ABSTRACT
Realism' and 'objectivity' are philosophers' terms of art with no strict synonyms in ordinary English. This chapter outlines some very simple and general structural features that would characterize the interesting uses of each term. 'Realism' is applied to other domains to make the same kinds of distinctions. One way of using the word 'real' treats it as interchangeable with 'exists'. Mind-independence as a characterization of realism, however, is incompatible with Domain Neutrality. Dependence is standardly taken to be an irreflexive relation: nothing depends on itself. Relative Fundamentality is also not incompatible with the structural features required of any adequate metaphysical conception of realism. Objective domains are characterized by Cognitive Command in terms of the features of disagreements about those domains. Belief-Knowledge Connection (BKC) is just a simple instance of a family of epistemic conceptions of objectivity.
