Modern realism was developed and popularized by a group of philosophers, the most popular of which were Francis Bacon and John Locke. This is based on the belief that all knowledge comes from ruminating over past experiences. This idea is founded on the understanding that we do not bring any ideas into this life when we are born. Our ideas and philosophies are picked up as we grow older and have more experiences.
As a consequence, it can be hard to distinguish our ideas from reality. Bacon decided that rather than using deductive reasoning, inductive reasoning would be a much more helpful approach. Inductive reasoning completely ignores preconceived notions and focuses on the observable reality.
