Here's my ramble about ontological realisms
What is an ontological realism? Well, first of all, let's define ontological. The study of that which exists, more or less. An ontology would be a system of categorization, or an expression of existence, of some type of object or class of "things." That was a bad definition, but whatever.

What is a realism? A realism is a philosophical doctrine that something is "real", that is, it is really actually there.

Types of realisms include transcendental realism (the world is a real thing outside of ourselves), Platonic realism (objects have their true "forms" existing in some other world or dimension or something), mathematical realism (numbers aren't concepts that describe the world, they actually EXIST in the world by themselves), and so on.

I make the distinction of an ontological realism to clarify that I am talking about a philosophical realism that some class of things "exists" independently (of humans, of experience, etc).

Now, it is my general rule of thumb that ontological realisms can never be proved, and most of them cannot even be pragmatically justified. I make THIS distinction because, well, the trivial realism - that the world exists independent of us (the original realism, maybe?), cannot be conclusively proved, but it's just useful to assume such - and it really really really seems true.

Anyway, so what about the unacceptable realisms? Well, the Platonic example was given, and who really believes in that, anyway? Let's take a more controversial example: ethical realism. Do "rights" exist independently, or did we make them up as useful concepts to explain what we think every human should probably be allowed to do?

What evidence for such a realism (what I call "conceptual realism", in the most general sense - that some concepts might exist independently of humans creating them) could there POSSIBLY be?

None! You cannot verify the existence of something that isn't physical - and that you deny is just something that people made up. Those are the only ways something can exist, aren't they? I'd like a counter-example, god dammit.

Anyway, ontological realisms are realisms that I call "make pretend", kind of like God. Mk?