If a can of peaches falls on your foot and breaks a couple of toes, you can be pretty sure both the foot and the can are real. How you know is from direct physical sensation. That doesn't prove the peaches inside the can are real, and you won't find out for some time: you'll probably be sitting an emergency waiting room instead of eating your canned peaches.

There is a tiny country in Europe, sandwiched between the border of Andorra and France, which has stringent labeling laws for canned goods. They believe it a crime to equate the material identity of fresh fruit with processed fruit. Canned peaches are not real peaches in this country. This also extends to deceased humans. No dead body shall bear any resemblance in memory to its former person and that is why it is perfectly fine to eat and can the dead.

You'll find the canned smeaches right next to corned schmeef, and though these may have been derived from peaches and people, they are not real peaches and people.

So I'm guessing what is real, depends on your criteria of what is real as it might concern the borders of identities.

What is real is "What is". How do we know what is real? That is the question epistemology has been trying to answer for centuries.

You cannot know what is real from a philosophical perspective, because the words used in the philosophical question "What is real?" were born in an absolutely non philosophical context. Think of the primitive humans: for them real and being was instinctively related to practical everyday experiences completely missing any precision, any exactness that we expect in philosophy. Then philosophers came and they pretended to force these words and concepts to get exactness and precision. They didn't realize that, in doing this operation, any criterion, any concept, any mental structure they used were already affected by the same lack of precision. It is like wanting to build a solid house by using milk as a material, water as tools, air as mental criterions: I mean, a lot of extremely fluid materials and tools.
This is what real and being are: extremely fluid, slippery, flexible concepts, and now you, like a lot of philosophers, want to establish something solid by asking "what is real?". In this sense I think the first two answers you got are meaningful in my interpretation, because they have tried to bend your question towards some evidence of the fluidity, the playfulness of our human discussions. Touch your body: can you feel the softness of your flesh? We know from science that even diamonds are not absolutely solid.

"What is real?" My guess – Horizons. Ineluctable relations (i.e. whatever is hazardous to ignore ... that which is the case whether or not we know (or believe) it to be the case ... mind/subject-POV/language/gauge-invariant referents). Contingent facts. The whole of existence....

So I'm guessing what is real, depends on your criteria of what is real as it might concern the borders of identities. — Nils Loc

A canid is a chien is a koira is dog. Whether each is real or imaginary doesn't depend on labelling laws but on whether they can bite.

Austin, especially in Other Minds, addresses "real".

Consider the question: Is it a real one? When you ask if it is real, what are you sugesting? No, it's a fake; it's an illusion; it's a forgery; it's a phoney, a counterfeit, a mirage... What is real and what isn't is decided in each case by contrast; there is no single criteria.

The wile of the metaphysician consists in asking 'Is it a real table?' (a kind of object which has no obvious way of being phoney) and not specifying or limiting what may be wrong with it, so that I feel at a loss 'how to prove' it is a real one.' It is the use of the word 'real' in this manner that leads us on to the supposition that 'real' has a single meaning ('the real world' 'material objects'), and that a highly profound and puzzling one. Instead, we should insist always on specifying with what 'real' is being contrasted - not what I shall have to show it is, in order to show it is 'real': and then usually we shall find some specific, less fatal, word, appropriate to the particular case, to substitute for 'real' — Austin

Austin shows that it has different meanings (uses) depending on context - it's not a real dollar note, it's a forgery; it's not a real tree, it's an illusion; and so on. The pattern is "it's not a real X, its a Y". Austin goes on to add a tool for analysing metaphysical notions of "real", by finding a more appropriate word, or dismissing the argument if one be not apparent.

What is offered by Austin is not a definition, but a method to test proposed uses. What we have is an antidote to the philosopher's tendency to push words beyond their applicability.

Perhaps seeing this requires a particular conception of philosophical problems as knots in our understanding, to be untied, explained, or showing how to leave the flytrap. but the fly has to want to leave....

There may perhaps be a sense not covered by this, a sense that is "absolute" in some way; but Austins method sets the challenge of setting out clearly what such a sense would be.

Austin's Paper is here.

It's eleven months since I wrote the above. The topic comes around every few months. It's a prime candidate for a fixed thread. And for Einstein's apocryphal definition of insanity. @Jamal?

A canid is a chien is a koira is dog. Whether each is real or imaginary doesn't depend on labelling laws but on whether they can bite. — Vera Mont

Just being a bit silly over here, so don't mind me. But we agree, by your criteria, a dead dog is not a real dog.

Just being a bit silly over here, so don't mind me. But we agree, by your criteria, a dead dog is not a real dog. — Nils Loc

Okay. It's a real corpse.
It was remiss of me to set a single criterion. Maybe i can do better with corpses?

Nice. Agree about this being a fixed thread or sticky.

