Confusingly, realism with regard to the arts is often called representationalism . However, sometimes when people talk about realism in philosophy or metaphysics they are really talking about what I define as intrinsicism , since historically realism was often contrasted with nominalism and was equated with idealism and intrinsicism. Reductionism is often closely allied with materialism and determinism . The term refers either to a philosophical approach that attempts to reduce complex phenomena to the simplest possible explanation or to the belief that such reduction constitutes the only valid style of explanation. Physicalism and behaviorism are examples of reductionism.
Relativism is often just another word for subjectivism .
Popularly, relativism is usually contrasted with some form of ethical objectivism , while subjectivism has connotations of a sort of spoiled-brat individualism and, in the extreme, of solipsism . Epistemological representationalism is therefore opposed to realism , especially to direct realism. The term is most often used in discussions of perception, phenomenalism being the more general term of this sort. In aesthetics, representationalism is the idea that art ought to represent reality. Romanticism is the name for the theory and movement of art and philosophy that developed in the nineteenth century in opposition to classicism .