Idealism in
philosophy
Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...
, also known as philosophical realism or metaphysical idealism, is the set of
metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
perspectives asserting that, most fundamentally,
reality
Reality is the sum or aggregate of everything in existence; everything that is not imagination, imaginary. Different Culture, cultures and Academic discipline, academic disciplines conceptualize it in various ways.
Philosophical questions abo ...
is equivalent to
mind
The mind is that which thinks, feels, perceives, imagines, remembers, and wills. It covers the totality of mental phenomena, including both conscious processes, through which an individual is aware of external and internal circumstances ...
,
spirit, or
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
; that reality is entirely a mental construct; or that ideas are the highest type of reality or have the greatest claim to being considered "real".
[Goldschmidt et al. 2017, p. ix.] Because there are different types of idealism, it is difficult to define the term uniformly.
Indian philosophy
Indian philosophy consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The philosophies are often called darśana meaning, "to see" or "looking at." Ānvīkṣikī means “critical inquiry” or “investigation." Unlike darśan ...
contains some of the first defenses of idealism, such as in
Vedanta
''Vedanta'' (; , ), also known as ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six orthodox (Āstika and nāstika, ''āstika'') traditions of Hindu philosophy and textual exegesis. The word ''Vedanta'' means 'conclusion of the Vedas', and encompa ...
and in
Shaiva
Shaivism (, , ) is one of the major Hindu traditions, which worships Shiva as the supreme being. It is the second-largest Hindu sect after Vaishnavism, constituting about 385 million Hindus, found widely across South Asia (predominantly in ...
Pratyabhijña thought. These systems of thought argue for an all-pervading consciousness as the true nature and ground of reality. Idealism is also found in some streams of Mahayana Buddhism, such as in the
Yogācāra
Yogachara (, IAST: ') is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditation, as well as philosophical reasoning (hetuvidyā). ...
school, which argued for a "mind-only" (''cittamatra'') philosophy on an analysis of subjective experience. In the West, idealism traces its roots back to
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
in ancient Greece, who proposed that absolute, unchanging, timeless ideas constitute the highest form of reality:
Platonic idealism
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato.
A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical w ...
. This was revived and transformed in the early modern period by
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...
's arguments that our knowledge of reality is completely based on mental structures:
transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781). By ''transcendental'' (a term that des ...
.
Epistemologically, idealism is accompanied by a rejection of the possibility of knowing the existence of any ''thing'' independent of mind.
Ontologically, idealism asserts that the existence of all things depends upon the mind; thus, ontological idealism rejects the perspectives of
physicalism
In philosophy, physicalism is the view that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenience, supervenes on the physical. It is opposed to idealism, according to which the world arises ...
and
dualism
Dualism most commonly refers to:
* Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another
* P ...
. In contrast to
materialism
Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
, idealism asserts the ''primacy'' of consciousness as the origin and prerequisite of all phenomena.
Idealism came under attack from proponents of
analytical philosphy, such as
G. E. Moore
George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the initiators of analytic philosophy. He and Russell began de-emphasizing ...
and
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
, but its critics also included the
new realists and
Marxists
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, and ...
. However, many aspects and paradigms of idealism still have a large influence on subsequent philosophy.
Definitions
''Idealism'' is a term with several related meanings. It comes via
Latin
Latin ( or ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally spoken by the Latins (Italic tribe), Latins in Latium (now known as Lazio), the lower Tiber area aroun ...
''
idea
In philosophy and in common usage, an idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophe ...
'' from the
Ancient Greek
Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...
''
idea
In philosophy and in common usage, an idea (from the Greek word: ἰδέα (idea), meaning 'a form, or a pattern') is the results of thought. Also in philosophy, ideas can also be mental representational images of some object. Many philosophe ...
'' (ἰδέα) from ''idein'' (ἰδεῖν), meaning "to see". The term entered the English language by 1743. The term idealism was first used in the abstract metaphysical sense of the "belief that reality is made up only of ideas" by
Christian Wolff in 1747.
The term re-entered the English language in this abstract sense by 1796.
A. C. Ewing
Alfred Cyril Ewing ( ; 11 May 1899 – 14 May 1973) was an English philosopher who spent most of his career at the University of Cambridge. He was a prolific writer who made contributions to Kant scholarship, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, ...
gives this influential definition:
the view that there can be no physical objects existing apart from some experience...provided that we regard thinking as part of experience and do not imply by "experience" passivity, and provided we include under experience not only human experience but the so-called "Absolute Experience" or the experience of a God such as Berkeley postulates.[Guyer, 2023, p. 3.]
A more recent definition by
Willem deVries sees idealism as "roughly, the genus comprises theories that attribute ontological priority to the mental, especially the conceptual or ideational, over the non-mental."
As such, idealism entails a rejection of
materialism
Materialism is a form of monism, philosophical monism according to which matter is the fundamental Substance theory, substance in nature, and all things, including mind, mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. Acco ...
(or
physicalism
In philosophy, physicalism is the view that "everything is physical", that there is "nothing over and above" the physical, or that everything supervenience, supervenes on the physical. It is opposed to idealism, according to which the world arises ...
) as well as the rejection of the mind-independent existence of matter (and as such, also entails a rejection of
dualism
Dualism most commonly refers to:
* Mind–body dualism, a philosophical view which holds that mental phenomena are, at least in certain respects, not physical phenomena, or that the mind and the body are distinct and separable from one another
* P ...
).
There are two main definitions of idealism in contemporary philosophy, depending on whether its thesis is epistemic or metaphysical:
*
Metaphysical
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of h ...
idealism or
ontological
Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every ...
idealism is the view which holds that all of reality is in some way mental (or spirit, reason, or will) or at least ultimately grounded in a fundamental basis which is mental.
[Guyer et al., 2023, pp. 1–2.] This is a form of metaphysical
monism
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
because it holds that there is only one type of thing in existence. The modern paradigm of a Western metaphysical idealism is
Berkeley's immaterialism.
Other such idealists are
Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
, and
Bradley.
*
Epistemological idealism (or "formal" idealism) is a position in
epistemology
Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...
that holds that all
knowledge
Knowledge is an Declarative knowledge, awareness of facts, a Knowledge by acquaintance, familiarity with individuals and situations, or a Procedural knowledge, practical skill. Knowledge of facts, also called propositional knowledge, is oft ...
is based on mental structures, not on "things in themselves". Whether a mind-independent reality is accepted or not, all that we have knowledge of are mental phenomena.
The main source of Western epistemic idealist arguments is the transcendental idealism of
Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, et ...
.
Other thinkers who have defended epistemic idealist arguments include
Ludwig Boltzmann
Ludwig Eduard Boltzmann ( ; ; 20 February 1844 – 5 September 1906) was an Austrian mathematician and Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist. His greatest achievements were the development of statistical mechanics and the statistical ex ...
and
Brand Blanshard
Percy Brand Blanshard ( ; August 27, 1892 – November 19, 1987) was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of rationalism and idealism.
Biography
Brand Blanshard was born August 27, 1892, in Fredericksburg, Ohio. His parent ...
.
Thus, metaphysical idealism holds that reality itself is non-physical, immaterial, or experiential at its core, while
epistemological idealist arguments merely affirm that reality can only be known through ideas and mental structures (without necessarily making metaphysical claims about
things in themselves).
[Daniel Sommer Robinson]
"Idealism"
''Encyclopædia Britannica'' Because of this, A.C. Ewing argued that instead of thinking about these two categories as forms of idealism proper, we should instead speak of epistemic and metaphysical arguments for idealism.
[Guyer, Paul and Rolf-Peter Horstmann]
"Idealism", ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy''
(Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.).
These two ways of arguing for idealism are sometimes combined to defend a specific type of idealism (as done by Berkeley), but they may also be defended as independent theses by different thinkers. For example, while F. H. Bradley and McTaggart focused on metaphysical arguments,
Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce (; November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American Pragmatism, pragmatist and objective idealism, objective idealist philosopher and the founder of American idealism. His philosophical ideas included his joining of pragmatis ...
, and
Brand Blanshard
Percy Brand Blanshard ( ; August 27, 1892 – November 19, 1987) was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of rationalism and idealism.
Biography
Brand Blanshard was born August 27, 1892, in Fredericksburg, Ohio. His parent ...
developed epistemological arguments.
Furthermore, one might use epistemic arguments, but remain neutral about the metaphysical nature of things in themselves. This metaphysically neutral position, which is not a form of metaphysical idealism proper, may be associated with figures like
Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism.
...
,
Quine
Quine may refer to:
* Quine (computing), a program that produces its source code as output
* Quine's paradox, in logic
* Quine (surname), people with the surname
** Willard Van Orman Quine (1908–2000), American philosopher and logician
See al ...
,
Donald Davidson, and perhaps even Kant himself (though he is difficult to categorize). The most famous kind of epistemic idealism is associated with
Kantianism and
transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism is a philosophical system founded by German philosopher Immanuel Kant in the 18th century. Kant's epistemological program is found throughout his '' Critique of Pure Reason'' (1781). By ''transcendental'' (a term that des ...
, as well as with the related
Neo-Kantian
In late modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism () was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy ...
philosophies. Transcendental idealists like Kant affirm epistemic idealistic arguments without committing themselves to whether reality as such, the "
thing in itself
In Kantian philosophy, the thing-in-itself () is the status of objects as they are, independent of representation and observation. The concept of the thing-in-itself was introduced by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, and over the followin ...
", is ''ultimately'' mental.
Types of metaphysical idealism
Within metaphysical idealism, there are numerous further sub-types, including forms of
pluralism, which hold that there are many independent mental
substances or minds, such as
Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many ...
'
monadology
The ''Monadology'' (, 1714) is one of Gottfried Leibniz's best known works of his later philosophy. It is a short text which presents, in some 90 paragraphs, a metaphysics of simple substances, or '' monads''.
Text
During his last stay in V ...
, and various forms of
monism
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
or
absolute idealism
Absolute idealism is chiefly associated with Friedrich Schelling and G. W. F. Hegel, both of whom were German idealist philosophers in the 19th century. The label has also been attached to others such as Josiah Royce, an American philosopher wh ...
(e.g. Hegelianism or
Advaita Vedanta), which hold that the fundamental mental reality is a single unity or is grounded in some kind of singular
Absolute
Absolute may refer to:
Companies
* Absolute Entertainment, a video game publisher
* Absolute Radio, (formerly Virgin Radio), independent national radio station in the UK
* Absolute Software Corporation, specializes in security and data risk ma ...
. Beyond this, idealists disagree on which aspects of the mental are more metaphysically basic.
Platonic idealism
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato.
A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical w ...
affirms that ideal
forms are more basic to reality than the things we perceive, while
subjective idealists and
phenomenalists privilege sensory experiences.
Personalism
Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human persons. Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Friedrich Schleie ...
, meanwhile, sees
person
A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...
s or
selves as fundamental.
A common distinction is between subjective and objective forms of idealism.
Subjective idealists like
George Berkeley
George Berkeley ( ; 12 March 168514 January 1753), known as Bishop Berkeley (Bishop of Cloyne of the Anglican Church of Ireland), was an Anglo-Irish philosopher, writer, and clergyman who is regarded as the founder of "immaterialism", a philos ...
reject the existence of a mind-independent or "external" world (though not the ''appearance'' of such phenomena in the mind). However, not all idealists restrict the real to subjective experience.
Objective idealists make claims about a trans-empirical world, but simply deny that this world is essentially divorced from or ontologically prior to mind or consciousness as such. Thus, objective idealism asserts that the reality of experiencing includes and transcends the realities of the object experienced and of the mind of the observer.
Idealism is sometimes categorized as a type of metaphysical
anti-realism
In analytic philosophy, anti-realism is the position that the truth of a statement rests on its demonstrability through internal logic mechanisms, such as the context principle or intuitionistic logic, in direct opposition to the realist notion t ...
or
skepticism
Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
. However, idealists need not reject the existence of an objective reality that we can obtain knowledge of, and can merely affirm that this real natural world is mental.
[Chalmers, David (2019). Idealism and the Mind-Body Problem. In William Seager (ed.), ''The Routledge Handbook of Panpsychism''. New York: Routledge. pp. 353–373.] Thus,
David Chalmers
David John Chalmers (; born 20 April 1966) is an Australian philosopher and cognitive scientist, specializing in philosophy of mind and philosophy of language. He is a professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, as well ...
writes of anti-realist idealisms (which would include Berkeley's) and realist forms of idealism, such as "
panpsychist versions of idealism where fundamental microphysical entities are conscious subjects, and on which matter is realized by these conscious subjects and their relations."
