Realism and truth the thought of Saint Thomas and its current application

Abstract

In the history of western philosophy, realism has been presented in three different dimensions, somehow related to each other: 1) Faced with the problem of universals, realistic positions, variously nuanced, oppose nominalism and conceptualism. 2) In modern thought, realism is the counterpoint, epistemological and metaphysical of rationalism and idealism. 3) From the s. XIX, positivism postulates sticking to the facts, as they are, without overlapping interpretations, theories, projections, etc., thereby considering itself as realism, although it is not; nor are other ideological currents, more or less inspired by so-called positivism, realistic, which also describe themselves as realists although they are rationalists or idealists (especially the materialism, and especially that of Marx).