The different interpretations of Reality

Philosophy Forums
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Reality is a question that has puzzled philosophers for millennia. In this post, I will briefly outline how different thinkers have understood this concept:

For Confucius, reality is not an abstract metaphysical realm, but a moral and social order grounded in human relationships and proper conduct.

For Gautama Buddha, reality is impermanent, without a fixed self, and marked by suffering—but also understandable and transformable through insight.

For Plato, reality lies not in the visible world, but in the eternal and perfect forms that stand behind it.

For Aristotle, reality is the world we experience, grasped through understanding what things are and why they are.

For Epicurus, reality is fundamentally material, natural and entirely explained by discrete indivisible particles and void. For him, reality is knowable, but only through careful reasoning about sensory evidence.

For the Stoics, reality is fully material, rational, and unified. Everything that exists is part of a single, ordered whole.

For Ibn Sina (Avicenna), reality is a structured hierarchy of existence grounded in necessity and dependence.

For Thomas Aquinas, reality is objective, intelligible, and grounded in God.

For Thomas Hobbes, reality is purely material and mechanical. Everything that exists—including humans, thoughts, and society—can be explained in terms of matter in motion.

For John Locke, reality is external, real, and knowable—but only through experience, and never perfectly as it is in itself.

For Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, reality is not material at its deepest level, but made up of immaterial, mind-like substances called monads. His view is almost the opposite of Thomas Hobbes.

For Immanuel Kant, reality is not something we can know in itself directly. His view—mainly developed in his book Critique of Pure Reason—makes a crucial distinction between two levels of reality: 1. Phenomena (the reality we experience): This is the world as it appears to us. 2. Noumena (things-in-themselves): This is reality as it exists independently of us.

For David Hume, reality is far more empirical and skeptical than in Immanuel Kant. Hume thinks we should only talk about what we actually experience, and be very cautious about anything beyond that.

For Friedrich Nietzsche, reality is not a fixed, objective truth waiting to be discovered. Instead, it is interpretation, shaped by life, perspective, and power.

For Arthur Schopenhauer, reality is fundamentally will and representation—and what we normally experience is only a surface appearance of a much deeper, blind, irrational force.

For Karl Marx, reality is fundamentally material, social, and historical—not something abstract, mental, or purely interpretive.

For Ludwig Wittgenstein, reality depends a lot on which phase of his philosophy you look at—because his views changed dramatically between his early and later work. a) Early Wittgenstein (Tractatus): reality = facts. b) Later Wittgenstein: reality = use and practices.

For Jean-Paul Sartre, reality is divided between being-in-itself and being-for-itself, and is fundamentally tied to freedom, consciousness, and existence.

For Albert Camus, reality is absurd—a constant tension between our human desire for meaning and the world’s silence in response.

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One thing I would like to point out is that the way these thinkers understood reality was strongly shaped by the social environments they lived in, as well as their own personal experiences and struggles.

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At least most of those descriptions can be not about what reality is but how people conceptualized history.

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Thats the problem with individuality isnt it?
If you want to be totally objective then you need to take a step back and leave “yourself” behind as much as possible.

Btw whats the purpose of this thread? A lot of these quotes fail to account for 3/4 of our understanding about reality and are little more than just expressions of personal belief and bias. (Even before social environment)

Like Karl Marx’s idea that reality is material, social and historical. Thats categorically a toddler’s level of understanding. “There is me mum, the cookies on the fridge, daddy and the neighbor. Oh and the mail man. Mom likes the mail man lots”

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The question is if it is possible to step back and leave yourself behind. How exactly can you live in the 21st century and think as a different century person?

Thomas Aquinas, for example, was a medieval theologian and philosopher, living in a society which everyone believed in Christianity. I doubt he had access to Chinese litterature. Was it possible for him to think as a Buddhist?

The point of this thread is to demonstrate that whatever we think today as reality is biased by our today’s perceptions and social conditions we live in. I am not in a position to describe reality and expect that this understanding will not be seen as obsolete 500 years on the future.

Calling Marx a toddler is quite interesting. Would you say the millions (perhaps billions) of people who followed Marx’s ideas were toddlers too? Even today many people still take Marx seriously, despite the failure of the former socialistic countries.

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And what makes us think that our description of reality will not be considered likewise 500 years on the future?

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By understanding the values and circumstances of said century/person. Are we really so far goan now that we cant consider the circumstances that lead to an event?

He did have access to the same reality Buddhists did, no?
But fine, i dont want to troll your point. Yes: Its certainly harder to go against the “theos” of your current day/society, but at the same time: Philosophy to begin with, should not be dependent on what society around you thinks.

If you root your understanding in what the people surrounding you believe, then you are not a thinker, you are just a conformist. Someone who shares belief but not even out of personal conviction.

You can go way further than this.
Your perceptions are biased by your own existence, your own position in existence and society, your personal preferences and needs, and so on.
There are literally a hundred hurdles that cloud your judgement before you’d even make it to the standards, values and beliefs of whatever society you are living in.

