In philosophy, realism is also a way of thinking about knowledge and reality. It is usually the view that a particular thing is real whether or not it is known about. In fact, one person can be a realist about some things and a non-realist about other things. For example, some realists say that the past really happened no matter what we think about it. Other realist philosophers say that there are morals that really exist as facts. This is different from philosophers who say that things only exist because of people who are aware of them. For example, a non-realist philosopher might say beauty only exists because someone sees something that they think is beautiful. A realist philosopher might instead say that beauty is there whether anyone sees it or not.