Chalmers further outlines the following taxonomy of idealism:
Micro-idealism is the thesis that concrete reality is wholly grounded in micro-level mentality: that is, in mentality associated with fundamental microscopic entities (such as quarks
A quark () is a type of elementary particle and a fundamental constituent of matter. Quarks combine to form composite particles called hadrons, the most stable of which are protons and neutrons, the components of atomic nuclei. All commonly o ...
and photon
A photon () is an elementary particle that is a quantum of the electromagnetic field, including electromagnetic radiation such as light and radio waves, and the force carrier for the electromagnetic force. Photons are massless particles that can ...
s). Macro-idealism is the thesis that concrete reality is wholly grounded in macro-level mentality: that is, in mentality associated with macroscopic (middle-sized) entities such as human
Humans (''Homo sapiens'') or modern humans are the most common and widespread species of primate, and the last surviving species of the genus ''Homo''. They are Hominidae, great apes characterized by their Prehistory of nakedness and clothing ...
s and perhaps non-human animals. Cosmic idealism is the thesis that concrete reality is wholly grounded in cosmic mentality: that is, in mentality associated with the cosmos
The cosmos (, ; ) is an alternative name for the universe or its nature or order. Usage of the word ''cosmos'' implies viewing the universe as a complex and orderly system or entity.
The cosmos is studied in cosmologya broad discipline covering ...
as a whole or with a single cosmic entity (such as the universe or a deity).
Guyer et al. also distinguish between forms of idealism which are grounded in
substance theory
Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a ''substance'' and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as ...
(often found in the Anglophone idealisms of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries) and forms of idealism which focus on activities or dynamic
process
A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic.
Things called a process include:
Business and management
* Business process, activities that produce a specific s ...
es (favored in post-Kantian German philosophy).
Classical Greek idealism
Pre-Socratic philosophy
There are some precursors of idealism in
Ancient Greek Philosophy
Ancient Greek philosophy arose in the 6th century BC. Philosophy was used to make sense of the world using reason. It dealt with a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, epistemology, mathematics, political philosophy, ethics, metaphysics ...
, though scholars disagree on whether any of these thinkers could be properly labeled "idealist" in the modern sense.
[Dunham et al. 2011, p. 11]
One example is
Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras (; , ''Anaxagóras'', 'lord of the assembly'; ) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, Anaxagoras came to Athens. In later life he was charged ...
(480 BC) who taught that all things in the universe (
apeiron
''Apeiron'' (; ) is a Greek word meaning '(that which is) unlimited; boundless; infinite; indefinite' from ''a-'' 'without' and ''peirar'' 'end, limit; boundary', the Ionic Greek form of ''peras'' 'end, limit, boundary'.
Origin of everything
...
) were set in motion by ''
nous
''Nous'' (, ), from , is a concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the cognitive skill, faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is truth, true or reality, real.
Alternative Eng ...
'' ("mind"). In the ''
Phaedo
''Phaedo'' (; , ''Phaidōn'') is a dialogue written by Plato, in which Socrates discusses the immortality of the soul and the nature of the afterlife with his friends in the hours leading up to his death. Socrates explores various arguments fo ...
'', Plato quotes him as saying, "it is intelligence
ousthat arranges and causes all things".
Similarly,
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea (; ; fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic ancient Greece, Greek philosopher from Velia, Elea in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy).
Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Veli ...
famously stated that "thinking and being are the same".
This has led some scholars, such as Hegel and E. D. Phillips, to label Parmenides an idealist.
Platonism and neoplatonism
Plato
Plato ( ; Greek language, Greek: , ; born BC, died 348/347 BC) was an ancient Greek philosopher of the Classical Greece, Classical period who is considered a foundational thinker in Western philosophy and an innovator of the writte ...
's
theory of forms
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato.
A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical w ...
or "ideas" (''eidos'') as described in dialogues like
Phaedo
''Phaedo'' (; , ''Phaidōn'') is a dialogue written by Plato, in which Socrates discusses the immortality of the soul and the nature of the afterlife with his friends in the hours leading up to his death. Socrates explores various arguments fo ...
,
Parmenides
Parmenides of Elea (; ; fl. late sixth or early fifth century BC) was a Pre-Socratic philosophy, pre-Socratic ancient Greece, Greek philosopher from Velia, Elea in Magna Graecia (Southern Italy).
Parmenides was born in the Greek colony of Veli ...
and
Sophist
A sophist () was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught ''arete'', "virtue" or "excellen ...
, describes ideal forms (for example the
platonic solids
In geometry, a Platonic solid is a convex, regular polyhedron in three-dimensional Euclidean space. Being a regular polyhedron means that the faces are congruent (identical in shape and size) regular polygons (all angles congruent and all edge ...
in geometry or abstracts like Goodness and Justice), as perfect beings which "exists-by-itself" (Greek: ''auto kath' auto''), that is, independently of any particular instance (whether physical or in the individual thought of any person). Anything that exists in the world exists by participating in one of these unique ideas, which are nevertheless interrelated causally with the world of becoming, with nature.
[Dunham et al. 2011, p. 23.] Arne Grøn calls this doctrine "the classic example of a metaphysical idealism as a ''
transcendent'' idealism". Nevertheless, Plato holds that matter as perceived by us is real, though transitory, imperfect, and dependent on the eternal ideas for its existence. Because of this, some scholars have seen Plato as a
dualist, though others disagree and favor a
monist
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
account.
The thought of Plato was widely influential, and later Late Platonist (or
Neoplatonist
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ...
) thinkers developed Platonism in new directions.
Plotinus
Plotinus (; , ''Plōtînos''; – 270 CE) was a Greek Platonist philosopher, born and raised in Roman Egypt. Plotinus is regarded by modern scholarship as the founder of Neoplatonism. His teacher was the self-taught philosopher Ammonius ...
, the most influential of the later Platonists, wrote "Being and Intellect are therefore one nature" (''
Enneads
The ''Enneads'' (; ), fully ''The Six Enneads'', is the collection of writings of the philosopher Plotinus, edited and compiled by his student Porphyry (270). Plotinus was a student of Ammonius Saccas, and together they were founders of Neopla ...
'' V.9.8).
[Dunham et al. 2011, p. 25.] According to scholars like Nathaniel Alfred Boll and Ludwig Noiré, with Plotinus, a true idealism which holds that only soul or mind exists appears for the first time in
Western philosophy
Western philosophy refers to the Philosophy, philosophical thought, traditions and works of the Western world. Historically, the term refers to the philosophical thinking of Western culture, beginning with the ancient Greek philosophy of the Pre ...
.
[Ludwig Noiré, ''Historical Introduction to Kant's Critique of Pure Reason''] Similarly, for Maria Luisa Gatti, Plotinus' philosophy is a "'contemplationist metaphysics', in which contemplation, as creative, constitutes the reason for the being of everything".
For Neoplatonist thinkers, the first cause or principle is the
Idea of the Good
The Form of the Good, or more literally translated "the Idea of the Good" (), is a concept in the philosophy of Plato. In Plato's Theory of Forms, in which Forms are defined as perfect, eternal, and changeless concepts existing outside space and ...
, i.e. The One, from which everything is derived a hierarchical procession (''proodos'') (Enn. VI.7.15).
Judeo-Christian idealism
Some
Christian theologian
Christian theology is the theology – the systematic study of the divine and religion – of Christian belief and practice. It concentrates primarily upon the texts of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, as well as on Christian tradit ...
s have held idealist views, often based on
neoplatonism
Neoplatonism is a version of Platonic philosophy that emerged in the 3rd century AD against the background of Hellenistic philosophy and religion. The term does not encapsulate a set of ideas as much as a series of thinkers. Among the common id ...
.
Christian neoplatonism included figures like
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite
Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (or Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite) was a Greek author, Christian theologian and Neoplatonic philosopher of the late 5th to early 6th century, who wrote a set of works known as the ''Corpus Areopagiticum'' ...
, and influenced numerous Christian thinkers, including the
Cappadocian Fathers
The Cappadocian Fathers, also traditionally known as the Three Cappadocians, were a trio of Byzantine Christian prelates, theologians and monks who helped shape both early Christianity and the monastic tradition. Basil the Great (330–379) wa ...
and Augustine. Despite the influence of
Aristotelian scholasticism
Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and Ca ...
from the 12th century onward, there is certainly a sense in which some medieval
scholastic philosophers
Scholasticism was a medieval European philosophical movement or methodology that was the predominant education in Europe from about 1100 to 1700. It is known for employing logically precise analyses and reconciling classical philosophy and C ...
retained influences from the Platonic idealism that came via
Augustine
Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...
. For example, the work of
John Scotus Eriugena (c. 800 – c. 877) has been interpreted as an idealistic philosophy by
Dermot Moran who writes that for Scotus "all spatiotemporal reality is understood as immaterial, mind dependent, and lacking in independent existence". Scotus thus wrote: "the intellection of all things...is the being of all things".
Idealism was also defended in medieval
Jewish philosophy
Jewish philosophy () includes all philosophy carried out by Jews or in relation to the religion of Judaism. Until the modern ''Haskalah'' (Jewish Enlightenment) and Jewish emancipation, Jewish philosophy was preoccupied with attempts to reconc ...
. According to Samuel Lebens, early
Hassidic rabbis like
Yitzchak Luria (1534–72) defended a form of
Kabbalistic
Kabbalah or Qabalah ( ; , ; ) is an esoteric method, discipline and school of thought in Jewish mysticism. It forms the foundation of mystical religious interpretations within Judaism. A traditional Kabbalist is called a Mekubbal ().
Jewi ...
idealism in which the world was God's dream or a fictional tale told by God.
Later Western theistic idealism such as that of
Hermann Lotze offers a theory of the "world ground" in which all things find their unity: it has been widely accepted by Protestant theologians.
Several modern religious movements such as, for example, the organizations within the
New Thought Movement and the
Unity Church
Unity is a spiritual organization founded by Charles Fillmore (Unity Church), Charles and Myrtle Fillmore in 1889. It grew out of Transcendentalism and became part of the New Thought movement. Unity may be best known for its ''Daily Word'' devot ...
, may be said to have a particularly idealist orientation. The
theology
Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...
of
Christian Science
Christian Science is a set of beliefs and practices which are associated with members of the Church of Christ, Scientist. Adherents are commonly known as Christian Scientists or students of Christian Science, and the church is sometimes in ...
includes a form of idealism: it teaches that all that truly exists is God and God's ideas; that the world as it appears to the senses is a distortion of the underlying spiritual reality, a distortion that may be corrected (both conceptually and in terms of human experience) through a reorientation (spiritualization) of thought.
Idealism in Eastern philosophy
There are currents of idealism throughout
Indian philosophy
Indian philosophy consists of philosophical traditions of the Indian subcontinent. The philosophies are often called darśana meaning, "to see" or "looking at." Ānvīkṣikī means “critical inquiry” or “investigation." Unlike darśan ...
, ancient and modern. Some forms of Hindu idealism (like
Advaita) defend a type of
monism
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
or
non-dualism, in which a single
consciousness
Consciousness, at its simplest, is awareness of a state or object, either internal to oneself or in one's external environment. However, its nature has led to millennia of analyses, explanations, and debate among philosophers, scientists, an ...
(
brahman
In Hinduism, ''Brahman'' (; IAST: ''Brahman'') connotes the highest universal principle, the ultimate reality of the universe.P. T. Raju (2006), ''Idealistic Thought of India'', Routledge, , page 426 and Conclusion chapter part XII In the ...
) is all that exists. However, other traditions defend a theistic pluralism (e.g.
Shaiva Siddhanta
Shaiva Siddhanta () is a form of Shaivism popular in a pristine form in Tamilnadu and Sri Lanka and in a Tantrayana syncretised form in Vietnam and Indonesia (as Siwa Siddhanta). It propounds a devotional philosophy with the ultimate goal of e ...
), in which there are many selves (
atman) and one God.
Buddhist idealism on the other hand is
non-theistic
Nontheism or non-theism is a range of both religious and non-religious attitudes characterized by the absence of espoused belief in the existence of God or gods. Nontheism has generally been used to describe apathy or silence towards the subject ...
and does not accept the existence of eternal selves (due to their adherence to the theory of
not-self).
Hindu philosophy
A type of idealistic monism can be seen in the ''
Upanishads
The Upanishads (; , , ) are late Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts that "document the transition from the archaic ritualism of the Veda into new religious ideas and institutions" and the emergence of the central religious concepts of Hind ...
'', which often describe the ultimate reality of brahman as "being, consciousness, bliss" (''
Saccidānanda''). The ''
Chāndogya Upaniṣad
The ''Chandogya Upanishad'' (Sanskrit: , IAST: ''Chāndogyopaniṣad'') is a Sanskrit text embedded in the Chandogya Brahmana of the Sama Veda of Hinduism.Patrick Olivelle (2014), ''The Early Upanishads'', Oxford University Press; , pp. 166-1 ...
'' teaches that everything is an emanation of the immortal brahman, which is the essence and source of all things, and is identical with the self (
atman). The
''Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad'' also describes brahman as awaress and bliss, and states that "this great being (mahad bhūtam) without an end, boundless (apāra),
snothing but
vijñāna
''Vijñāna'' () or ''viññāa'' ()As is standard in WP articles, the Pali term ''viññāa'' will be used when discussing the Pali literature, and the Sanskrit word ''vijñāna'' will be used when referring to either texts chronologically subse ...
onsciousness"
Idealist notions can be found in different schools of
Hindu philosophy
Hindu philosophy or Vedic philosophy is the set of philosophical systems that developed in tandem with the first Hinduism, Hindu religious traditions during the Iron Age in India, iron and Classical India, classical ages of India. In Indian ...
