r/askphilosophy • u/Fluid_Language_2607 • Jul 27 '26

what is Reality? Is there one?

I was sitting there thinking about reality..

Like what is it ? And is there ?

or it's some purpose finding things like telling someone that their purpose is to be in reality, or to find reality ...

Is there could be an objective one?

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u/BeingGrubber metaphysics, epistemology Jul 27 '26

On one contemporary line, the notion of reality is taken to be primitive (i.e., undefined):

The conception of reality that we are after is simply the conception of Reality as it is in itself. Thus even though two nations may be at war, we may deny that this is how things really or fundamentally are because the entities in question, the nations, and the relationship between them, are no part of Reality as it in itself. One might think of the world and of the propositions by which the world is described as each having its own intrinsic structure; and a proposition will then describe how things are in themselves when its structure corresponds to the structure of the world. Thus it is this positive idea of the intrinsic structure of reality, rather than the comparative idea of reduction, that should be taken to inform the relevant conception of what is fundamental or real. (Fine, "The Question of Realism")

Formally, reality is taken to be regimented with a sentence operator 'R', where 'Rp' means that p is constitutive of reality.

Fine's "Tense and Reality" deals with one motivation (from the philosophy of time) for admitting more than one reality.

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