Is everything around us real?

Introduction

Since Plato’s famous allegory of the cave, the folk belief that “everything around us is real” has undergone extensive questioning. Historically, there have been two main opposing sides concerning whether “everything around us is real” is true: the naïve realists (who affirm the truth of the proposition) and the sceptics (who doubt or reject the proposition).

In this essay, I will argue that both naïve realism and scepticism (specifically, radical scepticism) fail. Instead, I will argue for an alternative view known as ontic structural realism, which transcends the limitations of both. To begin, I will first establish that there is one main condition for defining something as “real”: mind-independent existence.

Mind-independent existence—or external existence that does not need to be processed by a mind to exist—is required for anything real, because the negation of “real” is “imagined.” By definition, it is impossible to “imagine” anything without a mind. Hence, if everything non-real requires a mind (in order to be imagined), then the contrapositive is that everything real does not require a mind. This becomes clear when formally expressed: ∀x[¬Real(x) → MindDependent(x)] ≡ ∀x[¬MindDependent(x) → Real(x)]. Using this definition of realness, this essay will now evaluate naïve realism and radical scepticism.

Naïve realism

Naïve realists believe in the intuitive notion that “there is no question of a mismatch between appearance and reality” (Genone 9). In other words, naïve realists think that we perceive a mind-independent world exactly as it is, so everything we believe to be around us is real.

One popular argument in support of naïve realism is that it is more parsimonious: it is a theory that does not “multiply entities without necessity” (Schaffer 644). Parsimony is important here, because by presupposing that our senses provide direct access to reality, naïve realism has pragmatic success: we gain the ability to interact with the world effectively based on our perceptions (e.g., catching a ball).

However, this argument is fallacious because while the philosophical concept of parsimony allows for practical convenience, this does not entail the actual soundness of the theory—it is not the case that all the simplest explanations are always true.

An alternative argument is that naïve realism explains the uniformity of experience between different observers. If multiple people see an apple and describe it as red, then it seems that the object exists exactly as it appears to everyone, and everyone perceives the world in the same way—the world is completely mind-independent. On the contrary, this argument fails to explain cases where experiences between different observers are not uniform. As Locke proposed, “the same Object should produce in several Men’s Minds different Ideas at the same time…a Violet produces in one Man’s Mind by his Eyes, were the same that a Marigold produced in another Man’s, and vice versa” (389). It is possible that what appears as one colour to me could appear as another colour to you—even if we behave the same by referring to the same word (like “red”). If naïve realism is true and we perceive the world directly, then why is this scenario conceivable?

As contemporary neuroscientist David Eagleman explained, what we believe to be immediate experiences of the world actually result from complex neural processes. Thus, it appears that it is impossible to directly perceive “everything around us” without the mind playing some role. Naturally, this leads us to radical scepticism.

Radical scepticism

Descartes argues that anything can be doubted: it is entirely possible that “some evil spirit, supremely powerful and cunning, has devoted all his efforts to deceiving me” (16). This thought experiment suggests that all sensory experience could be an illusory fabrication from an “evil spirit,” so “everything around us” that we perceive may not be mind-independent and real at all. Taken to the extreme, this leads to solipsism—the view that only the mind itself is real.

The main argument for this radical scepticism is that there is no evidence for the certainty of our senses all the time. While Descartes’ “evil spirit” thought experiment seems absurd, we can still never confidently claim that there is no evil spirit manipulating our perception of the world. This is because the very disbelief in the evil spirit could be caused by the evil spirit himself, given that the evil spirit has total control over one’s noetic faculties.

However, this argument for radical scepticism fails for two reasons. Firstly, radical scepticism assumes that every belief requires some form of justification, which leads to an infinite regress, since every belief will require justification from some other belief. To avoid this, it is necessary to accept some beliefs as foundational and justified without further proof. This logic is reflected in mathematics, where theorems are derived from fundamental axioms that do not need justification. The assumption that there exists a physical mind-independent reality is essential to all forms of scientific inquiry, so “everything around us is real” can be considered an axiom that does not need justification. Secondly, radical scepticism is self-defeating: if radical scepticism is true, then the sceptic’s own claims cannot be known to be true.

