Idealism (Meaning and Explanation)

We explain what idealism is and the types of idealist currents. Also, its characteristics, some examples and representatives.

Friedrich Hegel is one of the representatives of idealism.

What is idealism?

Idealism is a philosophical theory that argues that ideas exist beyond whoever thinks them. Furthermore, he maintains that it is the best way to acquire knowledge.

We call idealism any philosophical doctrine that affirms that ideas are the starting point of all possible knowledge about the world. We do not adapt to things, but things adapt to the ideas we have about them.

Idealism is one of the most important philosophical currents of recent centuries. Many thinkers, such as Plato, Leibniz, Kant or Hegel, adhered to this current.

Beyond its particularities, Idealist philosophers believe that ideas are truer than matter.

Like rationalists, idealists affirm that ideas allow us to know the world in a more complete and perfect way than the senses. For Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), idealism, as transcendental idealism, was a perfect form of knowledge.

Idealist currents

Due to their theoretical and historical differences, there are different types or currents of idealism. The main currents are:

Platonic idealism. It is a form of realism. Plato believed that ideas form an independent world (the world of ideas), which is accessed through the intellect and not through the senses. The material or sensible world is nothing more than a degraded copy of this.
Objective or logical-transcendental idealism. It understands consciousness as a system of logical structures, supported by ideas, that allows us to know material reality. Within objective idealism there are subclassifications:
- transcendental idealism. Founded by Kant, it maintains that objects are the result of the joint work of sensitivity and reason. These objects are known as phenomena and they are the other side of the noumenawhich are the objects themselves, regardless of how they are perceived.
- German idealism. It was developed in Germany and its main representatives were Kant, Fichte (1762-1814), Schelling (1775-1854) and Hegel (1770-1831). German idealism was built on Kantian thought and maintains that the world is the result of an absolute, infinite, universal and at the same time historical idea, whose unfolding is what we call the world.
- absolute idealism Also known as Hegelian idealism, it is considered its own form of idealism. Hegel maintained the need for an identity between thought and being, without which there would be no access to knowledge of the world.
- transcendental subjectivity. Developed by Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), it is a form of subjective idealism. It does not propose a primacy of ideas over the material, but maintains that subjectivity founds the objectivity of the world.
subjective idealism. Think of consciousness as something real and individual. It maintains that ideas exist in the mind of the subject and not in an external and independent world, such that the world only exists as perceived. Some of its representatives were G. Berkeley (1685-1753) and W. Schuppe (1836-1913).

Characteristics of idealism

Idealism is a philosophical position whose meaning can vary depending on which school we are talking about, such as subjective, objective and absolute idealisms. All of these forms of idealism share certain characteristics or traits in common:

An idealist is someone who does not adhere to materialism, dogmatism or empiricism. Even an idealist is considered unrealistic, except for Plato.
According to a metaphysical point of view, idealism is characterized by considering that The mind (or reason or spirit) is the ultimate foundation of reality. G. Berkeley's idealism is an example of this position.
All forms of idealism hold that ideas, consciousness or spirit (intended as synonyms) They are above the material world.
All idealisms maintain that truth is reached through reason either intuitively and immediately or through discursive processes and logical reasoning. Nothing known through sensitivity makes for knowledge.
Formal idealism or seen from an epistemological position (from the theory of knowledge) grants the possibility that something exists independent of the mind, but everything we can know is conditioned to the cognitive process (or spiritual) of the subject who faces the world. An example of this position is Kantian philosophy, for which idealism does not speak about the existence of things but about the way in which we represent them.

Representatives of idealism

Among the main representatives of idealism are Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hegel and Leibniz:

Plato

Athens (Greece), 427 – 347 BC. c.

He was a disciple of Socrates and later a teacher of Aristotle. His work and thought had great influence on Western philosophy and religious practices. In 387 BC C. founded the Academy, the first school of philosophy in ancient Greece.

Among his many contributions to philosophy, we find the theory of ideas. Although Plato never called it that, its main arguments appear in three of his mature works: The Republic, Phaedo and Phaedrus.

in them Plato distinguishes two different realities: sensible reality which corresponds to the material world, and intelligible reality which corresponds to immaterial ideas, and of which the world is a degraded copy. This is the theory that places Plato as the predecessor of modern idealism.

