University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Modern Languages and Literatures, Department Spanish Language and Literature of January 2004 Benito Pérez Galdós Harriet Stevens Turner University of Nebraska-Lincoln,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangspanish Part of the Modern Languages Commons Turner, Harriet Stevens, "Benito Pérez Galdós" (2004). Spanish Language and Literature. 11. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/modlangspanish/11 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Modern Languages and Literatures, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Spanish Language and Literature by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 27 Benito Pkrez Galdos HARRIETS. TURNER The term "Realism," whether applied to painting, philosophy, literature, or even to what today is called "the real reality TV," always implies a fundamental duality. There is, on the one hand, the perception of a world of things that simply exists - "inanimate, spatially extended, and subject to quantifiable forces" - and, on the other, there is the mind - "the seat of thought, understanding, sensation, and imagination."' The mind-body dualism of Descartes (1596-1650) and the inventions and discoveries of Galileo (1564-1642) had shaped for Western civilization the scientific worldview. This view delineated three basic intellectual positions vis-a-vis the relationship between