approval A realist is someone who recognizes and accepts the true nature of a situation and tries to deal with it in a practical way. I see myself not as a cynic but as a realist
A naive realist is a person who believes that what you see is what you get Scientific realists believe that the laws of science are external to and independant of mind
Generally, someone who claims that various sorts of things that are not realized completely in our (sensory) experience are real The things in question might be, e g : numbers, infinite constructions, material objects, theoretical entities (atoms, the unconscious mind, etc ) and so on During the middle ages "realist" specifically meant someone who maintained that there are universals who maintained that there are universals (e g "horsiness" "humanity") corresponding to words such as "horse" and "human" and not just individual things See nominalist
a philosopher who believes that universals are real and exist independently of anyone thinking of them a painter who represents the world realistically and not in an idealized or romantic style a person who accepts the world as it literally is and deals with it accordingly
one who maintains that generals, or the terms used to denote the genera and species of things, represent real existences, and are not mere names, as maintained by the nominalists