PHILOSOPHICAL IDEALISM: HISTORY, TYPES AND REPRESENTATIVES - PHILOSOPHY - 2025

The philosophical idealism is a theory or doctrine that is recognized by asserting the importance of ideas and in some cases even their independent existence of things and objects in the world. It is also known as immaterialism, since it is the current that most opposes the foundations of materialism or realism.

This is evidenced by the idealistic arguments that the world outside one's own mind is not knowable by itself; therefore, it is not truly "real." For idealistic philosophers, all external reality is nothing more than the product of an idea that comes from the mind of man, or even from a supernatural being.

Plato, considered the father of philosophical idealism

Similarly, idealism is a somewhat rationalist current, since it relies on deductive rationing to argue and theorize. This doctrine has several variants that depend on its representatives; however, in any of its branches there is a great focus on intellectual aspects.

This emphasis in the intellectual realm is generated because, for idealists, objects are not more than what we perceive, the difficulties of the physical world are not of interest to them.

History

Philosophical idealism is a term that began to be used in English, and later in other languages, around 1743. "Idea" comes from the Greek word idein, which means "to see."

Despite the fact that the word was coined in that century, it is indisputable that idealism has been present in philosophy for more than 2000 years because Plato is considered the father of this theory.

In 480 a. C. Anaxagoras taught that all things were created through the mind. Years later, Plato would affirm that the maximum objective reality was only achievable through ideal entities.

His theory of forms or ideas described how things existed independently of the rest of their circumstances; However, man's only means of understanding them was his mind and the ideas it generates. Centuries later, these beliefs would bear the title of objective idealism.

In conjunction with its Greek roots, many scholars also claim that idealism was present in ancient India, in doctrines such as Buddhism, and in other Eastern schools of thought that made use of the Vedas texts.

However, idealism would be partially forgotten for a time and would not return to prominence until 1700 in the hands of philosophers such as Kant and Descartes, who would adopt and develop it in depth. It is also at this time that idealism is subdivided into its recognized branches.

Types of philosophical idealism and their characteristics

According to the type of idealism spoken of, its fundamental characteristics can be quite different.

The basis that the idea comes before and is above the outside world prevails; however, approaches to new theories change according to the philosopher and the branch of idealism that he represents.

Among the variants of idealism it is possible to find the following:

Objective idealism

- It is recognized by affirming that ideas exist by themselves, that we as men can only apprehend and / or discover them from the "world of ideas."

- It assumes that the reality of the experience combines and transcends the realities of the objects experienced and the mind of the observer.

- Ideas exist outside of the person who experiences reality, and who accesses them through reasoning.

Absolute idealism

- It is a subdivision of the already mentioned objective idealism.

- It was created by Hegel and expresses that, for man to really understand the object he observes, he must first find an identity of thought and being.

- For Hegel, Being must be understood as an integral whole.

Transcendental idealism

- Founded by Immanuel Kant, it maintains that it is the mind that translates the world in which we live, and transforms it into a space-time format that we can understand.

- Knowledge occurs only when there are two elements: an object that can be observed and a subject that observes it.

- In transcendental idealism all this knowledge of an external object varies according to the subject and has no existence without it.

Subjective idealism

- The outside world is not autonomous, but rather depends on the subject.

- For these philosophers, everything that is presented in reality is nothing more than a set of ideas that do not exist outside of our own minds.

- Subjective idealism puts man above everything else.

Main managers

Among the most relevant idealistic philosophers are:

Plato

Plato was the first to use the term "idea" to refer to the form of an immutable reality.

He studied ideas in depth and argued for a long time that ideas exist by themselves, although later he would change his argument and affirm the opposite: that ideas cannot exist independently of sensible reality.

Rene Descartes

Descartes divided ideas into three categories: those that arise from the sensitive experience of learning or socialization, artificial or imaginative ideas, and natural or innate ideas that come from a higher force or intelligence.

In the same way, intuition was quite relevant in his idealism, since this is a direct perception of ideas that does not allow for error or doubt.

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

He coined the term idealism for the first time, referring to Platonic philosophy. He solved the problem of innate ideas by arguing that these came from the true essence of objects, which he called the Monad.

Immanuel Kant

Creator of transcendental idealism. He maintained that all knowledge came from the combination of a subject and an object to be experienced.

In turn, man makes use of the impressions he has about said object and his ability to recognize it through this representation.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Finally, Hegel is also considered one of the most important idealistic philosophers. He established absolute idealism, in which dualisms (for example, object-subject or mind-nature) are transcended, since both are part of an absolute, which man must access in order to understand the world where he lives.

References

1. Neujahr, P. Kant's Idealism, Mercer University Press, 1995
2. Guyer, Paul (2015) Idealism. Retrieved from plato.stanford.edu.
3. Beiser, F. (2002) German Idealism. The Struggle against Subjectivism. Harvard University Press, England
4. Pippin, R (1989) Hegel's Idealism. The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness. Cambridge University Press
5. Hoernlé, Reinhold F. (1927) Idealism as a Philosophical Doctrine. George H. Doran Company