, including some schools of
Vedanta
''Vedanta'' (; , ), also known as ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six orthodox (Āstika and nāstika, ''āstika'') traditions of Hindu philosophy and textual exegesis. The word ''Vedanta'' means 'conclusion of the Vedas', and encompa ...
. Other schools like the
Samkhya
Samkhya or Sankhya (; ) is a dualistic orthodox school of Hindu philosophy. It views reality as composed of two independent principles, '' Puruṣa'' ('consciousness' or spirit) and '' Prakṛti'' (nature or matter, including the human mind a ...
and
Nyaya
Nyāya (Sanskrit: न्यायः, IAST: nyāyaḥ), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment", is one of the six orthodox (Āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. Nyāya's most significant contributions to Indian philosophy ...
-
Vaisheshika
Vaisheshika (IAST: Vaiśeṣika; ; ) is one of the six schools of Hindu philosophy from ancient India. In its early stages, Vaiśeṣika was an independent philosophy with its own metaphysics, epistemology, logic, ethics, and soteriology. Over t ...
,
Mimamsa,
Yoga
Yoga (UK: , US: ; 'yoga' ; ) is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that originated with its own philosophy in ancient India, aimed at controlling body and mind to attain various salvation goals, as pra ...
,
Vishishtadvaita
Vishishtadvaita (IAST '; ) is a school of Hindu philosophy belonging to the Vedanta tradition. Vedanta refers to the profound interpretation of the Vedas based on Prasthanatrayi. Vishishta Advaita, meaning "non-duality with distinctions", is a ...
,
Dvaita
Dvaita Vedanta (); (originally known as Tattvavada; IAST: ''Tattvavāda''), is a sub-school in the Vedanta
''Vedanta'' (; , ), also known as ''Uttara Mīmāṃsā'', is one of the six orthodox (Āstika and nāstika, ''āstika'') trad ...
, and others opposed idealism in favor of realism.
Different schools of Vedanta have different interpretations of brahman-atman, their foundational theory. Advaita Vedanta posits an absolute idealistic monism in which reality is one single absolute existence. Thus, brahman (the ultimate ground of all) is absolutely identical with all atmans (individual selves). Other forms of Vedanta like the
Vishishtadvaita
Vishishtadvaita (IAST '; ) is a school of Hindu philosophy belonging to the Vedanta tradition. Vedanta refers to the profound interpretation of the Vedas based on Prasthanatrayi. Vishishta Advaita, meaning "non-duality with distinctions", is a ...
of
Ramanuja
Ramanuja ('; Middle Tamil: Rāmāṉujam; Classical Sanskrit: Rāmānuja; 1077 – 1157), also known as Ramanujacharya, was an Indian Hindu philosopher, guru and social reformer. He is one of the most important exponents of the Sri Vaishnavi ...
and the
Bhedabheda
Bhedābheda is more a tradition than a sub-school of Vedānta, which teaches that the individual self (''jīvātman'') is both different and not different from the ultimate reality known as Brahman.
Etymology
''Bhedābheda'' (Devanagari: ) is ...
of
Bhāskara are not as radical in their non-dualism, accepting that there is a certain difference between individual souls and Brahman.
Advaita
Śaṅkara, by ">Raja Ravi Varma
The most influential Advaita philosopher was
Ādi Śaṅkara (788–820). In his philosophy, brahman is the single
non-dual
Nondualism includes a number of philosophical and spiritual traditions that emphasize the absence of fundamental duality or separation in existence. This viewpoint questions the boundaries conventionally imposed between self and other, min ...
foundation (''adhiṣṭhana'') for all existence. This reality is independent, self-established, irreducible, immutable, and free of space, time, and causation.
[Dalal, Neil,]
Śaṅkara
, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Winter 2021 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). In comparison to this reality, the world of plurality and appearances is illusory (
maya
Maya may refer to:
Ethnic groups
* Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America
** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples
** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples
* Maya (East Africa), a p ...
), an unreal cognitive error (mithya). This includes all individual souls or selves, which are actually unreal and numerically identical to the one brahman.
Śaṅkara did not believe it was possible to prove the view that reality is "one only, without a second" (''
Chandogya'' 6.2.1) through independent philosophical reasoning. Instead, he accepts non-duality based on the authority of the Upaniṣads. As such, most of his extant works are scriptural commentaries.
Nevertheless, he did provide various new arguments to defend his theories. A major metaphysical distinction for Śaṅkara is between what changes and may thus be negated (the unreal) and what does not (which is what is truly real).
He compares the real to clay (the substantial cause, analogous to brahman) and the unreal to a pot which depends on the clay for its being (analogous to all impermanent things in the universe).
By relying on dependence relations and on the reality of persistence, Śaṅkara concludes that metaphysical foundations are more real than their impermanent effects, and that effects are fully reducible and indeed identical to their metaphysical foundation.
Through this argument from dependence, Śaṅkara concludes that since all things in the universe undergoes change, they must depend on some really existent cause for their being, and this is the one primordial undifferentiated existence (''Chandogya Bhāṣya,'' 6.2.1–2).
This one reality is the single cause that is in every object, and every thing is not different from this brahman since all things borrow their existence from it. Śaṅkara also provides a
cosmogony
Cosmogony is any model concerning the origin of the cosmos or the universe.
Overview
Scientific theories
In astronomy, cosmogony is the study of the origin of particular astrophysical objects or systems, and is most commonly used in ref ...
in which the world arises from an unmanifest state which is like deep dreamless sleep into a state in which
īśvara (God) dreams the world into existence. As such, the world is not separate from God's mind.
Śaṅkara's philosophy, along with that of his contemporary
Maṇḍana Miśra (c. 8th century CE), is at the foundation of Advaita school. The opponents of this school however, labeled him a māyāvādin (illusionist) for negating the reality of the world.
They also criticized what they saw as a problematic explanation for how the world arises from māyā as an error. For them, if māyā is in brahman, then brahman has ignorance, but if it is not in brahman, then this collapses into a dualism of brahman and māyā.
Other idealist schools
Perhaps the most influential critic of Advaita was
Rāmānuja (c. 1017 – c. 1137), the main philosopher of the competing
Viśiṣṭādvaita (qualified non-dual) school. His philosophy affirms the reality of the world and individual selves as well as affirming an underlying unity of all things with God.
One of Rāmānuja's critiques of advaita is epistemological. If, as Advaita argues, all cognition other than pure undifferentiated consciousness is based in error, then it follows we would have no knowledge of the very fact that all individual cognition is error (''
Śrī Bhāṣya'', I.i.1).
Furthermore, Rāmānuja also argues contra Advaita that individual selves are real and not illusory. This is because the very idea that an individual can be ignorant presupposes the very existence of that individual.
Furthermore, since all Vedāntins agree that Brahman's nature is knowledge, consciousness and being, to say that brahman is ignorant is absurd, and so it must be individual souls which are ignorant.
Thus, there must be individual selves with a metaphysically prior existence who then fall into ignorance (''Śrī Bhāṣya'', I.i.1.).
Selves might be individual, but as the ''Vedas'' state, they still share a sense of unity with brahman. For Rāmānuja, this is because selves are distinct modes or qualities in the
cosmic body of Brahman (and are thus different and yet united with brahman).
[Stafford Betty (2010), Dvaita, Advaita, and Viśiṣṭādvaita: Contrasting Views of Mokṣa, Asian Philosophy: An International Journal of the Philosophical Traditions of the East, Volume 20, Issue 2, pages 215–224] Brahman meanwhile is like the soul in the body of the world. Furthermore, brahman is a theistic creator God for Rāmānuja, which really exists as the union of two deities:
Vishnu
Vishnu (; , , ), also known as Narayana and Hari, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the supreme being within Vaishnavism, one of the major traditions within contemporary Hinduism, and the god of preservation ( ...
, and
Lakṣmī.
The philosophy of the
Tantric tradition of
Trika Shaivism is a non-dual theistic idealism. The key thinkers of this philosophical tradition, known as the
Pratyabhijñā (Recognition) school, are the
Kashmirian philosophers
Utpaladeva (c. 900–950 CE) and
Abhinavagupta (975–1025 CE). This tradition affirms a non-dual monism which sees God (
Shiva
Shiva (; , ), also known as Mahadeva (; , , Help:IPA/Sanskrit, ɐɦaːd̪eːʋɐh and Hara, is one of the Hindu deities, principal deities of Hinduism. He is the God in Hinduism, Supreme Being in Shaivism, one of the major traditions w ...
) as a single cosmic consciousness.
All selves (atman) are one with God, but they have forgotten this, and must recognize their true nature in order to reach liberation.
Unlike in Advaita Vedanta however, the one cosmic consciousness is active and dynamic, consisting of spontaneous vibration (''spanda'') since it has the quality of absolute freedom (''svātāntrya''). Through the power (''
Śakti'') of dynamic vibrations, the absolute (Shiva-Śakti, consciousness and its power) creates the world, and so, the world is a real manifestation of absolute consciousness. Thus, in this system, the world and individual selves (which are dynamic, not an unchanging witness) are not an unreal illusion, but are seen as real and active expressions of God's creative freedom.
Idealism has remained influential in
modern Hindu philosophy, especially in
Neo-Vedanta
Neo-Vedanta, also called neo-Hinduism, Hindu modernism, Global Hinduism and Hindu Universalism, are terms to characterize interpretations of Hinduism that developed in the 19th century. The term "Neo-Vedanta" was coined by German Indologist ...
modernism. Prominent modern defenders include
Ram Mohan Roy (1772–1833),
Vivekananda
Swami Vivekananda () (12 January 1863 – 4 July 1902), born Narendranath Datta, was an Indian Hindu monk, philosopher, author, religious teacher, and the chief disciple of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. Vivekananda was a major figure in th ...
(1863–1902),
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan
Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan (; 5 September 188817 April 1975; natively Radhakrishna) was an Indian academician, philosopher and statesman who served as the President of India from 1962 to 1967. He previously served as the vice president of ...
(''An Idealist View of Life,'' 1932) and
Aurobindo (1872–1950).
Buddhist philosophy
Buddhist views reminiscent of idealism appear in
Mahayana
Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main ex ...
scriptures like the
''Explanation of the Profound Secrets'',
''Descent into Laṅka'', and ''
Ten Stages Sutra''. These theories, known as "mind-only" (''cittamatra'') or "the consciousness doctrine" (''vijñanavada'') were mostly associated with the Indian Buddhist philosophers of the
Yogācāra
Yogachara (, IAST: ') is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditation, as well as philosophical reasoning (hetuvidyā). ...
school and the related
epistemological school (Pramāṇavāda).
[Finnigan, Bronwyn (2017). "Buddhist Idealism." In Tyron Goldschmidt & Kenneth Pearce (eds.), ''Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics''. Oxford University Press. pp. 178–199.] These figures include:
Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; floruit, fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential Indian bhikkhu, Buddhist monk and scholar. He was a philosopher who wrote commentary on the Abhidharma, from the perspectives of th ...
,
Asaṅga
Asaṅga (Sanskrit: असंग, , ; Romaji: ''Mujaku'') (fl. 4th century C.E.) was one of the most important spiritual figures of Mahayana Buddhism and the founder of the Yogachara school.Engle, Artemus (translator), Asanga, ''The Bodhisattva P ...
,
Dignāga
Dignāga (also known as ''Diṅnāga'', ) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician. He is credited as one of the Buddhism, Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā'') and Buddhist atomism, atomism. Dignāga's work laid the grou ...
,
Dharmakīrti,
Sthiramati
Sthiramati (Sanskrit; Chinese: Anhui 安慧, and Jianhui 堅慧; Tibetan: ''Blo gros brtan pa'') was a 6th-century Indian Buddhist scholar-monk.Edelglass, W., Harter, P.-J., & McClintock, S. (Eds.). (2022). ''The Routledge Handbook of Indian Bud ...
,
Dharmapāla,
Jñānaśrīmitra,
Śaṅkaranandana
Śaṅkaranandana (fl. c. 9th or 10th century), (Tibetan: ''Bde byed dga’ ba)'' was a Mahayana Buddhist philosopher, and a brahmin lay devotee (upāsaka) active in Kashmir in the Buddhist logico-epistemology, epistemological (''pramana'') traditi ...
, and
Ratnākaraśānti. Their arguments were a lively subject of debate for Buddhist and non-Buddhist philosophers in India for centuries.
