Idealism
idealism
(Greek: idein, see)
In philosophy this term has various significations. As applied to the philosophy of Plato it signifies his theory that the visible things of this world are merely copies of the perfect realities of another supersensible, ideal world. The idealism of Saint Augustine and the Scholastics is the doctrine that: the ideal, the type according to which every sensible thing is made, is the idea in the mind of God. In modern times, idealism is the theory which denies reality to the external, physical world, and attributes real existence only to things as they are in the mind. In this sense it is opposed to Realism. In its extreme form idealism is absolute subjectivism denying the existence of anything outside the mind of the thinking subject. More modified theories admit the problematical existence of the material, sensible world, but hold that things are known only as they appear to us and not as they are in themselves.
Fuente: New Catholic Dictionary
Idealism
In discussing this term and its meaning, reference must be had to the cognate expressions, idealist, idealized, ideal (adjective), and the ideal (noun), all of which are derived from the Greek idéa. This signifies “image”, “figure, “form”: it can be used in the sense of “likeness”, or “copy” as well as in that of “type”, “model”, or “pattern”: it is this latter sense that finds expression in “ideal”, and “the ideal” and the derivatives are mentioned above. In speaking of “the ideal”, what we have in mind is not a copy of any perceptible object, but a type. The artist is said to “idealize” his subject when he represents it as a fairer, nobler, more perfect than it is in reality.
Idealism in life is the characteristic of those who regard the ideas of truth and right, goodness and beauty, as standards and directive forces. This signification betrays the influence of Plato, who made idea a technical term in philosophy. According to him the visible world is simply a copy of a supersensible, intelligible, ideal world, and consequently “things” are but the impress stamped on reality by that which is of a higher, spiritual nature.
Platonism is the oldest form of idealism, and Plato himself the progenitor of idealists. It is usual to place in contrast Plato’s idealism and Aristotle’s realism; the latter in fact denies that ideas are originals and that things are mere copies; he holds that the essence is intelligible, but that it is immanent in the things of nature, whereas it is put into the products of art. It is more correct, therefore, to call his teaching an immanent idealism as contrasted with the transcendental idealism of Plato. Both these thinkers reveal the decisive influence of that moral and aesthetic idealism which permeated Greek life, thought, and action; but for both, what lies deepest down in their philosophy is the conviction that the first and highest principle of all things is the one perfect spiritual Being which they call God, and to which they lead back, by means of intermediate principles–essence and form, purpose and law–the multifarious individual beings of the visible world. In this sense idealism is dualism, i.e. the doctrine of a higher spiritual principle over against that which is lower and material; and this doctrine again is clearly opposed to the monism which would derive the higher and the lower alike out of one and the same All-being. This older idealism teaches, not that there is One-All, but that there is an alpha and omega, i.e. a supermundane Cause and End, of the world. By means of its principles, idealism maintains the distinctness of God and the world, of the absolute and finite, yet holds them together in unity; it adjusts the relations between reality and knowledge, by ascribing to things dimension, form, purpose, value, law, at the same time securing forethought the requisite certainty and validity; it establishes objective truth in the things that are known and subjective truth in the mind that knows them. In this sense the Schoolmen teach that forma dat esse et distingui, i.e. the principle which formally constitutes the object, likewise, in the act of cognition, informs the mind. Inasmuch as its principles express the cause and purpose of things, their determinate nature and value, idealism unites the speculative and the ethical, the true and the good, moral philosophy and the philosophy of nature.
In this sense St. Augustine developed the Platonic teaching, and in his philosophy is idealism in the genuine meaning of the term. From him comes the definition of ideas which Christian philosophy has since retained: “Ideas are certain original forms of things, their archetypes, permanent and incommunicable, which are contained in the Divine intelligence. And though they neither begin to be nor cease, yet upon them are patterned the manifold things of the world that come into being and pass away. Upon these ideas only the rational soul can fix its gaze, endowed as it is with the faculty which is its peculiar excellence, i.e. mind and reason [mente ac ratione], a power, as it were, of intellectual vision; and for such intuition that soul only is qualified which is pure and holy, i.e., whose eye is normal, clear, and well adjusted to the things which it would fain behold” (De diversis quaest., Q. xlvi, in P.L., XL, 30).
