Friday 17 January 2014

Idealism

Idealism is the group of philosophical systems that claim realism is reliant on the mind rather than independent of the mind. Extreme versions of Idealism refuse that any ‘world’ exists outside of our minds. Finer versions of Idealism claim that our understanding of reality reveals the workings of our mind first and foremost – that the properties of objects have no standing regardless of the minds perceiving them. 

The nature and uniqueness of the “mind” upon which reality is needy is one subject that has divided idealists of a range of sorts. Some fight that there is some objective mind outside of nature, some fight that it is simply the common power of reason or rationality, some disagree that it is the combined mental faculties of society, and some center simply on the minds of individual human beings.