In philosophy, Realism, or Realist or Realistic are terms that describe manifestations of philosophical realism, the belief that reality exists independently of observers. Scientific realism and Realism in the arts are two of a number of different senses the words take in other fields. In this broad sense Realism frequently contrasts with Idealism.

Realism as a philosophy of mind is rooted in the "common sense" philosophy of perception known as naive realism, which has been developed as "direct" realism when distinguished from representative realism, the view that we cannot perceive the external world directly. Critical realism is the philosophy of perception concerned with the accuracy of human sense-data. In epistemology realism is accounted a subcategory of objectivism. Hyper-realism or Hyperreality, on the other hand, doubts the inability of consciousness to distinguish reality from fantasy. Transcendental realism is a concept implying that individuals have a perfect understanding of the limitations of their own minds. Realism is not the thought of being actual.

Graham Harman (born May 9, 1968, Iowa City, Iowa) is a professor at the American University in Cairo, Egypt. He is a contemporary philosopher of metaphysics, who attempts to reverse the linguistic turn of Western philosophy. Harman is associated with Speculative Realism in philosophy, which was the name of a workshop that also included the philosophers Ray Brassier, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Quentin Meillassoux.

Born in Iowa City and raised in Mount Vernon, Iowa, Harman attended St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, receiving his B.A. in 1990. He then pursued graduate study under philosopher Alphonso Lingis at Penn State University, receiving his M.A. in 1991. Transferring to DePaul University in Chicago, he received his Ph. D. there in 1999. While in Chicago, he worked briefly as a sportswriter for sportsextra.com (now defunct). Since 2000, he has been a member of the Department of Philosophy at the American University in Cairo.

Through an interpretation of the tool-analysis of Heidegger's Being and Time, Harman sets out to develop what he calls an object-oriented philosophy. Taking the tool-analysis as the defining moment in twentieth-century philosophy, Harman finds in Heidegger the roots of a metaphysics of things which does justice to the autonomous existence of objects. Although working from within it, he finds the broad history of phenomenology to be deficient in that it constantly subordinates the independent life of objects to our (human) access to them. Against the Kantian tradition, his object-oriented approach considers the neglected real life of objects to be fertile ground for a resurgent metaphysics. Emphasizing the notions of substance and occasional cause (see occasionalism), he affirms the absolute autonomy of objects from all other objects while aiming to "allude" to their shadowy underground life and covert interactions by means of metaphor.