Rene Descartes

La Haye (Touraine), 1596 – 1650

Descartes was a French philosopher, mathematician and physicist, who influenced the scientific and philosophical fields through his thinking. His philosophy is interested in finding an alternative path or method to that of faith to discover and guarantee the truth of science and knowledge in general l.

In Discourse of the methodone of his early works, proposed four criteria for finding knowledge that could not be doubted: evidence, analysis, synthesis and enumeration. In Metaphysical meditations He put this method into practice, which allowed him to arrive at the first obvious, clear and distinct truth of metaphysics: the ego cogitoor in its most famous version, he cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am).

This discovery earned him entry into the field of precursors of idealism, since through the cogito places reason and ideas above other forms of knowledge less precise and accurate, for example, sensitivity.

Immanuel Kant

Königsber (Germany), 1724 –1804

Kant was a Prussian philosopher, considered one of the great German thinkers. He established that the problem of philosophy is “knowing whether reason is capable of knowing.” His philosophical position is known as “criticism” or “transcendental idealism.”

Transcendental idealism maintains that all possible knowledge about the world requires two elements:

The material data given to the subject's sensitivity to the phenomenal object (the object that appears to us)
The formal principle put by the subject through the categories of understanding.

This formal principle is what allows the unity of all possible experience, and because of its importance when it comes to knowing, Kant is thought of as one of the first idealist thinkers of modernity.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Stuttgart (Germany) 1770 – 1931

Hegel was a German philosopher who maintained that “the absolute” or the idea manifests itself in an evolutionary way under norms of nature and the spirit.

Establishes that knowledge has a dialectical structure: On the one hand there is the existing world and on the other there is the need to overcome the limits of what is known.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Leipzig (Germany), 1646 – 1716

Leibniz He was a German philosopher who also dedicated himself to other branches of knowledge, such as mathematics, logic, theology and politics. He made important contributions in metaphysics, epistemology, logic, and philosophy of religion.

According to Leibniz, The universe is composed of independent spiritual substances, which are souls and which Leibniz called “monads”: constituent elements of all things in life.

Examples of idealism

Idealism is, on the one hand, a position regarding the world, and on the other, a philosophical position on the way in which knowledge is acquired. Therefore, exemplifying its application in everyday life is impossible.

In other areas of knowledge, “idealists” are called those who propose an ideal situation that, a priori, seems unattainable. These are cases in which we talk about idealistic positions: a desire that goes beyond the possible. There are, then, situations in everyday life in which this attitude can be reflected. None of these examples relate directly to the philosophical position of idealism.

Human rights. Although we are all born with a set of inherent rights, typical of the human condition, we know that in practice many of these rights are constantly violated. In that sense, talking about the fact that there are rights that must be respected simply because they belong to a human being is a statement detached from reality.
The French Revolution. Its premises of freedom, equality and human rights are based on concepts that can be considered ideal in that they cannot be applied in reality in their pure state.
Don Quijote of La Mancha. Cervantes' work tells the story of a character who constantly loses contact with reality and poses impossible scenarios as if they were possible.
The works of Karl Marx, Thomas More and Henry David Thoreau. Based on their ideas, these authors explain the characteristics and functioning of an ideal society. Whether through the means of production linked to the working class (in the case of Marx), the island literally called “Utopia” (by Thomas More) or life in the forests in Walden (from Thoreau), in all these cases scenarios and societies are proposed from an idealistic and utopian perspective, far from the real possibilities of the contemporary world.

References

Allison, H. E. (1992). Kant's transcendental idealism: an interpretation and defense (Vol. 40). Anthropos Editorial.
Von Schelling, F.W.J. (2005). System of transcendental idealism (Vol. 14). Anthropos Editorial.
Dunham, J., Grant, I.H., & Watson, S. (2014). Idealism: The history of a philosophy. Routledge.
Ameriks, K. (Ed.). (2017). The Cambridge companion to German idealism. Cambridge University Press.
“Plato and Idealism” at http://idealismoplaton.blogspot.com/.