Objective idealism


Objective idealism is an idealistic metaphysics that postulates that there is in an important sense only one perceiver, and that this perceiver is one with that which is perceived. One important advocate of such a metaphysics, Josiah Royce, wrote that he was indifferent "whether anybody calls all this Theism or Pantheism". It is distinct from the subjective idealism of George Berkeley, and it abandons the thing-in-itself of Kant's dualism.

Overview

, in terms of metaphysics, is the philosophical view that the mind or spirit constitutes the fundamental reality. It has taken several distinct but related forms. Among them are objective and subjective idealism. Objective idealism accepts common sense realism but rejects naturalism, whereas subjective idealism denies that material objects exist independently of human perception and thus stands opposed to both realism and naturalism.
Schelling and Hegel had forms of objective idealism.
The philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce stated his own version of objective idealism in the following manner:
The one intelligible theory of the universe is that of objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws.

A. C. Ewing is an analytic philosopher influenced by the objective idealist tradition. His approach has been termed analytic idealism.

Notable proponents