These discussions had a lasting influence on the later
Buddhist philosophy
Buddhist philosophy is the ancient Indian Indian philosophy, philosophical system that developed within the religio-philosophical tradition of Buddhism. It comprises all the Philosophy, philosophical investigations and Buddhist logico-episte ...
of
East Asian Buddhism
East Asian Buddhism or East Asian Mahayana is a collective term for the schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism which developed across East Asia and which rely on the Chinese Buddhist canon. These include the various forms of Chinese, Japanese, Kore ...
and
Tibetan Buddhism
Tibetan Buddhism is a form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia. It also has a sizable number of adherents in the areas surrounding the Himalayas, including the Indian regions of Ladakh, Gorkhaland Territorial Administration, D ...
.
There is some modern scholarly disagreement about whether Indian Yogācāra Buddhism can be said to be a form of idealism.
Some writers like philosopher
Jay Garfield
Jay Lazar Garfield (born 13 November 1955) is an American professor of philosophy who specializes in Tibetan Buddhism. He also specializes on the philosophy of mind, cognitive science, epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of language, ethics, and ...
and German philologist
Lambert Schmithausen argue that Indian Yogacarins are metaphysical idealists that reject the existence of a mind independent external world.
[Schmithausen, Lambert (2005). ''On the Problem of the External World in the Ch’eng wei shih lun''. Tōkyō: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies. The International Institute for Buddhist Studies.] Others see them as closer to an epistemic idealist like Kant who holds that our knowledge of the world is simply knowledge of our own concepts and perceptions.
However, a major difference here is that while Kant holds that the thing-in-itself is unknowable, Indian Yogacarins held that ultimate reality is knowable, but only through the non-conceptual yogic perception of a highly trained meditative mind.
Other scholars like
Dan Lusthaus and Thomas Kochumuttom see Yogācāra as a kind of phenomenology of experience which seeks to understand how suffering (
dukkha) arises in the mind, not provide a metaphysics.
[ Dan Lusthaus, "What is and isn't Yogācāra". ]
Vasubandhu
Whatever the case, the works of
Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; floruit, fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential Indian bhikkhu, Buddhist monk and scholar. He was a philosopher who wrote commentary on the Abhidharma, from the perspectives of th ...
(fl. c.360) certainly include a refutation of mind-independent "external" objects (Sanskrit: bāhyārtha) and argue that the true nature of reality is beyond subject-object distinctions.
He views ordinary conscious experience as deluded in its perceptions of an external world separate from itself (which does not exist), and instead argues that all there is ''vijñapti'' (ideas, mental images, conscious appearances, representations).
Vasubandhu begins his ''
Twenty verses'' (''Viṃśikā'') by affirming that "all this
verything we take to existis mere appearance of consciousness
'vijñapti'' because of the appearance of non-existent objects, just as a man with an eye disease sees non-existent hairs" (Viṃś.1).
His main argument against external objects is a critique of the atomist theories of his realist opponents (
Nyāya
Nyāya (Sanskrit: न्यायः, IAST: nyāyaḥ), literally meaning "justice", "rules", "method" or "judgment", is one of the six orthodox ( Āstika) schools of Hindu philosophy. Nyāya's most significant contributions to Indian philosoph ...
and
Abhidharma
The Abhidharma are a collection of Buddhist texts dating from the 3rd century BCE onwards, which contain detailed scholastic presentations of doctrinal material appearing in the canonical Buddhist scriptures and commentaries. It also refers t ...
theorists).
Vasubandhu also responds against three objections to idealism which indicate his view that all appearances are caused by mind: (1) the issue of spatio-temporal continuity, (2) accounting for
intersubjectivity
Intersubjectivity describes the shared understanding that emerges from interpersonal interactions.
The term first appeared in social science in the 1970s and later incorporated into psychoanalytic theory by George E. Atwood and Robert Stolorow, ...
, and (3) the causal efficacy of matter on subjects.
For the first and third objections, Vasubandhu responds by arguing that dreams can also include spatio-temporal continuity, regularity and causal efficacy.
Regarding intersubjectivity, Vasubandhu appeals to shared karma as well as mind to mind causation.
[Siderits, Mark. ''Buddhism as philosophy'', 2017, pp. 157–170.] After answering these objections, Vasubandhu argues that idealism is a better explanation than
realism for everyday experiences. To do this, he relies on the Indian "Principle of Lightness" (an appeal to parsimony like
Occam's Razor
In philosophy, Occam's razor (also spelled Ockham's razor or Ocham's razor; ) is the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. It is also known as the principle o ...
) and argues that idealism is the "lighter" theory since it posits a smaller number of entities.
This is thus an argument from simplicity and an inference to the best explanation (i.e. an
abductive argument).
As such, he affirms that our usual experience of being a self (ātman) that knows objects is an illusory construct, and this constitutes what he calls the "imagined nature" aspect of reality.
Thus, for Vasubandhu, there is a more fundamental "root consciousness" that is empty of subject-object distinctions and yet originates all experiences "just as waves originate on water" (
''Thirty Verses'', ''Triṃś''.17).
However, Vasubandhu sees this philosophy as a mere
conventional description, since
ultimate reality
Ultimate reality is "the supreme, final, and fundamental power in all reality". It refers to the most fundamental fact about reality, especially when it is seen as also being the most valuable fact. This may overlap with the concept of the Absolut ...
is "inconceivable" (''Triṃś.''29), an ineffable and non-conceptual "
thusness" which cannot be fully captured in words and can only be known through meditative realization by
yogis ("yogacaras", hence the name of his school). This is why certain modern interpreters, like Jonathan Gold, see Vasubandhu's thought as a "conventionalist idealism" or even a type of epistemic idealism like Kant's (and not a full blown objective idealism).
[Gold, Jonathan C., "Vasubandhu", ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/vasubandhu/]
The Buddhist epistemologists
Buddhist arguments against external objects were further expanded and sharpened by later figures like
Dignāga
Dignāga (also known as ''Diṅnāga'', ) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician. He is credited as one of the Buddhism, Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā'') and Buddhist atomism, atomism. Dignāga's work laid the grou ...
(
fl. 6th century) and
Dharmakīrti (fl. 7th century) who led an epistemological turn in medieval Indian philosophy.
Dignāga's main arguments against external objects (specifically,
atomic particle
In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass.
They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
s) are found in his ''
Ālambanaparīkṣā'' (''Examination of the Object of Consciousness'').
Dignāga argues that for something to be an object (ālambana) of a conscious state, that object must be causally related to the consciousness and it must resemble that consciousness (in appearance or content). Dignāga then attempts to show that realism about external particulars cannot satisfy these two conditions.
Since individual atoms lack a resemblance to the conscious state they supposedly cause, they cannot be the object of cognition. Furthermore, aggregates of atoms also cannot be the object, since they are merely a conceptual grouping of individual atoms (and thus, unreal), and only atoms have causal efficacy.
Dharmakīrti's view is summed up in the
''Pramānaṿārttika'' (''Commentary on Epistemology'') as follows: "cognition experiences itself, and nothing else whatsoever. Even the particular objects of perception, are by nature just consciousness itself." One of his main arguments for idealism is the inference from "the necessity of things only ever being experienced together with experience" (Sanskrit: ''sahopalambhaniyama'')''.
'' Dharmakīrti consicely states this argument in the ''Ascertainment of Epistemology'' (''
Pramāṇaviniścaya''): "blue and the consciousness of blue are not different, because they must always be apprehended together."''
'' Since an object is never found independently of consciousness, objects cannot be mind-independent. This can be read as an epistemological argument for idealism which attempts to show there is no good reason (empirically or inferentially) to accept the existence of external objects.''
''
Most of the Yogācāra thinkers and epistemologists (including Dharmakīrti) defended the existence of multiple
mindstream
Mindstream (Pali: ''citta-santāna'', Sanskrit: ''citta-saṃtāna;'' Ch: ''xin xiangxu'' 心相續) in Buddhist philosophy is the moment-to-moment continuum of sense impressions and mental phenomena ( citta), which is also described as continui ...
s, and even tackled the
problem of other minds
The problem of other minds is a Philosophy, philosophical problem traditionally stated as the following Epistemology, epistemological question: "Given that I can only observe the behavior of others, how can I know that others have minds?" The pr ...
. As such, thinkers like Dharmakīrti were pluralists who held there were multiple minds in the world (in this they differ with Hindu Advaita thinkers who held there was a single cosmic consciousness).''
'' However, there was a certain sub-school of Indian Buddhists, exemplified by
Prajñakaragupta,
Jñānaśrīmitra (fl. 975–1025 C.E.) and
Ratnakīrti (11th century CE) who were not pluralists. In his ''Refutation of Other mindstreams'' (''Santānāntaradūṣaṇa''), Ratnakīrti argues that the existence of other minds cannot be established ultimately, and as such ultimate reality must be an undifferentiated
non-dual
Nondualism includes a number of philosophical and spiritual traditions that emphasize the absence of fundamental duality or separation in existence. This viewpoint questions the boundaries conventionally imposed between self and other, min ...
consciousness (''vijñānādvaita'').
[Chakrabarti, Arindam; Weber, Ralph]
Comparative Philosophy without Borders
New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015. pp 103–104. This
monistic
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
interpretation of
Yogācāra
Yogachara (, IAST: ') is an influential tradition of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing the study of cognition, perception, and consciousness through the interior lens of meditation, as well as philosophical reasoning (hetuvidyā). ...
is known as the ''Citrādvaitavāda'' school (the view of variegated non-duality) since it sees reality as a single multifaceted non-dual luminosity (''citrādvaitaprakāśa'').
Chinese philosophy

In
Chinese philosophy
Chinese philosophy (Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 中国哲学; Traditional Chinese characters, traditional Chinese: 中國哲學) refers to the philosophical traditions that originated and developed within the historical ...
, Yogācāra idealism was defended by Chinese Buddhists like
Xuanzang
Xuanzang (; ; 6 April 6025 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making ...
(602–664) and his students
Kuiji
Kuiji (; 632–682), also known as Ji (), an exponent of Yogācāra, was a Chinese monk and a prominent disciple of Xuanzang.Lusthaus, Dan (undated). ''Quick Overview of the Faxiang School'' (). Source(accessed: December 12, 2007) His posthumous ...
(632–682) and
Wŏnch'ŭk (613–696). Xuanzang had studied Yogācāra Buddhism at the great Indian
university of Nalanda under the Indian philosopher
Śīlabhadra
Śīlabhadra (Sanskrit: शीलभद्र; ) (529–645Nakamura, Hajime. ''Indian Buddhism: A Survey with Bibliographical Notes.'' 1999. p. 281) was a Buddhist monk and philosopher. He is best known as being an abbot of Nālandā monaste ...
. His work, especially ''
The Demonstration of Consciousness-only'', was pivotal in the establishment of
East Asian Yogācāra
East Asian Yogācāra refers to the Mahayana Buddhist traditions in East Asia which developed out of the History of Buddhism in India, Indian Buddhist Yogachara, Yogācāra (lit. "yogic practice") systems (also known as ''Vijñānavāda'', "the d ...
Buddhism (also known as "consciousness only", Ch: ''Weishi'' 唯識), which in turn influenced
East Asian Buddhist thought in general.
[Cook, Francis (1999). ]
Three Texts on Consciousness Only
', pp. 1–3. Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research[Hammerstrom, Erik J.]
“The Expression "The Myriad Dharmas are Only Consciousness"
in Early 20th Century Chinese Buddhism". (2010).
Yogācāra Buddhism also influenced the thought of other Chinese Buddhist philosophical traditions, such as
Huayan,
Tiantai
Tiantai or T'ien-t'ai () is an East Asian Buddhist school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in 6th-century China. Drawing from earlier Mahāyāna sources such as Madhyamaka, founded by Nāgārjuna, who is traditionally regarded as the f ...
,
Pure Land
Pure Land is a Mahayana, Mahayana Buddhist concept referring to a transcendent realm emanated by a buddhahood, buddha or bodhisattva which has been purified by their activity and Other power, sustaining power. Pure lands are said to be places ...
, and
Zen
Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...
.
Many Chinese Buddhist traditions like Huayan,
Zen
Zen (; from Chinese: ''Chán''; in Korean: ''Sŏn'', and Vietnamese: ''Thiền'') is a Mahayana Buddhist tradition that developed in China during the Tang dynasty by blending Indian Mahayana Buddhism, particularly Yogacara and Madhyamaka phil ...
, and
Tiantai
Tiantai or T'ien-t'ai () is an East Asian Buddhist school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in 6th-century China. Drawing from earlier Mahāyāna sources such as Madhyamaka, founded by Nāgārjuna, who is traditionally regarded as the f ...
were also strongly influenced by an important text called the ''
Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna,'' which synthesized consciousness-only idealism with
buddha-nature
In Buddhist philosophy and soteriology, Buddha-nature ( Chinese: , Japanese: , , Sanskrit: ) is the innate potential for all sentient beings to become a Buddha or the fact that all sentient beings already have a pure Buddha-essence within ...
thought''.''
[Aviv, E. (2020). "Chapter 3 The Debate over the Awakening of Faith in Mahāyāna". In ''Differentiating the Pearl from the Fish-Eye''. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. ] This text promoted an influential theory of mind which holds that all phenomena are manifestations of the "One Mind". Some scholars have seen this as an ontological monism''.''