This line of thought the Scholastics adopted, developing it in their treatises as ideology. Their theory is described not as idealism, but as realism; but this does not imply that they are in conflict with the doctrine of Augustine; it means rather that the ideal principles possess real validity, that as ideas they subsist in the Divine mind before the things corresponding to them are called into existence, while, as forms and essences, they really exist in nature and are not really products of our thinking. In this last-named sense, i.e., as subjective constructions, ideas had long before been regarded by the philosophers of antiquity and especially by the Stoics, who held that ideas are nothing else than mental representation. This erroneous and misleading view appeared during the Middle Ages in the guise of nominalism, a designation given to the system whose adherents claimed that our concepts are mere names (nomina), which have as their counterparts in the world of reality individual things, but not forms or essences or purposes. This opinion, which robs both science and moral principles of their universal validity, and which paves the way for Materialism and agnosticism, was combated by the leaders of Scholasticism–Anselm of Canterbury, Albertus Mangus, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus–nevertheless, from the fourteenth century onwards, it had its champions and propagators, notably William of Occam. For the untrained mind it was easier to consider individual things as the only realities and to regard forms and essences as purely mental products.
So it came to pass that the word idea in various languages took on more and more the meaning of “representation”, “mental image”, and the like. Hence too, there was gradually introduced the terminology which we find in the writings of Berkeley, and according to which idealism is the doctrine that ascribes reality to our ideas, i.e. our representations, but denies the reality of the physical world. This sort of idealism is just the reverse of that which was held by the philosophers of antiquity and their Christian successors; it does away with the reality of ideal principles by confining them exclusively to the thinking subject; it is a spurious idealism which deserves rather the name “phenomenalism” (phenomenon, “appearance”, as opposed to noumenon, “the object of thought”).
The doctrine of Descartes has also per nefas been called idealism. It is true that Cartesianism is in line with the genuine idealism of the earlier schools, inasmuch as it postulates God, thought, and spatial reality. But, on the other hand, this system too employs idea only in a subjective signification and quite overlooks the intermediate position of ideal principles. According to the theory of Leibniz, which has also been regarded as idealistic, our mind constructs from its own resources (de son propre fond) its scheme of the world; but , thanks to a pre-established harmony (harmonie préétablie), it accords with reality. This view, however, furnishes no solution for the epistemological problem. Kant claims that his critical philosophy is both a “transcendental idealism” and an “empirical realism”; but he declares ideas are “illusions of reason”, and such ideal principles as cause and purpose are simply devices of thought which can be employed only in reference to phenomena. Fichte took Kant as his starting–point but finally rose above the level of subjectivism and posited a principle of reality, the absolute Ego. Hegel’s doctrine can be termed idealism so far as it seeks the highest principle in the absolute idea, which finds its self-realization in form, concept, etc.–a view which amounts virtually to monism. The various offshoots of Kantian philosophy are incorrectly regarded as developments of idealism; it is more accurate to describe them as “illusionism” or “Solipsism”, since they entirely sweep away objective reality. In this connection a German philosopher declares: I affirm without hesitation that the assertion, ‘the existence of the world consists merely in our thinking’, is for me the result of a hypertrophy of the passion for knowledge. To this conclusion I have been lead chiefly by the torture I endure in getting over ‘idealism’. Whosoever attempts to take this theory in downright earnest, to force his way clean through it and identify himself with it, will certainly feel that something is about to snap in his brain (Jerusalem, “Die Urtheilsfunktion”, Vienna, 1886, p.261). Similar conclusions are reached by J. Volkelt (Erfahrung u. Denken, Hamburg, 1886, p. 519); Any man who carries his theoretical doubts or denial of the external world so far that even in his everyday experience he is forever reminding himself of the purely subjective character of his perceptions. . .will simply find himself flung out of the natural course and direction of life, stripped of all normal feeling and interest, and sooner or later confronted with the danger of losing his mind completely.
