Scientific and other descriptions of reality

Abstract

In everyday as well as in scientific situations we describe reality from different points of view, involving different possibilities of observation and action, and according to different conceptual schemes. However, it is the intuition of many philosophers that there is a way in which reality really or essentially is independent of the variety of different descriptions of it, and that only descriptions which capture or are in accordance with this essential nature of reality are true and objective descriptions of reality. Hence, the fact that reality exists independently of our descriptions and conceptions of it is taken to mean that there must be something which reality is “in itself” beyond points of view, and descriptions put forward from within different points of view.