The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy defines philosophical Idealism as -
This entry discusses philosophical idealism as a movement chiefly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although anticipated by certain aspects of seventeenth century philosophy. It examines the relationship between epistemological idealism (the view that the contents of human knowledge are ineluctably determined by the structure of human thought) and ontological idealism (the view that epistemological idealism delivers truth because reality itself is a form of thought and human thought participates in it). After discussing precursors, the entry focuses on the eighteenth-century versions of idealism due to Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, the nineteenth-century movements of German idealism and subsequently British and American idealism, and then concludes with an examination of the attack upon idealism by Moore and Russell.
The same article summarises idealism as –
It nevertheless seems safe to say that within modern philosophy there have been two fundamental conceptions of idealism:
something mental (the mind, spirit, reason, will) is the ultimate foundation of all reality, or even exhaustive of reality, and
although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, everything that we can know about this mind-independent “reality” is held to be so permeated by the creative, formative, or constructive activities of the mind (of some kind or other) that all claims to knowledge must be considered, in some sense, to be a form of self-knowledge.
The fundamental principle of idealism as stated above is that reality is created, formed, or constructed by human thought. Consequent to the fundamental principle, thought is a cause of external reality. So, when a man thinks is his mind that a tree exists, then the tree exists outside his mind. The causality of philosophical idealism requires thought, which is interior to the man, to cause many things known by the man’s mind, which are outside the man’s mind existing in the concrete real. The absurdity of idealism may be exposed by noting several examples –
Man knows the tree, and by knowing the tree, the tree is caused to exist by the man’s knowledge of the tree. Consequently, when man causes the tree by thought, the tree in the real, outside man, has many causes, such as soil, nutrients, water, and atoms, and sunlight which also cause the tree, which just so happen to coincide with the man’s knowledge of the tree. Let us hypothetically suppose as true that in accord with idealism’s understanding of the relationship between man’s knowledge and things existing externally from the man in the real, that the man’s knowledge causes the tree.
Then man’s knowledge of the tree must cause all causes within the tree, that make the tree exist in the real, and all the causes that are external to the tree that also cause the tree to exist in the real. For knowledge to cause the tree means knowledge causes the tree in toto, which includes knowledge causing all causes within the tree. Yet such knowledge of the tree by man must be comprehensive knowledge whereby the man knows all causes all the time, in a complete and comprehensive manner. Yet such knowledge of the tree is not possible, as argued below.
Man does not have a comprehensive knowledge of any body at all as Implied by Idealism.
We know this from the nature of human knowledge that is only apprehensive and not comprehensive. Apprehensive knowledge only permits some knowledge of the nature of a body, whereby the nature of a thing is known apart from its individuating notes in the real. Such oppressive knowledge of any body is the reason why man uses the process of judgement and reason to arrive at new knowledge of bodies. For example, a man knows Peter, who is a man, and then makes the judgement that Peter is a man. The judgement made arrives at a new conclusion after the man apprehends both the natures of Peter and man. Consequent to judgement, men use reason to arrive at further conclusions. For example, Peter is a man. Man is mortal. Therefore, Peter is mortal. Whereby the conclusion is a new truth known through the process of reason.
If such knowledge of Peter as a mortal man causes Peter and Peter’s mortality, then knowledge of Peter alone, which causes all the causes in Peter, would already know peter is both mortal and all other truths about Peter that could be arrived at though reason. Consequently, the philosophy of idealism has a false understanding of the nature of human knowledge, which commonly uses judgement and reason, which is always made apart from any possibility that human knowledge is comprehensive. Therefore, strong evidence is found from the natural use of human intellect in reason to show human knowledge acts in a manner diverse to that required by idealism.
The Existence of Science Contradicts Man’s Mind as a Cause of External Reality
Inductive sciences assume external reality is objective and thereby known to have causes through hypothesis, models and experimental data collected from those models. Such causes are then known to exist within things that exist in the real. The change from non-knowledge to knowledge of causes within things which existed before knowledge of those causes was known is strong evidence that man’s mind does not cause external causes, but man’s mind is in fact informed by external causes, whereby man comes to know causes, which always assumes those external causes existed before man came to know those causes. The causation of things eternal to man prior to knowledge implies external causes act independent of man’s knowledge.
Man’s knowledge is not Ongoing and Therefore Not Causative of External Reality
Men come to know the external reality, then move on to know other external realities, and sometimes, whilst asleep, do not in act actually know any external reality for several hours each day. The man who knows the tree and then ceases to know the same tree does not cause the tree to stop existing. We know this from common sense experience. A tree is known to exist in the backyard, is filmed to continue to exist, whilst the man sleeps. As the man sleeps the tree does not disappear from the camera, but remains the tree. Similar examples can be given for any external thing, which continues to exist, even when no man knows of the things existence. Such simple life experience is enough to overturn the philosophy of idealism.
Discovery Provides Evidence for External Things Existing apart from Knowledge
A man digs a hole and finds some gold. The gold then must have existed prior to the man digging the hole, and the gold is then not dependent upon the man discovering the gold. Both discovery and surprise in the man who finds the gold is strong evidence that the gold has its own external causes which are sufficient to account for the existence of the gold, apart from any knowledge of the gold.