And how can you know that for real?

pun intended.... — A Realist

When one asks "What is real?", it implies that he / she feels the situation or object perceived could be unreal or fake.

Usually in this situation, one immediately starts some verification process on the object, or uses his / her intuition and susses out whether it is real or not.

Therefore being real implies that objects or situation has been perceived, and
1. inferred and judged as real via some verification
2. judged via intuition as real, not fake

Of course human sense organs are not perfect, and there is always the possibility of getting wrong, and the same goes with the verification process or techniques. 

For the question "What is real?", the answer would be, any object or situation, information or knowledge that had been gone through the verification / intuition process, and found (judged) to be not fake, not unreal.

Doubting the whole external world or existence just because something is not appearing as expected or different from what it really is (arguments from illusion) oversimplification on the situation caused by imperfect human sense organs.

My belief is that no 'thing' is metaphysically real. It may be real as an appearance, but appearances are reducible,

This is Kant's view, or one way of interpreting his calculations. If it were possible to prove the true realty of even one 'thing' then it would be possible to falsify the Perennial philosophy. Fortunately, as Kant shows, it cannot be done.

But in the end it would depend on how we define the words 'real' and ;thing'. . ;.

;

Let's see if I can't depend on my senses to gather what is real then I left with my mind.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM8bTdBs-cw&ab_channel=Metallica

And I might hallucinate, but the hallucination is my reality.

What is real ? Tangible things perceived by the senses such as apples, oranges, buildings, in short the world and everything in it.

Reality warrants no belief or leap of faith such as a God which does require faith.

And I might hallucinate, but the hallucination is my reality — A Realist

I have no experience of what hallucinations are like but though vision might be altered the other senses might be unaffected such as touch and smell which would discredit that sort of reality.

In other words, that which is ineluctable, involuntary and/or immanent (encompassing) is real. All else are either (incidental) properties or (cognitive) illusions.

Reality is what you believe to be real, in short.

something can be real to me but not real to someone else.

That's what I am getting at.

something can be real to me but not real to someone else. — A Realist

What everyone else is getting at is that reality is that about which one can be deceived. So in the case where what is real to you is unreal to me, at least one of us is deceived. But if you are suggesting that something can really be real to you and really be unreal to me, then I think you must be confused.

something can be real to me but not real to someone else — A Realist

Such as?

... I think you must be confused. — unenlightened

:up:

The existence of God.

The existence of God. — A Realist

Really? How do you know?

The existence of God. — A Realist

Some people think God is real, and some people think God is unreal, and they are all correct?

:roll:

Reality does not require "faith" ... insofar as whatever there is constrains – encompasses – "whatever else" we believe or do not believe "is the case".

It's a prime candidate for a fixed thread — Banno

We've been pretending to question the reality of what interact with nonchalantly every second of our lives, for millennia. When will this affectation cease? Thanks for the Austin quote. Such a sensible fellow.

Real is anything that is contained by reality. In that case you might ask what is reality? which can be subjective or objective, objective in terms of agreed upon consensus or subjective that which is in your private world such as a certain emotion.

Reality does not require "faith" ... insofar as whatever there is constrains – encompasses – whatever else we believe or do not believe "is the case". — 180 Proof

Unless there is a reciprocal relation between the constraints posed by whatever there is and our way of life, which makes intelligible what we believe or do not believe is the case. Put differently, whatever there is is always produced via interaction within a web of relations contributing an ineradicable element of expectation, or ‘faith’.

You and I are using the word "faith" very differently. Given the context of my exchange with simplyG, Joshs, your response doesn't add anything relevant.

Agreed, and consisting of facts. For example currently I’m looking at my curtains, this although a personal experience does not detract from the reality of there being curtains in my room. The issue with personal experience such as the one I’m having is that a sceptic would not believe me yet for me there’s no leap of faith taking place for me to realise that what I’m looking at are curtains, that leap of faith belongs to the sceptic regarding my personal experience.

What is real? — A Realist

It is real what is real to me.

And how can you know that for real? — A Realist

Because it is real to me. :smile:

Hint #1: Can you consider something as real if it is real for others but not for you?
Hint #2: Can something be considered as real in general, in an objective, absolute way or sense?

As "A Realist", you must know all that. :smile:

Real is anything that is contained by reality. In that case you might ask what is reality? which can be subjective or objective, objective in terms of agreed upon consensus or subjective that which is in your private world such as a certain emotion.

I get the concept you're trying to communicate, but the wording you're using makes it potentially confusing at best and inaccurate at worst.

Namely, IMO it is more accurate to label the product of our perceptions as "perceptions" than "reality". Our perceptions could be reality itself, it could be our version of "reality" (which would likely not be true reality), OTOH the perceptions collected by a camera are free from human biases and psychological influences. Could video recordings of human events be "reality"? Well, at best they are external recordings of reality.