One passage from the text states: "the
three worlds are illusory constructs, created by the mind alone" and "all dharmas are produced from the mind's giving rise to false thoughts".
[Jorgensen, John; Lusthaus, Dan; Makeham, John; Strange, Mark, trans. (2019), ''Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith'', p. 85. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, ] Jorgensen et al. note that this indicates metaphysical idealism.
The new philosophical trend ushered in by the ''Awakening of Faith'' was resisted by some Chinese Yogācāra thinkers, and the debates between the Yogācāra school of Xuanzang and those who instead followed the doctrines of the ''Awakening of Faith'' continued until the modern era. These debates happened in China as well as in Japan and Korea.
[Makeham, John. ''Transforming Consciousness: Yogacara Thought in Modern China'', p. 9. Oxford University Press, 2014]
The doctrine that all phenomena arise from an ultimate principle, the One Mind, was adapted by the influential
Huayan school, whose thought is exemplified by thinkers such as
Fazang
Fazang (; 643–712) was a Sogdian- Chinese Buddhist scholar, translator, and religious leader of the Tang dynasty. He was the third patriarch of the Huayan school of East Asian Buddhism, a key figure at the Chinese Imperial Court, and an inf ...
(643–712) and
Zongmi (780–841).
[Van Norden, Bryan and Nicholaos Jones,]
Huayan Buddhism
, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Winter 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). This tradition also promoted a kind of
holism
Holism is the interdisciplinary idea that systems possess properties as wholes apart from the properties of their component parts. Julian Tudor Hart (2010''The Political Economy of Health Care''pp.106, 258
The aphorism "The whole is greater than t ...
which sees every phenomenon in the cosmos as interfused and interconnected with every other phenomenon. Chinese scholars like
Yu-lan Fung and
Wing-tsit Chan see Huayan philosophy as a form of idealism, though other scholars have defended alternative interpretations.
[Chan, Wing-tsit (1963), ''A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy,'' p. 408. Princeton: Princeton University Press.] According to Wing-tsit Chan, since Huayan patriarch Fazang sees the One Mind as the basis for all things, including the external world, his system is one of objective idealism.
A key distinction between Huayan's view of the world and that of the Yogācāra school is that in Huayan, there is a single intersubjective world (which nevertheless arises from mind), while Yogācāra holds that each mindstream projects its own world out of their underlying root consciousness.
Chinese Buddhist idealism also influenced
Confucian philosophy through the work of thinkers like the
Ming era (1368–1644)
neo-confucian
Neo-Confucianism (, often shortened to ''lǐxué'' 理學, literally "School of Principle") is a Morality, moral, Ethics, ethical, and metaphysics, metaphysical Chinese philosophy influenced by Confucianism, which originated with Han Yu (768� ...
Wang Yangming
Wang Shouren (, 26 October 1472 – 9 January 1529), courtesy name Bo'an (), art name Yangmingzi (), usually referred to as Wang Yangming (), was a Chinese statesman, general, and Neo-Confucian philosopher during the Ming dynasty. After Zhu ...
(1472–1529). Wang's thought has been interpreted as a kind of idealism. According to Wang, the ultimate principle or pattern (''lǐ'') of the whole universe is identical with the mind, which forms one body or substance (''yì tǐ'') with "Heaven, Earth, and the myriad creatures" of the world.
[Van Norden, Bryan,]
Wang Yangming
, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Winter 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). Wang argues that only this view can explain the fact that human beings experience innate care and
benevolence for others as well as a sense of care for inanimate objects.
Wang's thought, along with that of
Lu Xiangshan, led to the creation of the
School of Mind, an important Neo-Confucian tradition which emphasized these idealist views.
Yogācāra idealism saw a revival in the 20th century, associated figures like
Yang Wenhui (1837–1911),
Taixu,
Liang Shuming,
Ouyang Jingwu (1870–1943), Wang Xiaoxu (1875–1948), and Lu Cheng.
Modern Chinese thinkers associated with consciousness-only linked the philosophy with Western philosophy (especially Hegelian and Kantian thought) and modern science.
A similar trend occurred among some Japanese philosophers like
Inoue Enryō, who linked East Asian philosophies like Huayan with the philosophy of Hegel.
Both modern Chinese Buddhists and
New Confucian thinkers participated in this revival of consciousness-only studies.
[Makeham, John. ''Transforming Consciousness: Yogacara Thought in Modern China'', Oxford University Press, 2014] The thought of New Confucians like
Xiong Shili
Xiong Shili (, 1885 – May 23, 1968) was a Chinese essayist and philosopher whose major work ''A New Treatise on Vijñaptimātra'' (新唯識論, ''Xin Weishi Lun'') is a Confucian critique of the Buddhist ''Vijñapti-mātra'' "consciousnes ...
, Ma Yifu,
Tang Junyi
Tang Chun-I or Tang Junyi (, 17 January 1909 – 2 February 1978) was a Chinese philosopher who was one of the leading exponents of New Confucianism. Born in Sichuan, he moved to Hong Kong in 1949 due to the establishment of the People's Rep ...
and
Mou Zongsan
Mou Zongsan (; 12 June 1909 – 12 April 1995) was a Chinese philosopher and translator. He was born in Shandong province and graduated from Peking University. In 1949 he moved to Taiwan, and later Hong Kong, remaining outside of mainland China ...
, was influenced by Yogācāra consciousness-only philosophy, as well as by the metaphysics of the ''
Awakening of Faith in the Mahāyāna,'' though their thought also contained many critiques of Buddhist philosophy''.''
Modern philosophy
It is only in the
modern era
The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...
that idealism became a central topic of argumentation among Western philosophers.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 15] This was also when the term "idealism" coined by
Christian Wolff (1679–1754), though previous thinkers like Berkeley had argued for it under different names.
Idealistic tendencies can be found in the work of some
rationalist philosophers, like
Leibniz
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (or Leibnitz; – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat who is credited, alongside Sir Isaac Newton, with the creation of calculus in addition to many ...
and
Nicolas Malebranche
Nicolas Malebranche ( ; ; 6 August 1638 – 13 October 1715) was a French Oratorian Catholic priest and rationalist philosopher. In his works, he sought to synthesise the thought of St. Augustine and Descartes, in order to demonstrate the ...
(though they did not use the term). Malebranche argued that Platonic ideas (which exist only in the mind of God) are the ultimate ground of our experiences and of the physical world, a view that prefigures later idealist positions. Some scholars also see Leibniz' philosophy as approaching idealism. Guyer et al. write that "his view that the states of
monads can be only perceptions and appetitions (desires) suggests a metaphysical argument for idealism, while his famous thesis that each monad represents the entire universe from its own point of view might be taken to be an epistemological ground for idealism, even if he does not say as much."
However, there is still much debate in the contemporary scholarly literature on whether Leibniz can be considered an idealist.
Subjective idealism
A painting of Bishop George Berkeley by John Smibert
One famous proponent of modern idealism was
Bishop George Berkeley (1685–1753), an Anglo-Irish philosopher who defended a theory he called immaterialism. This kind of idealism is sometimes also called
subjective idealism
Subjective idealism, or empirical idealism or immaterialism, is a form of philosophical monism that holds that only minds and mental contents exist. It entails and is generally identified or associated with immaterialism, the doctrine that m ...
(also known as
phenomenalistic idealism).
Berkeley held that objects exist only to the extent that a mind perceives them and thus the physical world does not exist outside of mind. Berkeley's epistemic argument for this view (found in his ''
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge
''A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge'' (commonly called the ''Principles of Human Knowledge'', or simply the ''Treatise'') is a 1710 work, in English, by Irish Empiricist philosopher George Berkeley. This book largely see ...
'') rests on the
premise
A premise or premiss is a proposition—a true or false declarative statement—used in an argument to prove the truth of another proposition called the conclusion. Arguments consist of a set of premises and a conclusion.
An argument is meaningf ...
that we can only know ideas in the mind. Thus, knowledge does not extend to mind-independent things (''Treatise'', 1710: Part I, §2).
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 34.] From this, Berkeley holds that "the existence of an idea consists in being perceived", thus, regarding ideas "their ''esse'' is ''percipi''", that is, to be is to be perceived (1710: Part I, §3).
Based on this restriction of existence to only what is being perceived, Berkeley holds that it is meaningless to think that there could exist objects that are not being perceived.
This is the basic idea behind what has been called Berkeley's "master argument" for idealism, which states that "one cannot conceive of anything existing unconceived because in trying to do so one is still conceiving of the object" (1710: Part I, §23).
As to the question of how objects which are currently not being perceived by individual minds persist in the world, Berkeley answers that a single eternal mind keeps all of physical reality stable (and causes ideas in the first place), and this is
God
In monotheistic belief systems, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. In polytheistic belief systems, a god is "a spirit or being believed to have created, or for controlling some part of the un ...
.
Berkeley also argued for idealism based on a second key premise: "an idea can be like nothing but an idea" and as such there cannot be any things without or outside mind. This is because for something to be like something else, there must be something they have in common. If something is mind independent, then it must be completely different from ideas. Thus, there can be no relation between ideas in the mind and things "without the mind", since they are not alike.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 35.] As Berkeley writes, "...I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? if they are, then they are ideas, and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense, to assert a colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest." (1710: Part I, §8).
A similar idealistic philosophy was developed at around the same time as Berkeley by Anglican priest and philosopher
Arthur Collier (''Clavis Universalis'': ''Or, A New Inquiry after Truth, Being a Demonstration of the Non-Existence, or Impossibility, of an External World,'' 1713). Collier claimed to have developed his view that all matter depends on mind independently of Berkeley.
Paul Brunton, a British philosopher and mystic, also taught a similar type of idealism called "mentalism".
A. A. Luce and
John Foster are other subjective idealists. Luce, in ''Sense without Matter'' (1954), attempts to bring Berkeley up to date by modernizing his vocabulary and putting the issues he faced in modern terms, and treats the Biblical account of matter and the psychology of perception and nature. Foster's ''The Case for Idealism'' argues that the physical world is the logical creation of natural, non-logical constraints on human
sense-experience. Foster's latest defense of his views (
phenomenalistic idealism) is in his book ''A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism''.
Critics of subjective idealism include
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
's popular 1912 book ''
The Problems of Philosophy'', Australian philosopher
David Stove,
Alan Musgrave,
[Alan Musgrave, in an article titled ''Realism and Antirealism'' in R. Klee (ed), ''Scientific Inquiry: Readings in the Philosophy of Science'', Oxford, 1998, 344–352 – later re-titled to ''Conceptual Idealism and Stove's Gem'' in A. Musgrave, Essays on Realism and Rationalism, Rodopi, 1999 also in M.L. Dalla Chiara et al. (eds), ''Language, Quantum, Music'', Kluwer, 1999, 25–35 – Alan Musgrave] and
John Searle
John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959 and was Willis S. and Mario ...
.
John Searle
John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959 and was Willis S. and Mario ...
, ''The Construction of Social Reality'' p. 174
Epistemic idealism
Kant's Transcendental idealism
Transcendental idealism was developed by
Immanuel Kant
Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...
(1724–1804), who was the first philosopher to label himself an "idealist".
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 47.] In his ''
Critique of Pure Reason
The ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (; 1781; second edition 1787) is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in which the author seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. Also referred to as Kant's "First Critique", it was foll ...
,'' Kant was clear to distinguish his view (which he also called "critical" and "empirical realism") from Berkeley's idealism and from Descartes's views.
Kant's philosophy holds that we only have knowledge of our experiences, which consists jointly of intuitions and concepts. As such, our experiences reflect our cognitive structures, not the intrinsic nature of mind-independent things. This means even time and space are not properties of
things in themselves (i.e. mind independent reality underlying appearances).
Since it focuses on the mind dependent nature of knowledge and not on metaphysics per se, transcendental idealism is a type of
epistemological idealism. Unlike metaphysical forms of idealism, Kant's transcendental idealism does not deny the existence of mind independent things or affirm that they must be mental.
He thus accepts that we can conceive of external objects as distinct from our representations of them. However, he argues that we cannot know what external objects are "in themselves".
As such, Kant's system can be called idealist in some respects (e.g. regarding space and time) and also realist in that he accepts there must be ''some'' mind independent reality (even if we cannot know its ultimate nature and thus must remain agnostic about this).
[Guyer at al. 2023, pp. 50–51, 61.] Kant's system also affirms the reality of a free truly existent
self
In philosophy, the self is an individual's own being, knowledge, and values, and the relationship between these attributes.
The first-person perspective distinguishes selfhood from personal identity. Whereas "identity" is (literally) same ...
and of a God, which he sees as being possible because the non-temporal nature of the thing-in-itself allows for a radical freedom and genuine spontaneity.
Kant's main argument for his idealism, found throughout the ''
Critique of Pure Reason
The ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (; 1781; second edition 1787) is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in which the author seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. Also referred to as Kant's "First Critique", it was foll ...