Furthermore, if all of external reality corresponded to human thought as the cause of external reality, then man could imagine anything, and thereby think of some new reality and that reality would begin to exist for as long as the thought existed. So if we use the example of the man digging up the gold, idealism would posit that the man caused the gold by thinking of the gold when he dug the hole. But what of the same man, who thinks of gold whilst digging another hole, but never finds the gold? Should not the man digging, and thinking of gold, always find the gold? According to idealism it necessarily follows that the reality of gold follows upon the thought of gold. Why then in the practical don’t men just think of gold and gold then appears? Because external reality does not follow upon thought. Again, a simple experiment shows the practical falsification of the philosophy of idealism.
External reality is not caused by thought. But thought may follow upon external reality, because external reality is active in the act of knowledge. The activity of the object, external to the knower is well attested by moderate realism, and by the modern application of science which requires external reality to act to provide data to then use the date to check theory. The idealist cannot account for science, which assumes the activity of external reality in the act of knowledge, for idealism denies the very activity of external reality.
Some Corollaries to the Falsity of Idealism
Man does not cause external reality through knowledge of external reality. Man’s knowledge does not account for the existence of external things. As the mind does not cause extrinsic causes, then the mind (intellect) only has causes intrinsic to man himself. Hence knowledge of the real, is caused by the senses, and the intellect, which do not cause the tree.
The Correct Understanding of the Human Mind is other than Idealism and Materialism –
Both Idealism and Materialism are false philosophies of the human mind. Consequently. there must be another philosophy that correctly accounts for the action of the human mind. One such candidate is the moderate realism of St Thomas, which says the human intellect is a spiritual power that becomes the form of the external thing known in the intellect. Hence when the man knows the tree, the man’s intellect remains an intellect, but also becomes the form of the tree, and has his mind informed by the tree to know tree-ness.
The Academy is Shown to be False with Regard to the Human Intellect –
As the academy embraces idealism and materialism, and both philosophies are false, then one should become a moderate sceptic regarding the opinions of the intellectuals who claim to be educated in the area of philosophy. For if the philosophers can and have made such elementary blunders concerning the nature of the human intellect, then they can and probably have made several other elementary errors in other areas as well.
The Elementary Errors of Idealism and Materialism Point to Man’s Fallen Nature –
The Catholic Church teaches man has a fallen nature and is thereby prone to easily sin and thereby have a darkened intellect. The darkening of the intellect then causes difficulty in both finding truth and then living that truth. The falsity of idealism and materialism is strong evidence from within the academy that the academy is composed of men who have a fallen nature, and who find it difficult to explain reality and then live by their explanations of reality. Nobody can live out idealism or materialism, for nobody can live out an error.
The Falsity of Idealism and the Avoidance of Solipsism –
If Idealism is true then when a man knows other men, all other men are cause by the knowledge of the one man. Such a philosophy of one causing the many is consistent with solipsism, which says only the one man can be known to exist. For if only one man causes all of reality through knowledge then really only the one man exists as the cause of all other things. Idealism is not identical to solipsism, but has some consistency with solipsism. The falsity of idealism once exposed then removes the false wold view of solipsism.
Parts of Enlightenment Philosophy are False –
Enlightenment Philosophers such as Rene Descartes promoted a philosophy of knowledge as the precursor to idealism. For Descartes said man only knows his thought. By Descartes saying such a statement, other philosophers who followed Descartes than concluded that only ideas are known, therefore external reality is really only an extension of ideas and therefore external reality is caused by human ideas.
As idealism is false, then the Philosophy of knowledge promoted by Rene Descartes may well be false in principle. As it turns out, Descartes philosophy is false, for man does not know only ideas, but knows the nature of bodes through ideas attained through the internal sense of imagination and the eternal senses of taste, touch, sight, smell, and hearing. As the idea is not what is known as Descartes taught, but that through which the external reality is known, then there is no need to posit that man only knows ideas and consequently external reality is tied to, or caused by human thought as the idealists taught.
Descartes classic statement that “I think, therefore I am”, presupposed Descartes principle of man’s intellect only knows ideas. For if only ideas are known, then I exist, because I think and thereby know I exist. Hence only knowledge of ideas leads to the conclusion that man’s knowledge is causative of concrete, real things. But because Descartes principle of man only knowing ideas is false, his statement of “I think, therefore I am”, is also false. For man exists first, then knows of both his ability to know external reality, and his ability to reflect and thereby know that he exists. Descartes, would have better said, I exist, therefore I can think, rather than his famous, but false statement of “I think, therefore I am”.
Idealism Ignores the Activity of the External Things in the Act of knowledge.
By idealism proposing that the human mind causes external things to exist, the external thing thereby does not in any way cause the act of knowledge. But if the only cause of knowledge is the man (subject), and not the tree (object), then according to idealism, knowledge is only ever subjective and not objective. Whereby man both never knows the tree as an object of knowledge, for the tree as an object does not cause knowledge. But man knows the tree as an object only subjectively and the knowledge thereby causes the concrete object external (the tree) to the knowing man.
Idealism is thereby inconsistent. For idealism teaches man does have a knowledge of the tree, and thereby admits of the causation of the tree in knowledge, making knowledge objective. But idealism then denies the causation of the tree in knowledge by affirming that human knowledge alone causes the tree. Thereby idealism teaches knowledge is only subjective. And by idealism denying the activity of the object of knowledge, idealism cannot consistently affirm any access to objective knowledge and thereby cannot make any consistent claims concerning what knowledge may or may not do to any objective reality outside the activity of the subject.
In short, by idealism’s denial of the activity of the object in the act of knowledge there remains no causal link between the subject and the external object, to then affirm the act of knowledge causes the object. If only the subject is the cause of knowledge, then knowledge as a cause of anything outside the subject must remain unknown, and not affirmed as causative of any concrete reality outside the knower.
JM
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