Idealism

This article is about the philosophical notion of Idealism. Idealism is also a term in international relations theory and in Christian eschatology.

'Idealism' is a term used to describe a wide variety of philosophical positions. What unites these positions is the claim that at least large portions of reality (in particular, the experienced physical world) are metaphysically based in something mental (minds and their ideas or representations). Such a view is stands in stark opposition with 'materialist' views of reality, which claim that mental entities and properties are somehow based or grounded in non-mental, material entities and properties of the sort with which physics is concerned (there are positions between the two extremes, such as dualism).

Though idealism is first and foremost a metaphysical position, its proponents have typically tried to motivate it using epistemological considerations. Epistemological arguments play a central role in the defenses of idealism presented by the two most prominent idealists in Western philosophy: George Berkeley and Immanuel Kant. This article will briefly present some general considerations concerning idealism, describe the idealist positions of Berkeley and Kant, consider the development of idealism in Germany after Kant, and consider certain objections to the doctrine.

Overview

In the first section of his 1783 work, Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics, Kant defined 'genuine' idealism as consisting in the assertation that, "there are none but thinking beings; all other things which we believe are perceived in intuitions are nothing but representations in the thinking beings, to which no object external to them corresponds" (4:288-89 in the Akademie edition). The view described here applies as well to Leibniz as to Berkeley. It involves a sweeping claim about the nature of reality - namely, that the very notion of something entirely non-mental existing is either incoherent (Berkeley) or else cannot survive philosophical reflection (Leibniz).

Kant offered this definition, however, in order to distance himself from such positions (when writing the Prolegomena, he was reeling from reviews of his 1781 Critique of Pure Reason which charged him with merely restating Berkeley's position). His view, which he described as 'transcendental' or 'critical' idealism (4:293-94), did not involve the claim that all non-mental things must exist in representations.

The distinction Kant aimed to draw can be turned into a useful general point. It is clearest to understand the term 'idealism' in a relative sense and an absolute sense. In the relative sense, a philosopher is an idealist about a certain sort of entity or property, where this simply means that she believes that the existence and nature of that entity or property ultimately reduces to facts about minds and their representations. Given this, certain forms of idealism should be generally accepted - for instance, we might be idealists about a certain fictional character. Kant, then, was an idealist about a certain set of properties (including space and time), but not about others (for instance, the property of being able to affect other entities).

The absolute sense of 'idealism,' then, is relative idealism about all entities and properties. This is then a much stronger position, and one that cannot be conclusively argued for one entity or property at a time.

Berkeley

Inspired by the work of the French philosopher and theologian Nicolas Malebranche, the Irish Bishop George Berkeley believed that philosophical positions that posited absolutely non-mental entities in the universe (in particular, Cartesian material substance) were responsible for the spread of atheism and skepticism across Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. According to a philosophical picture such as that advanced by John Locke, material substance was the crucial aspect of the physical world, and was responsible for causing representations in our minds. It could not, however, be directly perceived, and could only be known indirectly through the representations it caused.

But if material substance was at the core of physical reality and could not be directly known, then, Berkeley, believed, it was inevitable that people would come to doubt whether it existed, and thereby come to question the reality of the world of everyday objects. Worse, in his view, this view described a universe that seemed capable of operating independently of God. Were people to become convinced of such a picture, it was inevitable that they would come to wonder if they had any reason for believing in God at all.

References

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• Kant, Immanuel. Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics.
• Sprigge, T.L.S. (1998). "Idealism." In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge. Retrieved April 29, 2007, from http://www.rep.routledge.com/article/N027SECT7.

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