Additionally, a contemporary argument against radical scepticism can be constructed using social semantic externalism. Tyler Burge uses the example of “Larry” who believes he has arthritis in his thigh: whether Larry has a belief about arthritis depends on whether Larry lives in a counterfactual linguistic community in which “arthritis” refers to an affliction of the joints, as it does in our world, or an affliction of the muscles, as it does in a different possible world. Meaning therefore comes from our sociolinguistic community, so in order for scepticism to have meaning, it must itself already presume the existence of an external world from which meaning can be derived.

These counterarguments seem to point us back in the direction of naïve realism, yet as established earlier, naïve realism also fails under scrutiny. Therefore, we must find a new perspective on the question of whether everything around us is real.

Beyond the Binary

Both naïve realism and radical scepticism presuppose that reality consists of objects with intrinsic properties. But what if this starting point is misguided?

When we examine any supposed intrinsic property, it inevitably dissolves into relations. Mass, for instance, might seem intrinsic, but in modern physics it's defined entirely through gravitational and inertial relations. Charge is nothing but a disposition to interact with electromagnetic fields. Even the size and shape of objects are purely relational, as they describe how parts relate to each other and to measuring instruments. We cannot identify a single property that can be specified without reference to relations with other things. Since all properties turn out to be relational, and objects are nothing more than collections of properties, Ladyman proposes that objects themselves must be fundamentally relational. Reality must therefore consist of structures, or patterns of relations, rather than independent objects with intrinsic properties.

This view, known as ontic structural realism, is compelling because it also aligns with Deleuze’s statement “difference is behind everything, but behind difference there is nothing” (57). Deleuze argued that traditional metaphysics assumes that identity precedes difference, but this creates an impossible regress: we cannot establish initial identities without reference to difference. Examining actual processes of individuation—such as consciousness coming from embryological development—reveals that stable identities emerge from systems of differences and relations, not vice versa. Reality, as Deleuze and Ladyman show, is fundamentally about patterns and structures rather than substantial objects.

Some may argue that the understanding of these structures and relations are mind-dependent, which would contradict our definition of realness, so they do not constitute reality. However, the mind-independence of these structures is demonstrated by their invariance across radically different theoretical frameworks. Unlike the fleeting appearances of supposed objects, structural features persist regardless of how we conceptualize them. As Ladyman notes, the shift from Fresnel's ether to Maxwell's fields preserved the mathematical relationships while radically changing the proposed entities. Similarly, quantum mechanics maintains classical structures in the correspondence limit while transforming our understanding of nature.

Another possible objection to ontic structural realism is that if reality consists solely of structures and relations, then we have a lack of direct observability: how can we verify that these structures exist if we cannot physically observe them? However, this objection is unconvincing because observability cannot be a condition for realness. There are many things which we cannot directly observe yet commonly hold to be real (such as gravity).

The ontic structural realist position hence preserves what's valuable in both realism and skepticism. With realism, it maintains that perception puts us in genuine contact with reality (through an understanding of structures and relations). With scepticism, it acknowledges the theory-laden nature of our understanding (through using science to come to know these structures and relations).

Conclusion

Therefore, rejecting radical scepticism, I conclude that everything around us is indeed real, but not in the naïve realist sense. Reality is composed of mind-independent structural relations rather than objects with intrinsic properties.

Bibliography

Burge, Tyler. “Individualism and the Mental.” Midwest Studies in Philosophy, vol. 4, no. 1, 1979, pp. 73–121, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-4975.1979.tb00374.x.

Deleuze, Gilles. Difference and Repetition. Translated by Paul Patton, Columbia University Press, 1994.

Descartes, René. Meditations on First Philosophy: With Selections from the Objections and Replies. Translated by Michael Moriarty, Oxford University Press, 2008.

Eagleman, David. Incognito: The Secret Lives of Brains. Pantheon Books, 2011.

Genone, James. “Recent Work on Naïve Realism.” American Philosophical Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 1, 2016, pp. 1–25. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44982080.

Ladyman, James, et al. Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized. New York, Oxford University Press, 2007.

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