It is certainly a matter of regret that the terms idea, idealist, and idealism, originally so rich in content, should be so far degraded as to signify such aberrations of thought. The present writer, in his “Geschichte des Idealismus” (2nd ed., Brunswick, 1907) has taken the ground that the original meaning of these terms should be restored to them. In the index of this “Geschichte” and in his monograph, “Die Wichtigsten Philosophischen Fachausdrücke” (Munich, 1909), he traces in detail the changes and meaning which these words have undergone.
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OTTO WILLMANNTranscribed by Peter S. Zehr and Patrick C. Swain
The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York
Fuente: Catholic Encyclopedia
Idealism
Any system or doctrine whose fundamental interpretative principle is ideal. Broadly, any theoretical or practical view emphasizing mind (soul, spirit, life) or what is characteristically of pre-eminent value or significance to it. Negatively, the alternative to Materialism. (Popular confusion arises from the fact that Idealism is related to either or both uses of the adjective “ideal,” i.e., (a) pertaining to ideas, and (b) pertaining to ideals. While a certain inner bond of sympathy can be established between these two standpoints, for theoretical purposes they must be clearly distinguished.) Materialism emphasizes the spatial, pictorial, corporeal, sensuous, non-valuational, factual, and mechanistic. Idealism stresses the supra- or non-spatial, non-pictorial, incorporeal, suprasensuous, normative or valuational, and teleological. The term Idealism shares the unavoidable expansion of such words as Idea, Mind, Spirit, and even Person, and in consequence it now possesses usefulness only in pointing out a general direction of thought, unless qualified, e.g., Platonic Idealism, Personal Idealism, Objective Idealism, Moral Idealism, etc.
The term appeared in the later 17th century to name (a) the theory of archetypal Ideas, whether in the original Platonic teaching or as incorporated into Christian Platonic and Scholastic theism; (b) the epistemological doctrine of Descartes and Locke, according to which “ideas,” i.e., direct objects of human apprehension, are subjective and privately possessed. Since this latter view put in doubt the very existence of a material world, the term began to be used in the early 18th century for acosmism (according to which the external world is only the projection of our minds), and immaterialism (doctrine of the non-existence of material being). Its use was popularized by Kant, who named his theory of knowledge Critical or Transcendental Idealism, and by his metaphysical followers, the Post-Kantian Idealists.
Metaphysics. Pure Idealism or Immaterialism identifies ontological reality (substance, substantives, concrete individuality) exclusively with the ideal, ie., Mind, Spirit, Soul, Person, Archetypal Ideas, Thought. See Spiritualism, Mentalism, Monadism, Panpsychtsm, Idealistic Phenomenalism. With respect to the metaphysical status of self-consciousness and purposeful activity, Idealism is either impersonalistic or personalistic. See Personalism.
Impersonalistic Idealism identifies ontological reality essentially with non-conscious spiritual principle, unconscious psychic agency, pure thought, impersonal or “pure” consciousness, pure Ego, subconscious Will, impersonal logical Mind, etc. Personalistic Idealism characterizes concrete reality as personal selfhood, i.e., as possessing self-consciousness. With respect to the relation of the Absolute or World-Ground (s.) to finite selves or centers of consciousness, varying degrees of unity or separateness are posited. The extreme doctrines are radical monism and radical pluralism. Monistic Idealism (pantheistic Idealism) teaches that the finite self is a part, mode, aspect, moment, appearance or projection of the One. Pluralistic Idealism defends both the inner privacy of the finite self and its relative freedom from direct or causal dependence upon the One. With respect to Cosmology, pure idealism is either subjective or objective. Subjective Idealism (acosmism) holds that Nature is merely the projection of the finite mind, and has no external, real existence. (The term “Subjective Idealism” is also used for the view that the ontologically real consists of subjects, i.e., possessors of experience.) Objective Idealism identifies an externally real Nature with the thought or activity of the World Mind, (In Germany the term “Objective Idealism” is commonly identified with the view that finite minds are parts — modes, moments, projections. appearances, members — of the Absolute Mind.) Epistemological Idealism derives metaphysical idealism from the identificition of objects with ideas. In its nominalistic form the claim is made that “To be is to be perceived.” From the standpoint of rationalism it is argued that there can be no Object without a Subject. Subjects, relations, sensations, and feelings are mental; and since no other type of analogy remains by which to characterize a non-mental thing-in-itself, pure idealism follows as the only possible view of Being.