And yet, as i said above, this is all a bit of a strawman.
You are not a thinker if you are just slapping yourself onto the most convenient belief system in your proximity. Thats just conformism.

From a perspective of understanding reality?
Yes they are.
Imagine talking about the net sum of existence, and there is this hobo in the background like “oh i know. Society and history!”

Out of your entire list, there is probably not A SINGLE individual who’d be more talking from a position of convenience and conformism than Marx.

Even the most idiotic worshippers of esoteric nonsense have put more effort into understanding reality than the dude who proclaimed it to be “Its all about how other ppl treat me and each other”.

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Most of the times we are unable to understand the values and understandings of other regions in the same century, so for past centuries it is even more complicated.

How much are we '“able” to judge impartially the values and circumstances in countries like Afghanistan, or Sudan?

Most of these individuals went beyond what their society at their time was thinking.

For the Aquinas example, he added Aristotelian perspective in the thought process of his society, which at the time was approaching everything only through the religion. He suggested to combine belief and reason, quite novel for his social circle.

You can propose novel things and surpass your society standards up to a level, but distance yourself completely?

I do not disagree with you that Marx’s perspective on reality is naive. But this means that our opinions match on this point. Some people think we are wrong on that.

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“He suggested to combine belief and reason, quite novel for his social circle”

Aquinas didn’t find god through Aristotle, btw. He had already believed there was a god and then set out to find philosophy he could manipulate and use as a foundation for his christian beliefs. He was one of the biggest philosophical scoundrels in history.

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Thats relatively easy to do, you just remove the ethical and emotional baggage and there you go.

That is most certainly true for some, less for others.

Well, now you are proposing something next level.
Complete disconnection from society usually means one thing: You will be hunted down by society and killed.
Is it possible to detach yourself 100%? Arguably no because at that stage you would have to detach yourself from your own identity as well, both as an individual and as a biological entity.

At that point you are running complete interference of concepts.
Is an individual’s view who completely detached themselves from society now infinitely objective, or infinitely subjective?

Its not really naivety. Naivety would be just being lead by irrational and utopian concepts.
Marx’s views are ultimately also…. well how should i put this… narcissistic and atrocious in a way that seek it’s equal.

Being limited in scope and understanding is one thing. Being a hard materialist and ths wild idea of everything being the netsum of social interaction is another. Yet we know how he and his “disciples” across the planet have dealth with dissent and those who disagreed with the essence of his “teachings”.

And thats just a level of atrociousness that is almost unique in it’s entirety.
Imagine discussing philosophy, and then at best exiling, at worst executing everyone who holds a different view from you.
Not even out of a personal grudge, or because they are wrong, but out of principle.
You just think that it doesnt matter whether you are right or wrong as long as you are the only one left.

The sh-t Marx has put into this world is one of the most diseased things ever to exist in terms of philosophy. Its so much worse than just a simple religion or cult. Its actually the inversion of philosophy.
Its not the exploration of reality. Its defining reality and telling it what to be.
Shaping perception of the masses both subtle and brutal.

Its the antithesis of philosophy in more than just one way.

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For the first point, I am not so sure it is achievable, but at least theoretically yes.

For the other 2 points I agree.

For Marx, I have the following arguments:

  1. Lenin, Stalin, Mao and all the socialistic party leaders deviated a lot from original Marx’s theory. At no point Marx suggested uncontrolled communist party. Even when he was alive he saw distortion on his thoughts and he commented on that. This can be better elaborated by a Marxist, which I am not.

Marx envisioned revolutions in industrial societies like England and Germany. Russia and China were agricultural societies which were violently changed to industrial.

  1. In the capitalistic Europe, the majority of progress towards human rights was achieved through the pressure from Marx thinkers. The 8 hours/5 days working week, women rights, public health care etc. became possible when the right governments were pressured by the leftists. Especially for the reduced working week, Marx at his time was suggesting to drop from 12-15 hours per day to 10 hours per day. He was also critical on the child labor of his time.
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Its not ad verbum, sure. I will happily admit to that. You are correct.
But its safe to say that the way his ideology is being put into practice is in a way very much like how natural forces follow the path of least resistance.

Yeah and Adolf Hitler’s nazism has had a bunch of positive changes too on the smaller scale.
I will happily yield this to you as well with some rather extreme caveats considering that the Marxist methodology always follows the targeting of the most oppressed and smallest minorities. Back then as well as today.

Its an ideology that uses the less fortunate as a battering ram, shield and troyan horse, and more often than not, instantly turns on them the moment they have served their purpose.
The first which have been put to the wall after socialist/communist revolutions are usually the revolutionaries, because they are the highest risk to their power from there on out.

So sure.
On one side i am old enough to see and know how this ideology operates, on the other I live in a country that had the last of Soviet troops pulled out in 1991. Thats was barely 35 years ago.
Despite that i will admit that it always looks like they are doing something good on their way.
If nothing else, they make sure to champion themselves as those who fight for the rights of the less fortunate.
It just happens that its not for the reason everyone assumes.

