Philosophical idealism briefly-
Philosophical
idealism has its origins in epistemology- the theory of knowledge, rather than
in political philosophy about an ideal state as some believe. Platonic realism
in the Republic does have a theory of an ideal state yet the concept of the
realm of forms, elaborated more fully and perhaps accurately by the
Neo-Platonist named Plotinus in the 3rd century C.E. His work named The Enneads
is brilliant yet differs substantially from theories about ideas, perception
and reality as one discovers in the works of philosophers beginning with René
Descartes who wrote in the 17th century. Plotinus was a philosophical-religious
mystic considered heretical by the early church for believing he could
experience God directly in heyschasm. Notably Augustine read Plotinus before
converting to Christianity. Plotinus' description of the One and the Intelligence
emanating a realm of forms is a remarkable inference.
The realm of forms is an intuited metaphysical account of
classes of objects, differentiations of objects and forms, classes and genres,
and how they exist. One might say that there are perfect ideas of the form of
every possible object or structure that exists in some way in the mind of God
and everything that exists in the material universe is a copy or actualization
of the perfect form. With temporal objects being subject to destruction over time
it is reasonable to infer that a perfect form is eternal (if one accepts the
existence of forms and ideas of forms somewhere not quite in this Universe.
Before moving on to the school idealism that began with
Descartes. I should point out that the Universe as discovered by physicists
actually does have forms at the quantum level that energy must necessarily take
to exist creating a certain resonance with Plato’s theory spanning two and a
half thousand years.
Idealism is actually, originally ideaism. Reading Descartes
Meditations on First Philosophy published in 1641 one can clearly see that it
is about ideas that are experienced by the mind, and the way they relate to
knowledge. The intense introspection or self-examination of thought considers
the problem of the certainty or lack of in it trusting one’s own thought. Maybe
from that work the Irish philosopher Bishop Berkeley was inspired to develop
the field of idealism further.
Berkeley read John
Locke’s works concerning perception and as far as I know created a synthetic
advance on Locke and Descartes in finding ideas and perceptions somewhat
phenomenal and things-in-themselves. Thought and perception become plainly
subjective, including reality to a certain extent. One’s own mind has some
challenges in verifying what exists externally and what does not, since all
perceptions encounter or present within one’s mind. Today from common knowledge
of physics one knows that particle-waves are interpreted through cognitive
channels for humans that perceive ‘percepts’.
Berkeley wrote that;
"I do not argue against the existence of any one thing
that we can apprehend, either by sense or reflection. That the things I see
with mine eyes and touch with my hands do exist, really exist, I make not the
least question. The only thing whose existence we deny, is that which
philosophers call matter or corporeal substance. And in doing of this, there is
no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss
it.", Principles #35
The Universe does exist within a Higgs field apparently, and
matter is a secondary quality of energy slowed down to sub-light speed and flat
two-dimensional form to three dimensions-hence allowing matter to exist, so I
would not become too technical about claiming matter and corporeal substances
are this or that myself, instead like many others I might describe matter as
best I can in relation to the way the sub-atomic particles and forces of the
Universe seem to my subjective experience. Certainly, one may venture an
opinion that the entirety of fundamental quanta is funded by the will of Spirit
(of God) as Berkeley apparently believed.
Immanuel Kant follows Descartes, Locke and Berkeley so it is
easy to see the development and continued work in the field of idealism of the
German 18th century philosopher who write the Critique of Pure Reason and other
works including the summary version named A Prolegomena to any Future
Metaphysics.
Kant investigated perception, cognition, reason and
judgments and necessarily, ideas. His theory of judgment was a renewal of
modern philosophy and very useful; https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/
The page above explains two basic fields of theories of
judgment- psychologistic and Platonic. One may like Kant’s classifications of
the a posteriori, the a priori and the synthetic a priori for a practical way
of sorting out what one is thinking and consider how and what kind of knowledge
it is. Analytic and synthetic judgments are useful differentiations.
The one may leap forward past G.W.F. Hegel and other German
19th century idealism for combining metaphysics, history, teleology and other
concerns that can be somewhat like synthetic evolutionary or teleological
tomes, and get on to the 20th century philosophers like W.V.O. Quine (Word and
Object) and P.F. Strawson (Individuals) who made a more technical examination
of the nature of epistemology in relations to the mind’s ideas and percepts.
Those are brilliantly informative works and brings the reader up nearly to the
present with analytic philosophy an idealism.
Jean Paul Sartre should be mentioned in the progression.
Sartre actually described himself as writing in the tradition of French
rationalism, yet one may easily say that he was also qualified as an idealist
philosopher who considered subjective thought, experience and knowledge in a
nearly Berkeleyian paradigm. Plainly he wrote in the tradition of Descartes.
Being and Nothingness is a full exposition of the subjectivity of subjective
perception and experience.
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