Realistic Idealism recognizes the reality of non-ideal types of being, but relegates them to a subordinate status with respect either to quantity of being or power. This view is either atheistic or theistic. Realistic theism admits the existence of one or more kinds of non-mental being considered as independently co-eternal with God, eternally dependent upon Deity, or as a divine creation. Platonic Idealism, as traditionally interpreted, identifies absolute being with timeless Ideas or disembodied essences. Thtse, organically united in the Good, are the archetypes and the dynamic causes of existent, material things. The Ideas are also archetypes of rational thought, and the goal of fine art and morality. Axiological Idealism, a modern development of Platonism and Kantianism, maintains that the category of Value is logically and metaphysically prior to that of Being.
The idealistic doctrine known as Conceptual Realism identifies the logical (and at times the perceptual) content of experience with universals (essences, objectives, subsistents, etc.) considered as non-mental, i.e. as essentially independent of cognitive subjects.
Epistemology. Theistic Platonism maintains that the archetypes of existent things are eternal ideas in the mind of God. Epistemological Idealism teaches that all entities other than egos or subjects of experience are exclusively noetic objects, i.e. have no existence or reality apart from the relation of being perceived or thought. Transcendental Idealism (Critical Idealism) is Kant’s name for his doctrine that knowledge is a synthetic, relational product of the logical self (transcendental unity of apperception). Phenomenology is Husserl’s name for the science that investigates the essences or natures of objects considered apart from their existential or metaphysical status.
Ethics. Any system of moral theory may be called Ethical Idealism, whether teleological or formal in principle, which accepts several of the following
a scale of values, moral principles, or rules of action;
the axiological priority of the universal over the particular;
the axiological priority of the spiritual or mental over the sensuous or material;
moral freedom rather than psychological or natural necessity.
In popular terminology a moral idealist is also identified with the doctrinaire, as opposed to the opportunist or realist; with the Utopian or visionary as opposed to the practicalist, with the altruist as opposed to the crass egoist.
Aesthetics. Any system or program of fine art emphasizing the ideal (s.) is Aesthetic Idealism.
The view that the goal of fine art is an embodiment or reflection of the perfections of archetypal Ideas or timeless essences (Platonism).
The view of art which emphasizes feeling, sentiment, and idealization (as opposed to “literal reproduction” of fact).
The view of art which emphasizes cognitive content (as opposed to abstract feeling, primitive intuition, formal line or structure, mere color or tone).
Psychology. The doctrine that ideas or judgments are causes of thought and behavior, and not mere effects or epiphenomena, is Psychological Idealism.
History. Inasmuch as pure or basic Materialism has been an infrequent doctrine among major thinkers, the history of philosophy broadly understood, is largely the history of Idealism.
India. Intimations of advanced theism, both in a deistic and immanentistic form, are to be found in the Rig Veda. The early Upanishads in general teach variously realistic deism, immanent theism, and, more characteristically, mystical, impersonal idealism, according to which the World Ground (brahman) is identified with the universal soul (atman) which is the inner or essential self within each individual person. The Bhagavad Gita, while mixing pantheism, immanent theism, and deism, inclines towards a personahstic idealism and a corresponding ethics of bhakti (selfless devotion). Jainism is atheistic dualism, with a personalistic recognition of the reality of souls. Many of the schools of Buddhism (see Buddhism) teach idealistic doctrines. Thus a monistic immaterialism and subjectivism (the Absolute is pure consciousness) was expounded by Maitreya, Asanga, and Vasubandhu. The Lankavatarasutra combined monistic, immaterialistic idealism with non-absolutistic nihilism. Subjectivistic, phenomenalistic idealism (the view that there is neither absolute Pure Consciousness nor substantial souls) was taught by the Buddhists Santaraksita and Kamalasila. Examples of modern Vedantic idealism are the Yogavasistha (subjective monistic idealism) and the monistic spiritualism of Gaudapada (duality and plurality are illusion). The most influential Vedantic system is the monistic spiritualism of Sankara. The Absolute is pure indeterminate Being, which can only be described as pure consciousness or bliss. For the different Vedantic doctrines see Vedanta and the references there. Vedantic idealism, whether in its monistic and impersonalistic form, or in that of a more personalistic theism, is the dominant type of metaphysics in modern India. Idealism is also pronounced in the reviving doctrines of Shivaism (which see).
