Does a Bell inequality violation imply irrealism?

Abstract Seminal for the raising of the quantum information age and quintessential for a deep understanding of nature, Bell inequality violations are known for having provided a profound disruption to classical models of the physical world. Yet, their meaning is still debatable nowadays. An important point under dispute in this context concerns the relevance of realism. While some believe that a Bell inequality violation implies the manifestation of nonlocal aspects, others defend that it is the notion of realism that should be abandoned. The purpose of the present work is to shed some light on the matter by employing a formal definition of (ir)realism. Our strategy consists of (i) rephrasing Bell’s assumption of local causality in terms of more primitive hypotheses and (ii) assessing where the fundamental difficulties emerge when using the quantum formalism. We analyze the question posed in the title using two distinct approaches and assert that a positive answer is justifiable. Nevertheless, even in this scenario, it becomes evident that violations of locality cannot be avoided. As a byproduct of our approach, the connections of (ir)realism with both quantum steering and entanglement are also discussed.