What Is Realism , and Why Should Qualitative Researchers Care ?

Realism Philosophic realism in general is defined by Phillips (1987, p. 205) as " the view that entities exist independently of being perceived, or independently of our theories about them. " Schwandt adds that " scientific realism is the view that theories refer to real features of the world. 'Reality' here refers to whatever it is in the universe (i.e., forces, structures, and so on) that causes the phenomena we perceive with our senses " (1997, p. 133). Such views were ignored or disparaged during much of the twentieth century, both by positivists and by constructivists and other antipositivists. However, they have emerged as a serious position in current philosophical realism has been prominent in other areas of philosophy as well (Miller, 2010). There are ongoing philosophical debates over realism that remain unre-solved, and realist philosophers themselves disagree about many of these issues; one advocate of realist views claimed that " scientific realism is a majority position whose advocates are so divided as to appear a minority " (Leplin, 1984, p. 1). However, equally serious issues confront alternative positions, and the idea that there is a real world with which we interact, and to which our concepts and