelier, sterilant, steroidal, strobilae, tailleurs, tailraces, terminals, thirlages, trailless, trailside, tramlines, traplines, treenails, triangles, triazoles, triplanes, triskelia, trivalves, varietals, verbalist, versatile, verticals, violaters, welfarist. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage: Commercial 4. Quotations: Familiar | 5. Usage Frequency 6. Expressions 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Rhymes 11. Anagrams 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
