What are the differences between realism and idealism?

Realism holds that:

Concepts used in human knowledge refer to a physical reality which has priority
Knowledge is discovered rather than created
Truth is determined by the correspondence between knowledge and the physical world

Idealism holds that:

The world as we know it is a construction of the mind
Human knowledge is a subjective or social construction that does not necessarily correspond to the outside world
All knowledge is affected by language and culture
The truth of statements depends on their coherence with the rest of the knowledge

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Universiteit Amsterdam: UVA

Psychologie en gedrag

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What is science? - summary of chapter 9 of Historical and conceptual issues in psychology, by Brysbaert, M and Rastle, K (second edition)

Foundation of psychology
Chapter 9
What is science?

Thoughts about information acquisition from Ancient Greece to the end of the nineteenth century
The first twentieth-century attempt at demarcation: observation, induction and verification
The second twentieth-century attempt at demarcation: falsification
Science is a succession of paradigms
The pragmatic alternative
Focus on: how to respond to scientific knowledge

Science’s claim of superiority was based on four principles

Realism:
There is a physical world with independent objects, which can be understood by human intellect
Objectivity:
Knowledge of the physical world does not depend on the observer.
‘Objective’ agreement among people is possible, irrespective of their worldviews.
- Science aims to uncover this knowledge so that it becomes public, verifiable and useable
Truth
Scientific statements are true when they correspond to the physical reality
Rationality
Truth is guaranteed because scientific statements are based on sound method.

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Thoughts about information acquisition from Ancient Greece to the end of the nineteenth century

Thoughts before the scientific revolution

Plato, Aristotle and the sceptics

Plato
A strong rationalist view of knowledge acquisition.
Human perception was fallible and the observable world was only a shadow of the Real world.
The human soul had innate knowledge of the universe, which could be harnessed

Aristotle
More scope for observation and made a distinction between deductive reasoning

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Historical Psychology