"The belief in an external world independent of the percipient subject is the foundation of all science. But since our sense-perceptions inform us only indirectly of this external world, or Physical Reality, it is only by speculation that it can become comprehensible to us. From this it follows that our conceptions of Physical Reality can never be definitive; we must always be ready to alter them, that is, [to alter] the axiomatic basis of physics, in order to take account of the facts of perception with the greatest possible logical completeness."
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Albert Einstein, "Maxwell’s Influence on the Evolution of the Idea of Physical Reality," James Clerk Maxwell: a Commemoration Volume (1931) ed., J. J. Thomson, pp. 66-73.
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Philosophical_realism
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Philosophical realism
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