'', is based on the key premise that we always represent objects in space and time through our
a priori
('from the earlier') and ('from the later') are Latin phrases used in philosophy to distinguish types of knowledge, Justification (epistemology), justification, or argument by their reliance on experience. knowledge is independent from any ...
intuitions (knowledge which is independent from any experience).
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 52.] Thus, according to Kant, space and time can never represent any "property at all of any things in themselves nor any relations of them to each other, i.e., no determination of them that attaches to objects themselves and that would remain even if one were to abstract from all subjective conditions of intuition" (CPuR A 26/B 42).
Kant's main point is that since our mental representations have spatio-temporal structure, we have no real grounds for positing that the real objects our mind represents in this way also have spatio-temporal structure in themselves. Kant makes this argument in different parts of the ''Critique'', such as when he asks rhetorically:
If there did not lie in you a faculty for intuiting a priori; if this subjective condition were not at the same time the universal a priori condition under which alone the object of ... intuition is possible; if the object ( .g.,the triangle) were something in itself without relation to your subject: then how could you say that what necessarily lies in your subjective conditions for constructing a triangle must also necessarily pertain to the triangle in itself. (A 48/B 65)
Throughout his career, Kant labored to distinguish his philosophy from metaphysical idealism, as some of his critics charged him with being a Berkeleyian idealist.
He argued that even if we cannot know how things are in themselves, we do know they must exist, and that we know this "through the representations which their influence on our sensibility provides for us." In the second edition of his ''Critique'', he even inserted a "refutation of idealism". For Kant, "the perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me."
Neo-Kantianism
Kant's philosophy was extremely influential on European
enlightenment thinkers (and
counter-enlightenment ones as well), and his ideas were widely discussed and debated. Transcendental idealism was also defended by later
Kantian
Kantianism () is the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, a German philosopher born in Königsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The term ''Kantianism'' or ''Kantian'' is sometimes also used to describe contemporary positions in philosophy of mi ...
philosophers who adopted his method, such as
Karl Leonhard Reinhold
Karl Leonhard Reinhold (; ; 26 October 1757 – 10 April 1823) was an Austrian philosopher who helped to popularise the work of Immanuel Kant in the late 18th century. His "elementary philosophy" (''Elementarphilosophie'') also influenced German ...
and
Jakob Sigismund Beck.
The mid-19th century saw a revival of Kantian philosophy, which became known as
Neo-Kantianism
In late modern philosophy, neo-Kantianism () was a revival of the 18th-century philosophy of Immanuel Kant. The neo-Kantians sought to develop and clarify Kant's theories, particularly his concept of the thing-in-itself and his moral philosophy ...
, with its call of "Back to Kant".
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 159.] This movement was especially influential on 19th century German academic philosophy (and also continental philosophy as a whole). Some important figures include:
Hermann Cohen
Hermann Cohen (; ; 4 July 1842 – 4 April 1918) was a German philosopher, one of the founders of the Marburg school of neo-Kantianism, and he is often held to be "probably the most important Jewish philosopher of the nineteenth century".
Bio ...
(1842–1918),
Wilhelm Windelband
Wilhelm Windelband (; ; 11 May 1848 – 22 October 1915) was a German philosopher of the Baden School.
Biography
Windelband was born the son of a Prussian official in Potsdam. He studied at Jena, Berlin, and Göttingen.
Philosophical work
Win ...
(1848–1914),
Ernst Cassirer
Ernst Alfred Cassirer ( ; ; July 28, 1874 – April 13, 1945) was a German philosopher and historian of philosophy. Trained within the Neo-Kantian Marburg School, he initially followed his mentor Hermann Cohen in attempting to supply an idealistic ...
,
Hermann von Helmholtz
Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (; ; 31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894; "von" since 1883) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The ...
,
Eduard Zeller
Eduard Gottlob Zeller (; ; 22 January 181419 March 1908) was a German philosopher and Protestant theologian of the Tübingen School of theology. He was well known for his writings on Ancient Greek philosophy, especially Pre-Socratic Philosophy, ...
,
Leonard Nelson
Leonard Nelson (; ; 11 July 1882 – 29 October 1927), sometimes spelt Leonhard, was a German mathematician, critical philosopher, and socialist. He was part of the neo-Friesian school (named after post-Kantian philosopher Jakob Friedrich Frie ...
,
Heinrich Rickert
Heinrich John Rickert (; ; 25 May 1863 – 25 July 1936) was a German philosopher, one of the leading neo-Kantians.
Life
Rickert was born in Danzig, Prussia (now Gdańsk, Poland) to the journalist and later politician Heinrich Edwin Rickert a ...
, and
Friedrich Albert Lange.
[Guyer at al. 2023, pp. 162–169.] A key concern of the Neo-Kantians was to update Kantian epistemology, particularly in order to provide an epistemic basis for the modern sciences (all while avoiding ontology altogether, whether idealist or materialist).
Neo-Kantianism rejected metaphysical idealism while also accepting the basic Kantian premise that "our experience of reality is always structured by the distinctive features of human mentality."
Hence, Cassirer defended an epistemic worldview that held that one cannot reduce reality to any independent or substantial object (physical or mental), instead, there are only different ways of describing and organizing experience.
Neo-Kantianism influenced the work of the
Vienna circle
The Vienna Circle () of logical empiricism was a group of elite philosophers and scientists drawn from the natural and social sciences, logic and mathematics who met regularly from 1924 to 1936 at the University of Vienna, chaired by Moritz Sc ...
and its ambassadors to the Anglophone world,
Rudolf Carnap
Rudolf Carnap (; ; 18 May 1891 – 14 September 1970) was a German-language philosopher who was active in Europe before 1935 and in the United States thereafter. He was a major member of the Vienna Circle and an advocate of logical positivism.
...
1891–1970) and
Hans Reichenbach
Hans Reichenbach (; ; September 26, 1891 – April 9, 1953) was a leading philosopher of science, educator, and proponent of logical empiricism. He was influential in the areas of science, education, and of logical empiricism. He founded the ''G ...
.
Charles Bernard Renouvier was the first philosopher in France to formulate a system based on Kant's critical idealism, which he termed Neo-criticism ''(néo-criticisme''). It is a transformation rather than a continuation of Kantianism.
German idealism
Several important German thinkers who were deeply influenced by Kant are the
German idealists:
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
Johann Gottlieb Fichte (; ; 19 May 1762 – 29 January 1814) was a German philosopher who became a founding figure of the philosophical movement known as German idealism, which developed from the theoretical and ethical writings of Immanuel Ka ...
(1762–1814),
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him be ...
(1775–1854), and
Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831). Though heavily drawing on Kant, these thinkers were not transcendental idealists as such, and they sought to move beyond the idea that things in themselves are unknowable – an idea they considered as opening the door to
skepticism
Skepticism ( US) or scepticism ( UK) is a questioning attitude or doubt toward knowledge claims that are seen as mere belief or dogma. For example, if a person is skeptical about claims made by their government about an ongoing war then the p ...
and
nihilism
Nihilism () encompasses various views that reject certain aspects of existence. There have been different nihilist positions, including the views that Existential nihilism, life is meaningless, that Moral nihilism, moral values are baseless, and ...
.
Post-Kantian German idealists thus rejected transcendental idealism by arguing against the opposition of a mind-independent world of being and a subjective world of mental constructs (or the separation between the knowledge and what is known, between subject and object, real and ideal). This new German idealism was distinguished by an "inseparability of being and thinking" and "a dynamic conception of self-consciousness" that sees reality as spontaneous conscious activity and its expressions.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 76.] As such, this kind of metaphysical idealism, focused on dynamic processes and forces, was opposed to older forms of idealism, which based itself on substance theory (which these Germans labeled "dogmatism").
The first thinker to elaborate this type of dynamic idealism was
J. G. Fichte (''Doctrine of
Wissenschaft,'' 1810–1813). For Fichte, the primordial act at the ground of being is called "self-positing". Fichte argues that self-consciousness or the I is a spontaneous unconditioned self-creating act which he also called the deed-act (''tathandlung''). Fichte argues that positing something unconditioned and independent at the ground of all is the only way to avoid an epistemic
infinite regress
Infinite regress is a philosophical concept to describe a series of entities. Each entity in the series depends on its predecessor, following a recursive principle. For example, the epistemic regress is a series of beliefs in which the justi ...
. According to Fichte, this "I am" or "absolute subject" which "originally posits its own being absolutely" (''Doctrine'' I, 2: 261), "is at the same time the actor and the product of the act; the actor, and that which the activity brings forth; act and deed are one and the same" (''Doctrine'' I, 2: 259). Fichte also argues that this "I" has the capacity to "counter-posit" a "not-I", leading to
a subject-object relationship. The I also has a third capacity Fichte calls "divisibility", which allows for the existence of plurality in the world, which however must be understood as manifestations of the "I-activity", and as being "within the I".
Fichte's philosophy was adopted by Schelling who defended this new idealism as a full
monistic
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
ontology which tried to account for all of nature which he would eventually name "absolute idealism". For Schelling, reality is an "original unity" (''ursprüngliche Einheit'') or a "primordial totality" (''uranfängliche Ganzheit'') of opposites.
[Guyer at al. 2023, pp. 85–86.] This is an absolute which he described as an "eternal act of cognition" is disclosed in subjective and objective modes, the world of ideas and nature.
Hegel's was a pivotal work of German absolute idealism.">The Phenomenology of Spirit was a pivotal work of German absolute idealism.
G. W. F. Hegel also defended a dynamic absolute idealism that sees existence as an all-inclusive whole. However, his system differs from his predecessors' in that it is not grounded on some initial subject, mind, or "I" and tries to move beyond all bifurcation subject and object, of the dualism between thinking and being (which for Hegel just leads to various contradictions). As such, Hegel's system is an ontological monism fundamentally based on a unity between being and thought, subject and object, which he saw as being neither materialistic realism nor subjective idealism (which still stands in an opposition to materialism and thus remains stuck in the subject-object distinction).
In his ''
Phenomenology of Spirit
''The Phenomenology of Spirit'' (or ''The Phenomenology of Mind''; ) is the most consequential philosophical work of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Hegel described the 1807 work, a ladder to the greater philosophical system of the '' Encyclopaed ...
'' (1807), Hegel provides an epistemological argument for idealism, focusing on proving the "metaphysical priority of identities over and against their opposed elements". Hegel's argument begins with his conception of knowledge, which he holds is a relation between a claim about a subject and an object that allows for a correspondence between their structural features (and is thus a type of
correspondence theory). Hegel argues that if knowledge is possible, real objects must also have a similar structure as thought (without, however, being reduced to thoughts). If not, there could be no correspondence between what the object is and what a subject believes to be true about the object. For Hegel, any system in which the subject that knows and the object which is known are structurally independent would make the relations necessary for knowledge impossible.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 99] Hegel also argues that finite qualities and objects depend on other finite things to determine them. An infinite thinking being, on the other hand, would be more self-determining and hence most fully real.
Hegel argued that a careful analysis of the act of knowledge would eventually lead to an understanding of the unity of subjects and the objects in a single all-encompassing whole. In this system, experiences are not independent of the thing in itself (as in Kant) but are manifestations grounded in a metaphysical absolute, which is also experiential (but since it resists the experiential subject, can be known through this resistance). Thus, our own experiences can lead us to an insight into the thing in itself. Furthermore, since reality is a unity, all knowledge is ultimately self-knowledge, or as Hegel puts it, it is the subject being "in the other with itself" (''im Anderen bei sich selbst sein'').
Since all things have spirit (''
Geist
''Geist'' () is a German noun with a significant degree of importance in German philosophy. ''Geist'' can be roughly translated into three English meanings: ghost (as in the supernatural entity), spirit (as in the Holy Spirit), and mind or int ...
''), a philosopher can attain what he termed "absolute knowing" (''absolutes Wissen''), which is the knowledge that all things are ultimately manifestations of an infinite absolute spirit.
Later, in his ''
Science of Logic
''Science of Logic'' (), first published between 1812 and 1816, is the work in which Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel outlined his vision of logic. Hegel's logic is a system of ''dialectics'', i.e., a dialectical metaphysics: it is a development o ...
'' (1812–1814), Hegel further develops a metaphysics in which the real and objective activity of thinking unfolds itself in numerous ways (as objects and subjects). This ultimate activity of thought, which is ''not'' the activity of specific subjects, is an immediate fact, a given (''vorhandenes''), which is self-standing and self-organizing. In manifesting the entire world, the absolute enacts a process of self-actualization through a grand structure or master logic, which is what Hegel calls "reason" (''Vernunft''), and which he understands as a
teleological
Teleology (from , and )Partridge, Eric. 1977''Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English'' London: Routledge, p. 4187. or finalityDubray, Charles. 2020 912Teleology. In ''The Catholic Encyclopedia'' 14. New York: Robert Applet ...
reality.
Hegelianism
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
was deeply influential throughout the 19th century, even as some Hegelians (like
Marx
Karl Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, political theorist, economist, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. He is best-known for the 1848 pamphlet '' The Communist Manifesto'' (written with Friedrich Engels) ...