Anyway, i think at this stage i went completely off topic. I apologize for this.
Circling back to the original topic, i think you can always connect with any ideology/religion/philosophy that has its actual roots in wanting to understand and explore.
Those which are anathema to criticism and exploration are something entirely different altogether though.

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No need to apologize, I consider this on topic. My intention is to discuss how some thinkers see reality, and I expect other people’s input on that. You put valid concerns and objections on one of which I mentioned.

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Its funny to think about it though. The notion that Marx has not intended the ultimate consequences of his ideology and thoughts.
I wonder what he would think if he were alive today.

Considering at the very least how much he was against concentrating power in the hands of a few… its a bit tragic.

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Not everything depends on context. In fact, most stuff doesn’t depend on context, on situation, on epoque. Just the superficial and accessory stuff does.

It was possible for him to think the same thing a buddhist thinks, yes. They’re both human. Not the accesory parts of it, but the crux of the ‘thing’, totally. Or rather, suppose it was impossible, what would that entail then?

Oh, not at all, most of what we think is not biased by the epoque nor social conditions. Or rather, yes, the accessory and superficial are biased, yes, not the nuclear parts of it.

It’s not that those supposed descriptions of reality are outdated, it’s that they are not even about reality and never were. They are conceptualizations of some of history, like : “I read history and see it as this and the other. I suppose if things keep happening, I’ll be able to see it as the same”.

If those people did something the stereotypical person of their surroundings did not, that doesn’t make what they wrote independent of their situation. Those are different things. You can distance yourself completely in the important parts of the novel things you propose. For example, I use this language to talk to you. That doesn’t make this idea that I’m presenting to you dependent on this language. If we used another language, I would use that. So, yeah, ideas are shared with the shared means of communication. That doesn’t make ideas dependent on the shared things.r

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I fully disagree. Buddhism was developed in societies with completely different mentality. How exactly do you expect a medieval Dominican friar to even contemplate the idea of reincarnation? And even if, somehow, he thought of that, how could he suggest it in his manuscripts, which were written to educate Catholic priests?

We are not dealing with theoretical hypotheses, we refer to social conditions. How many philosophers of the West you know that have impact in their society by describing Buddhist principles?

We are humans, and yet it would be difficult today to develop a philosophy or theology that praises human sucrifice for pleasing Gods. We do not live in the 5000 BC, nor can understand the mentality of those people.

The topic I opened has historical component too, so I expect to analyze also this. You may believe in objectivity, but here I want to address the different definitions of reality that intellectuals of different social and historical background had.

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Yeah, but both of them being societies, most of both were the same. Just the accesory parts different. It’s not like in those societies the kids worked and the adults played at home with dolls. And that’s even not that different.

I totally can expect anyone to contemplate reincarnation. In fact, the idea of reincarnation arised independently in several places. It’s not that novel of an idea.

Oh, you seem to be confusing writing stuff down with coming up with an idea. Quite different. The writing down is independent of having an idea. The big big big chunk of ideas of the world were not written down nor passed down nor anything. Or do you think illiterate people don’t have ideas, or people that don’t write don’t have ideas, or people that don’t publish don’t have those? Or that such ideas are the same as everyone else? Don’t confuse lack of evidence for evidence of lack.

Impact on society makes no difference here. It’s not a novel idea because it has an impact. In fact, as it was pointed out, if it is too novel, it won’t have an impact (perhaps, that person will be shunned, for example)

I don’t see someone thinking of human sacrifice for pleasing gods as anything unthinkable nor novel…

Exactly, then it’s good to ask about reality. For example, people that think reality different are Lao Tse (or however that is written down), with talking about the Dao as existence/being/so. I’d say reality as a battleground of good vs evil is more about history than reality, too

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Ok, then explain why Buddhistic ideas were not developed by medieval European thinkers. Is there an objective reason that this happened?

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With thinkers there are parallels, but a better question is why did those ideas not catch on so well. The presence of Christianity is likely the reason, even if some of these thinkers were Christian. Eckhart might be the best example, he had a pure nothingness idea (ein bloss niht) which is similar to Buddhist ideas down to the level of no thing ness, not absence. He had ideas of detachement and letting go that directly parallel Buddhism. There are non-dualist aspects to his thinking and a strong focus on a timeless now. Some others: Marguerite Porete, John Scotus Eriugena and Nicholas of Cusa. The first faced a heresy trial. These ideas were tolerated to some degree in the closed world of monasteries and the like, but if they leaked out the Church was going to invervene and this included with things like the Inquisition. There was no epistemic dictator like the Christian Church in Asia, so it could merge with older religions - though it often spread through country leader support.

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Every person is a thinker. Do you think the main part of any idea you have read about buddhism hasn’t been thought my medieval europeans? Again: lack of evidence is not evidence of lack.

The popularity of ideas is another completely different topic