China. The traditional basic concepts of Chinese metaphysics are ideal. Heaven (T’ien), the spiritual and moral power of cosmic and social order, that distributes to each thing and person its alloted sphere of action, is theistically and personalistically conceived in the Shu Ching (Book of History) and the Shih Ching (Book of Poetry). It was probably also interpreted thus by Confucius and Mencius, assuredly so by Motze. Later it became identified with Fate or impersonal, immaterial cosmic power. Shang Ti (Lord on High) has remained through Chinese history a theistic concept. Tao, as cosmic principle, is an impersonal, immaterial World Ground. Mahayana Buddhism introduced into China an idealistic influence. Pure metaphysical idealism was taught by the Buddhist monk Hsuan Ch’uang. Important Buddhist and Taoist influences appear in Sung Confucianism (Ju Chia). a distinctly idealistic movement. Chou Tun I taught that matter, life and mind emerge from Wu Chi (Pure Being). Shao Yung espoused an essential objective idealismthe world is the content of an Universal Consciousness. The Brothers Ch’eng Hsao and Ch’eng I, together with Chu Hsi, distinguished two primordial principles, an active, moral, aesthetic, and rational Law (Li), and a passive ether stuff (Ch’i). Their emphasis upon Li is idealistic. Lu Chiu Yuan (Lu Hsiang Shan), their opponent, is interpreted both as a subjective idealist and as a realist with a stiong idealistic emphasis. Similarly interpreted is Wang Yang Ming of the Ming Dynasty, who stressed the splritual and moral principle (Li) behind nature and man.
Persia. The theology of Zarathustra was a realistic and dualistic personalism. Nature is assumed to be a plastic order controlled by Ahura Mazda, personalized spirit of Good, against whom struggles in vain Ahriman, the personalized spirit of Evil.
Israel. In the period of the written prophets Jewish thought moved to a personalistic and realistic theism, reaching maturity in Jeremiah and Genesis I. The cosmic “I Am” is a personal and righteous World Ground who fashions and controls both Nature and human history.
Greece. Homeric thought centered in Moira (Fate), an impersonal, immaterial power that distributes to gods and men their respective stations. While the main stream of pre-Socratic thought was naturalistic, it was not materialistic. The primordial Being of things, the Physis, is both extended and spiritual (hylozoism). Soul and Mind are invariably identified with Physis. Empedocles’ distinction between inertia and force (Love and Hate) was followed by Anaxagoras’ introduction of Mind (Nous) as the first cause of order and the principle of spontaneity or life in things. Socrates emphasized the ideological principle and introduced the category of Value as primary both in Nature and Man. He challenged the completeness of the mechanical explanation of natural events. Plato’s theory of Ideas (as traditionally interpreted by historians) is at once a metaphysics, epistemology, and axiology. Ideas, forming a hierarchy and systematically united in the Good, are timeless essences comprising the realm of true Being. They are archetypes and causes of things in the realm of Non-Being (Space). Aristotle, while moving in the direction of common-sense realism, was also idealistic. Forms or species are secondary substances, and collectively form the dynamic and rational structure of the World. Active reason (Nous Poietikos), possessed by all rational creatures, is immaterial and eternal. Mind is the final cause of all motion. God is pure Mind, self-contained, self-centered, and metaphysically remote from the spatial World. The Stoics united idealism and hylozoistic naturalism in their doctrine of dynamic rational cosmic law (Logos), World Soul, Pneuma, and Providence (Pronoia).
Alexandrian-Roman Period. Fed by Eastern ideas, later Alexandrian-Roman thought was essentially idealistic. In neo-Pythagorean, Neo-Platonic and Alexandrian Christianity, matter was identified with non-being, and placed at the metaphysical antipodes with respect to God or the Absolute. Early Christianity identified itself with the personalistic theism of Israel, Pauline spiritualism, and the neo-Platonism of Alexandria.
