Quote:
Originally posted by ARTelevision
That's the sort of definitions that make sense to me - notwithstanding the voluminous philosophical traditions labeled as idealist and realist. I appreciate your retatement of the terms in comprehensible language.
As to, "When it comes to debates, we tend to debate realism if we have good factual knowledge of the issues. If we lack knowledge of the facts, we tend to take a more idealist approach," that's not quite how I see it.
I see these approaches as far better defined as "Idealism is concerned primarily with what would be best, regardless of practicality. Realism immediately puts aside considerations of the ideal in favor of doing something that will work".
This is what I mean when I say I am a realist.
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I don't have any gripe with your definition in the third paragraph. My statement that you quote before it wasn't meant as a definition, but as a description of how people tend to debate things. Realism by necessity has to be grounded in reality and in some kind of factual knowledge; idealism isn't as constrained in this way.
Let me give a quick example:
Thread starter: "I don't really know much about X, but wouldn't it be great if we could do Y? Wouldn't that take care of X?"
(The poster isn't well educated about the issue, but wants to share and idea or insight. His approach is idealistic)
Reply: "Well, if you consider fact A and fact B, it's easy to see that Y won't really work. However, Z might be a much better real world solution, as it gets around A and B."
(The better informed replier (?) brings in facts, because he can, and changes the debate a bit.)
It's no longer about the merits of Y. The original poster must now not only show that Y has merit, but also show that it's feasible, which he is not well prepared to do. The question of what's a good way to deal with X, and how about Y? has become entangled in a question of what's realistic.
I think that a debate of ideals is a good thing to have before real world considerations are brought in. It's certainly better than trying to do both simultaneously.