) rejected idealism. Later idealist Hegelians include
Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg (1802–72) and
Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817–81).
Schopenhauer's philosophy
The philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer owes much to the thought of Kant and to that of the German idealists, which he nevertheless strongly criticizes.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 110] Schopenhauer maintains Kant's idealist epistemology which sees even space, time and causality as mere mental representations (vorstellungen) conditioned by the subjective mind. However, he replaces Kant's unknowable thing-in-itself with an absolute reality underlying all ideas that is a single irrational Will, a view that he saw as directly opposed to Hegel's rational Spirit.
This philosophy is laid out in ''
The World as Will and Representation
''The World as Will and Representation'' (''WWR''; , ''WWV''), sometimes translated as ''The World as Will and Idea'', is the central work of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. The first edition was published in late 1818, with the date ...
'' (WWR 1818, 2nd ed. 1844).
Schopenhauer accepts Kant's view that there can be no appearances without there being something which appears. However, unlike Kant, Schopenhauer writes that "we have immediate cognition of the thing in itself when it appears to us as our own body". (WWR §6, pp. 40–1).
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 112] Schopenhauer argues that, even though we do experience our own bodies through the categories of space, time and causality, we also experience it in another more direct and internal way through the experience of willing. This immediate experience reveals that it is will alone which "gives him the key to his own appearance, reveals to him the meaning and shows him the inner workings of his essence, his deeds, his movements" (WWR §18, p. 124).
Thus, for Schopenhauer, it is
desire
Desires are states of mind that are expressed by terms like "wanting", "wishing", "longing" or "craving". A great variety of features is commonly associated with desires. They are seen as propositional attitudes towards conceivable states of affa ...
, a "dark, dull driving", which is at the root of action, not reason. Furthermore, since this is the only form of insight we have of the inner essence of any reality, we must apply this insight "to [the] appearances in the inorganic [and organic] world as well." Schopenhauer compares willing with many natural forces. As such, Will is "a name signifying the being in itself of every thing in the world and the sole kernel of every appearance" (WWR §23, pp. 142–3).
Because irrational Willing is the most foundational reality, life is filled with frustration, irrationality and disappointment. This is the metaphysical foundation of Schopenhauer's Pessimism, pessimistic philosophy of life. The best we can hope for is to deny and try to escape (however briefly) the incessant force of the Will, through art, Aesthetics, aesthetic experience, asceticism, and compassion.
Gentile's actual idealism
Actual idealism is a form of idealism developed by Giovanni Gentile which argues that reality is the ongoing act of thinking, or in Italian "pensiero pensante" and thus, only thoughts exist.
[Right Thinkers #7: Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944). (1 July 2014). Retrieved 12 February 2017, from Right Scholarship https://rightscholarship.wordpress.com/tag/idealism/] He further argued that our combined thoughts defined and produced reality.
Gentile also nationalizes this idea, holding that the state is a composition of many minds coming together to construct reality.
[Custom Research Papers on Actual Idealism. (n.d.). Retrieved 11 February 2017, from https://www.papermasters.com/actual-idealism.html ] Giovanni Gentile was a key supporter of fascism, regarded by many as the "philosopher of fascism". His idealist theory argued for the unity of all society under one leader, which allows it to act as one body.
Anglo-American Idealism
Idealism was widespread in Anglo-American philosophy during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It was the dominant metaphysics in the English speaking world during the last decades of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. During this time, the defenders of British idealism made significant contributions to all fields of philosophy. However, other philosophers, like J. M. E. McTaggart, McTaggart, broke from this trend and instead defended a pluralistic idealism in which the ultimate reality is a plurality of minds.
Many Anglo-American idealists were influenced by Hegelianism, but they also drew on Kant, Plato and Aristotle. Key figures of this transatlantic movement include many of the British idealists, such as Thomas Hill Green, T. H. Green (1836–1882), F. H. Bradley (1846–1924), Bernard Bosanquet (philosopher), Bernard Bosanquet (1848–1923), John Henry Muirhead, J. H. Muirhead (1855–1940), Harold Joachim, H. H. Joachim (1868–1938), A. E. Taylor (1869–1945), R. G. Collingwood (1889–1943), Geoffrey Reginald Gilchrist Mure, G. R. G. Mure (1893–1979) and Michael Oakeshott. American idealist philosophers include
Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce (; November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American Pragmatism, pragmatist and objective idealism, objective idealist philosopher and the founder of American idealism. His philosophical ideas included his joining of pragmatis ...
(1855–1916) and
Brand Blanshard
Percy Brand Blanshard ( ; August 27, 1892 – November 19, 1987) was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of rationalism and idealism.
Biography
Brand Blanshard was born August 27, 1892, in Fredericksburg, Ohio. His parent ...
(1892–1987).
British absolute idealism
file:F.H. Bradley.png, F. H. Bradley, F.H. Bradley, a leading British absolute idealist
One of the early influential British idealists was T. H. Green, Thomas Hill Green, known for his posthumous ''Prolegomena to Ethics''. Green argues for an idealist metaphysics in this text as a foundation for free will and ethics. In a Kantian fashion, Green first argues that knowledge consists in seeing relations in consciousness, and that any sense of something being "real" or "objective" has no meaning outside of consciousness. He then argues that experience as consciousness of related events "cannot be explained by any natural history, properly so called" and thus "the understanding which presents an order of nature to us is in principle one with an understanding which constitutes that order itself."
Green then further argues that individual human beings are aware of an order of relations which extends beyond the bounds of their individual mind. For Green, this greater order must be in a larger transpersonal intelligence, while the world is "a system of related facts" which is made possible and revealed to individual beings by the larger intelligence.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 128] Furthermore, Green also holds that participation in the transpersonal mind is constituted by the apprehension of a portion of the overall order by animal organisms.
As such, Green accepts the reality of biological bodies when he writes that "in the process of our learning to know the world, an animal organism, which has its history in time, gradually becomes the vehicle of an eternally complete consciousness."
Another paradigmatic British absolute idealist is F. H. Bradley, Francis Herbert Bradley, who affirms that "the Absolute is not many; there are no independent reals".
[Candlish, Stewart and Pierfrancesco Basile,]
Francis Herbert Bradley
, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.). This absolute reality "is one system, and ... its contents are nothing but sentient experience. It will hence be a single and all-inclusive experience, which embraces every partial diversity in concord."
Bradley presents an anti-realist idealism which rejects the ultimate reality of relations, which for him are mere appearance, "a makeshift, a mere practical compromise, most necessary, but in the end most indefensible."
Bradley presented his idealism in his ''Appearance and Reality'' (1893) by arguing that the ideas we use to understand reality are contradictory. He deconstructs numerous ideas including primary and secondary qualities, substances and attributes, quality and relation, space, time and causality and the self.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 130] Most famously, Bradley argued that any ultimate distinction between qualities and relations is untenable since "qualities are nothing without relations" since "their plurality depends on relation, and, without that relation, they are not distinct. But, if not distinct, then not different, and therefore not qualities."
Furthermore, for Bradley, the same thing turns out to be true of relations, and of both taken together, since for a relation to relate to a quality, it would then require a further relation. As such, qualities and relations are appearance, not ultimate truth, since "ultimate reality is such that it does not contradict itself".
Even though all appearances are "not truth", it is still possible to have true knowledge of ultimate reality, which must be a unity beyond contradictions but which still allows for diversity. Bradley thinks that this character of reality as a diverse unity is revealed to us in sentient experience, since our various experiences must be grounded and caused by some undifferentiated and pre-abstract reality. However he also admits "our complete inability to understand this concrete unity in detail".
American idealism
file:Charles Sanders Peirce.jpg, Charles Sanders Peirce
Idealism also became popular in the United States with thinkers like Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), who defended an "objective idealism" in which, as he put it, "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws". Peirce initially defended a type of Direct and indirect realism, representationalism alongside his form of Pragmatism which was metaphysically neutral since it is "no doctrine of metaphysics". However, in later years (after c.1905), Peirce defended an objective idealism which held that the universe evolved from a state of maximum spontaneous freedom (which he associated with mind) into its present state where matter were merely "congealed" mind. In arguing for this view, he followed the classic idealist premise that states there must be a metaphysical equality (an Isomorphism of categories, isomorphism) between thought and being, and as such, "the root of all being is One". A key feature of Peirce's idealism is "Tychism", which he defined as "the doctrine that absolute chance is a factor of the universe." This allows for an element of chance or indeterminism in the universe which allows for cosmological evolution.
Under the influence of Peirce, it was
Josiah Royce
Josiah Royce (; November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American Pragmatism, pragmatist and objective idealism, objective idealist philosopher and the founder of American idealism. His philosophical ideas included his joining of pragmatis ...
(1855–1916) who became the leading American idealist at the turn of the century.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 138] Royce's idealism incorporated aspects of Peirce's Pragmatism and is defended in his ''The Spirit of Modern Philosophy'' (1892). One of Royce's arguments for idealism is his argument from meaning, which states the possibility of there being Meaning (philosophy), meaning at all requires an identity between what is meant (ordinary objects) and what makes meaning (ordinary subjects).
In his ''The World and the Individual'' (2 vols, 1899 and 1901), Royce also links meaning with purpose, seeing the meaning of a term as its intended purpose. Royce was an absolute idealist who held that ultimately reality was a super-self, an absolute mind.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 142] Royce argues that for a mind to be able represent itself and its representations (and not lead to a vicious infinite regress), it must be complex and capacious enough, and only an absolute mind has this capacity.
The American philosopher
Brand Blanshard
Percy Brand Blanshard ( ; August 27, 1892 – November 19, 1987) was an American philosopher known primarily for his defense of rationalism and idealism.
Biography
Brand Blanshard was born August 27, 1892, in Fredericksburg, Ohio. His parent ...
(1892–1987) was also a proponent of idealism who accepted a "necessary isomorphism between knowledge and its object". His idealism is most obvious in ''The Nature of Thought'' (1939), where he discusses how all perception is infused with concepts.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 179.] He then argues from a coherence theory of truth that the "character of reality" must also include coherence itself, and thus, knowledge must be similar to what it knows.
Not only that, but knowledge must be part of a single system with the world it knows, and causal relations must be also involve logical relations. These considerations lead to an idealism which sees the world as system of relations that cannot be merely physical.
Pluralistic idealism
Pluralistic idealism takes the view that there are many individual minds, Monad (philosophy), monads, or processes that together underlie the existence of the observed world and which make possible the existence of the physical universe. Pluralistic idealism does not assume the existence of a single ultimate mind or absolute as with the total
monism
Monism attributes oneness or singleness () to a concept, such as to existence. Various kinds of monism can be distinguished:
* Priority monism states that all existing things go back to a source that is distinct from them; e.g., in Neoplatonis ...
of absolute idealism, instead it affirms an ultimate plurality of ideas or beings.
Personalism
Personalism
Personalism is an intellectual stance that emphasizes the importance of human persons. Personalism exists in many different versions, and this makes it somewhat difficult to define as a philosophical and theological movement. Friedrich Schleie ...
is the view that the individual minds of persons or selves are the basis for ultimate reality and value and as such emphasizes the fundamentality and inherent worth of persons.
[Williams, Thomas D. and Jan Olof Bengtsson,]
Personalism
, ''The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' (Summer 2022 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Modern personalist idealism emerged during the reaction against what was seen as a dehumanizing impersonalism of absolute idealism, a reaction which was led by figures like Rudolph Hermann Lotze, Hermann Lotze (1817–1881).
Personalists affirmed personal freedom against what they saw as a monism that lead to totalitarianism by subordinating the individual to the collective.
Some idealistic personalists defended a Theism, theistic personalism (often influenced by Thomas Aquinas, Aquinas) in which reality is a society of minds ultimately dependent on a supreme person (God).
Defenders of a Theistic and idealistic personalism include Borden Parker Bowne (1847–1910), Andrew Seth Pringle-Pattison (1856–1931), Edgar S. Brightman and George Holmes Howison (1834–1916). These theistic personalists emphasize the dependence of all individual minds on God.
However, other personalists like British idealist J. M. E. McTaggart and Thomas Davidson (philosopher), Thomas Davidson merely argued for a community of individual minds or spirits, without positing a supreme personal deity who creates or grounds them.
Similarly, James Ward (psychologist), James Ward (1843–1925) was inspired by Leibniz to defend a form of pluralistic idealism in which the universe is composed of "psychic monads" of different levels, interacting for mutual self-betterment.
American personalism was particularly associated with idealism and with Boston University, Boston university, where Bowne (who had studied with Lotze) developed his personalist idealism and published his ''Personalism'' (1908).
Bowne's students, like Edgar Sheffield Brightman, Albert C. Knudson (1873–1953), Francis John McConnell, Francis J. McConnell (1871–1953), and Ralph Tyler Flewelling, Ralph T. Flewelling (1871–1960), continued to develop his personal idealism after his death.
