More generally, it stands
within the «realist» tradition in affirming the
objective reality of the orders of
truth and other kinds of excellence, as against nominalists and subjectivists who believe that knowledge is essentially a human construct and values are nothing but human preferences.
The undermining of the sense of
objective truth in Western culture over the last century and a half is now reflected in the steady undermining of assent to the teaching of the Magisterium
within the Western Church over the last forty years.