Medieval Period. Medieval Christian thought, axiomatically idealistic, united the personalism of Israel and the speculative idealism of neo-Platonism and Aristotle. Similarly, Islamic thought, centering at Bagdad and Cordova, attached Mohammedan religious idealism to neo-Platonism and Aristotelianism.
Modern Period. In the 17th century the move towards scientific materialism was tempered by a general reliance on Christian or liberal theism (Galileo, Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, Gassendi, Toland, Hartley, Priestley, Boyle, Newton). The principle of gravitation was regarded by Newton, Boyle, and others, as an indication of the incompleteness of the mechanistic and materialistic account of the World, and as a direct proof of the existence of God. For Newton Space was the “divine sensorium”. The road to pure modern idealism was laid by the epistemological idealism (epistemological subjectivism) of Campanella and Descartes. The theoretical basis of Descartes’ system was God, upon whose moral perfection reliance must be placed (“God will not deceive us”) to insure the reality of the physical world. Spinoza’s impersonalistic pantheism is idealistic to the extent that space or extension (with modes of Body and Motion) is merely one of the infinity of attributes of Being. Leibniz founded pure modern idealism by his doctrine of the immateriality and self-active character of metaphysical individual substances (monads, souls), whose source and ground is God. Locke, a theist, gave chief impetus to the modern theory of the purely subjective character of ideas. The founder of pure objective idealism in Europe was Berkeley, who shares with Leibniz the creation of European immaterialism. According to him perception is due to the direct action of God on finite persons or souls. Nature consists of (a) the totality of percepts and their order, (b) the activity and thought of God. Hume later an implicit Naturalist, earlier subscribed ambiguously to pure idealistic phenomenalism or scepticism. Kant’s epistemological, logical idealism (Transcendental or Critical Idealism) inspired the systems of pure speculative idealism of the 19th century. Knowledge, he held, is essentially logical and relational, a product of the synthetic activity of the logical self-consciousness. He also taught the ideality of space and time. Theism, logically undemonstrable, remains the choice of pure speculative reason, although beyond the province of science. It is also a practical implication of the moral life. In the Critique of Judgment Kant, marshalled facts from natural beauty and the apparent teleological character of the physical and biological world, to leave a stronger hint in favor of the theistic hypothesis. His suggestion thit reality, as well as Mind, is organic in character is reflected in the idealistic pantheisms of his followersFichte (abstract personalism or “Subjective Idealism”), Schellmg (aesthetic idealism, theism, “Objective Idealism”), Hegel (Absolute or logical Idealism), Schopenhauer (voluntaristic idealism), Schleiermacher (spiritual pantheism), Lotze (“Teleological Idealism”). 19th century French thought was grounder in the psychological idealism of Condillac and the voluntaristic personalism of Biran. Throughout the century it was essentially “spiritualistic” or personalistic (Cousin, Renouvier, Ravaisson, Boutroux, Lachelier, Bergson). British thought after Hume was largely theistic (A. Smith, Paley, J. S. Mill, Reid, Hamilton). In the latter 19th century, inspired largely by Kant and his metaphysical followers, it leaned heavily towards semi-monistic personalism (E. Caird, Green, Webb, Pringle-Pattison) or impersonalistic monism (Bradley, Bosanquet). Recently a more pluralistic personalism has developed (F. C. S. Schiller, A. E. Taylor, McTaggart, Ward, Sorley). Recent American idealism is represented by McCosh, Howison, Bowne, Royce, Wm. James (before 1904), Baldwin. German idealists of the past century include Fechner, Krause, von Hartmann, H. Cohen, Natorp, Windelband, Rickert, Dilthey, Brentano, Eucken. In Italy idealism is represented by Croce and Gentile, in Spain, by Unamuno and Ortega e Gasset; in Russia, by Lossky, in Sweden, by Bostrm; in Argentina, by Aznar. (For other representatives of recent or contemporary personalism, see Personalism.) — W.L.