The "Boston personalism" tradition also influenced the later work of Peter Anthony Bertocci, Peter A. Bertocci (1910–1989), as well as the ideas of Martin Luther King Jr., who studied at Boston University with personalist philosophers and was shaped by their worldview.
George Holmes Howison meanwhile, developed his own brand of "California personalism". Howison argued that both impersonal monistic idealism and materialism run contrary to the experience of moral freedom, while "personal idealism" affirms it. To deny freedom to pursue truth, beauty, and "benignant love" is to undermine every profound human venture, including science, morality, and philosophy.
Howison, in his book ''The Limits of Evolution and Other Essays Illustrating the Metaphysical Theory of Personal Idealism'', developed a democratic idealism that extended all the way to God, who instead of a monarch, was seen as the ultimate democrat in eternal relation to other eternal persons.
Another pluralistic idealism was Thomas Davidson (philosopher), Thomas Davidson's (1840–1900) "apeirotheism", which he defined as "a theory of Gods infinite in number". The theory was indebted to Aristotle's view of the eternal rational soul and the
nous
''Nous'' (, ), from , is a concept from classical philosophy, sometimes equated to intellect or intelligence, for the cognitive skill, faculty of the human mind necessary for understanding what is truth, true or reality, real.
Alternative Eng ...
.
Identifying Aristotle's God with rational thought, Davidson argued, contrary to Aristotle, that just as the soul cannot exist apart from the body, God cannot exist apart from the world.
Another influential British idealist, J. M. E. McTaggart (1866–1925), defended a theory in which reality is a community of individual spirits connected by the relation of love.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 133.] McTaggart defends ontological idealism through a Mereology, mereological argument which argues only spirits can be substances, as well as through an argument for the unreality of time (a position he also defends in ''The Unreality of Time'').
In ''The Nature of Existence'' (1927), McTaggart's argument relies on the premise that substances are infinitely divisible and cannot have simple parts. Furthermore, each of their infinite parts determines every other part. He then analyzes various characteristics of reality such as time, matter, sensation, and cogitation and attempts to show they cannot be real elements of real substances, but must be mere appearances. For example, the existence of matter cannot be inferred based on sensations, since they cannot be divided to infinity (and thus cannot be substances). Spirits on the other hand are true infinitely divisible substances. They have "the quality of having content, all of which is the content of one or more selves", and know themselves through direct perception as substances persisting through time. For McTaggart, there is a multiplicity of spirits, which are nevertheless related to each other harmoniously through their love for each other.
McTaggart also criticizes Hegel's view of the state in his ''Studies in Hegelian Cosmology'' (1901)'','' arguing that metaphysics can give very little guidance to social and political action, just like it can give us very little guidance in other practical matters, like engineering.
Contemporary idealism

Today, idealism remains a minority view in Western analytic circles.
In spite of this, the study of the work of the Anglo-American idealists saw a revival in the 21st century with an increase in publications at the turn of the century, and they are now considered to have made important contributions to philosophy.
Several modern figures continue to defend idealism. Recent idealist philosophers include A. A. Luce (''Sense without Matter'', 1954), Timothy Sprigge (''The Vindication of Absolute Idealism'', 1984), Leslie Armour, Vittorio Hösle (''Objective Idealism'', 1998), John Foster (philosopher), John Andrew Foster (''A World for Us'', 2008), John A. Leslie (''Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology'', 2002), and Bernardo Kastrup (''The Idea of the World'', 2018). In 2022, Howard Robinson authored ''Perception and Idealism''.
Both Foster and Sprigge defend idealism through an epistemic argument for the unity of the act of perception with its object.
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 181] Sprigge also made an argument from Grounding (metaphysics), grounding, which held that our phenomenal objects presuppose some Noumenon, noumenal ground. As such For Sprigge, the physical world "consists in innumerable mutually interacting centres of experience, or, what comes to the same, of pulses and flows of experience."
Thus, the noumenal ground is the totality of all experiences, which are one "concrete universal", that resembles Bradley's absolute.
Helen Yetter-Chappell has defended nontheistic (quasi-)Berkeleyan idealism.
Idealistic theories based on 20th-century science
Idealist notions took a strong hold among physicists of the early 20th century confronted with the paradoxes of quantum physics and the theory of relativity.
Arthur Eddington, a British astrophysicist of the early 20th century, wrote in his book ''The Nature of the Physical World'' that the stuff of the world is mind-stuff, adding that "The mind-stuff of the world is, of course, something more general than our individual conscious minds." Ian Barbour, in his book ''Issues in Science and Religion'', cites Arthur Eddington's ''The Nature of the Physical World'' (1928) as a text that argues The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principles provides a scientific basis for "the defense of the idea of human freedom" and his ''Science and the Unseen World'' (1929) for support of philosophical idealism "the thesis that reality is basically mental."
The physicist Sir James Jeans wrote: "The stream of knowledge is heading towards a non-mechanical reality; the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine. Mind no longer appears to be an accidental intruder into the realm of matter... we ought rather hail it as the creator and governor of the realm of matter."
The chemist Ernest Lester Smith, a member of the occult movement Theosophy, wrote a book ''Intelligence Came First'' (1975) in which he claimed that consciousness is a fact of nature and that the cosmos is grounded in and pervaded by mind and intelligence.
Criticism
In the Western world, the popularity of idealism as a metaphysical view declined severely in the 20th century, especially in English language analytic philosophy. This was partly due to the criticisms of British philosophers like
G. E. Moore
George Edward Moore (4 November 1873 – 24 October 1958) was an English philosopher, who with Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and earlier Gottlob Frege was among the initiators of analytic philosophy. He and Russell began de-emphasizing ...
and
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
and also due to the critiques of the American "new realists" like E. B. Holt, E.B. Holt, Ralph Barton Perry and Roy Wood Sellars.
Moore famously critiqued idealism and defended
realism in ''The Refutation of Idealism'' (1903), and ''A Defence of Common Sense'' (1925). In the ''Refutation,'' Moore argues that arguments for idealism most often rely on the premise that to be is to be perceived (''esse est percipi''), but that if this is true "how can we infer that anything whatever, let alone everything is an inseparable aspect of any experience?".
[Guyer at al. 2023, p. 152] Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He had influence on mathematics, logic, set theory, and various areas of analytic ...
's popular 1912 book ''
The Problems of Philosophy'' also contained a similar critique.
Their main objection is that idealists falsely presuppose that the mind's relation to any object is a necessary condition for the existence of the object. Russell thinks this fallacy fails to make "the distinction between act and object in our apprehending of things" (1912 [1974: 42]).
Guyer et al. write that the success of these arguments might be controversial and that "the charge that they simply conflate knowledge and object hardly seems to do justice to the elaborate arguments of the late nineteenth-century idealists." It also relies on a realist epistemology in which knowledge stands "in an immediate relation to an independent individual object".
Regarding positive arguments, Moore's most famous argument ''for'' the existence of external matter (found in ''Proof of an External World'', 1939) was an epistemological argument from common sense facts, sometimes known as "Here is one hand". Idealism was also more recently critiqued in the works of Australian philosopher
David Stove,
[ and by Alan Musgrave,] and John Searle
John Rogers Searle (; born July 31, 1932) is an American philosopher widely noted for contributions to the philosophy of language, philosophy of mind, and social philosophy. He began teaching at UC Berkeley in 1959 and was Willis S. and Mario ...
.
Physicist Milton A. Rothman has written that idealism in incompatible with science and is not considered an empirical system of knowledge unlike realism which is pragmatical and makes testable predictions. Rothman commented that "idealism saying nothing about why ten different observers in different parts of the world measure the speed of light to be the same. If the light beam exists only a construct in my mind, then how does an experimenter in Moscow always get the same result that I do in, say Princeton".
Philosopher and physicist Mario Bunge has written that idealistic thinking is often found in pseudosciences as it postulates immaterial entities that disregard scientific laws.
See also
* Innatism
* Qualia
* Hard problem of consciousness
Notes
References
Primary
* George Berkeley, Berkeley, George. ''A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,'' 1710.
* F. H. Bradley, Bradley, Francis Herbert, ''Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay,'' Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1893
* Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Fichte'','' Johann Gottlieb. ''Foundations of Natural Right'' (''Grundlagen des Naturrechts nach Prinzipien der Wissenschaftslehre''), 1797.
* Foster, John Andrew. ''A World for Us: The Case for Phenomenalistic Idealism''. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2008.
* Dignāga
Dignāga (also known as ''Diṅnāga'', ) was an Indian Buddhist philosopher and logician. He is credited as one of the Buddhism, Buddhist founders of Indian logic (''hetu vidyā'') and Buddhist atomism, atomism. Dignāga's work laid the grou ...
; Krumroy, Robert E; Sastri, N. Aiyaswami. '' Ālambanaparīkṣā'', and ''Vṛtti'' by Dignāga, Diṅnāga, with the Commentary of Dharmapāla, Restored into Sanskrit from the Tibetan and Chinese Versions and Edited with English Translations and Notes and with Copious Extracts from Vinītadeva's Commentary. Jain Publishing Company, 2007.
* Hegel
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a 19th-century German idealism, German idealist. His influence extends across a wide range of topics from metaphysical issues in epistemology and ontology, to political phi ...
, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, ''The Phenomenology of Spirit, Phenomenology of the Spirit'' (''Phänomenologie des Geistes''), 1807.
* Kant, Immanuel. ''Critique of Pure Reason
The ''Critique of Pure Reason'' (; 1781; second edition 1787) is a book by the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, in which the author seeks to determine the limits and scope of metaphysics. Also referred to as Kant's "First Critique", it was foll ...
(Kritik der reinen Vernunft),'' 1781/87.
* Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, Monadology, ''La Monadologie (The Monadology)'', c. 1714.
* John A. Leslie, Leslie, John A. ''Infinite Minds: A Philosophical Cosmology,'' Clarendon Press, 2003.
* J. M. E. McTaggart, McTaggart, John McTaggart Ellis. ''The Nature of Existence'', 2 volumes, Cambridge University Press. 1921–7.
* Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan, Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli. ''An Idealist View of Life'', 1932
* Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph. ''System des transcendentalen Idealismus'' (''System of Transcendental Idealism''), 1800.
* Arthur Schopenhauer, Schopenhauer, Arthur. ''Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung'' (''The World as Will and Presentation''), Leipzig, 1819.
* Timothy Sprigge, Sprigge, T.L.S., ''The Vindication of Absolute Idealism'', Edinburgh University Press, 1983.
* Vasubandhu
Vasubandhu (; Tibetan: དབྱིག་གཉེན་ ; floruit, fl. 4th to 5th century CE) was an influential Indian bhikkhu, Buddhist monk and scholar. He was a philosopher who wrote commentary on the Abhidharma, from the perspectives of th ...
(c. 4th century), ''Viṃśatikā-vijñaptimātratāsiddhi (Twenty Verses on Consciousness Only)'' in Gold, Jonathan C. 2015. ''Paving the Great Way: Vasubandhu’s Unifying Buddhist Philosophy, New York: Columbia University Press.''
* Vasubandhu, ''Trisvabhāvanirdeśa (Treatise on the Three Natures),'' in William Edelglass & Jay Garfield (eds.)'', Buddhist Philosophy: Essential Readings,'' New York & Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 35–45.
* Xuanzang
Xuanzang (; ; 6 April 6025 February 664), born Chen Hui or Chen Yi (), also known by his Sanskrit Dharma name Mokṣadeva, was a 7th-century Chinese Bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator. He is known for the epoch-making ...
(c. 7th century). ''Cheng Weishi Lun, Chéng Wéishì Lùn'' (''The Demonstration of Consciousness-only,'' Ch: 成唯識論).
Other
* Dunham, Jeremy; Grant, Iain Hamilton; Watson, Sean. ''Idealism: The History of a Philosophy'', Acumen, 2011,
* Goldschmidt, Tyron; Pearce, Kenneth L. (ed.), ''Idealism: New Essays in Metaphysics'', Oxford University Press, 2017,
* Guyer, Paul; Horstmann, Rolf-Peter. ''Idealism in Modern Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 2023.
* Neujahr, Philip J., ''Kant's Idealism'', Mercer University Press, 1995
* Prabhat Rainjan Sarkar (1984), ''Human Society. Vols. I and II.'' (Ananda Marga Publications, Calcutta, India).
* Surendranath Dasgupta (1969), ''Indian Idealism'' (Cambridge University Press, New York, NY, USA),
* Sohail Inayatullah (2001), ''Understanding P. R. Sarkar: The Indian Episteme, Macrohistory and Transformative Knowledge,'' (Leiden, Brill Publishers) .
* Watts, Michael. ''Kierkegaard'', Oneworld,
External links
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A. C. Grayling-Wittgenstein on Scepticism and Certainty
Idealism and its practical use in physics and psychology
'The Triumph of Idealism'
lecture by Professor Keith Ward offering a positive view of Idealism, at Gresham College, 13 March 2008 (available in text, audio and video download)
A new theory of ideomaterialism being a synthesis of idealism and materialism
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Idealism,
Metaphysical theories