Please read and comment on your peer's definition of Idealism (document uploaded) by answering the following: 1. Summarize your peer’s argument. 2. Identify any points you found lacking in clarity or

May 4, 2020

Definition of idealism

IdealismAccording to the Oxford English Dictionary Online, idealism holds two distinct definitions. One states, “The practice of idealizing or the tendency to idealize; the habit of representing things in an ideal form, or as they might be; treatment of a subject in art or literature more imaginatively than realistically” (Oxford Dictionary Online). This is a predominant use of idealism in the social sphere as William’s proposes, “Idealism [is] a positive social or moral sense contrasted either with self-seeking or indifference or with a general narrowness of outlook” (Williams 153). There is a popular notion of the term idealism as an infantile outlook and effort in favor of utopianism and pursuing ideals to are deemed unrealistic. However, the term “idealism” also holds a philosophical definition stating, “Any of various views according to which reality is ultimately in some sense mental or mind-dependent; any of various views according to which the objects of knowledge or perception are ideas” (Oxford English Dictionary Online). Idealism,” then, is also defined as the philosophical thought in which reality is indistinguishable from the mind or the activities of the mind and otherwise connected to ideas. As a philosophical term, “idealism” holds two fundamental concepts. One, in which is defined as ontological idealism and conceptualized by Berkeley, is defined, “Any of various views according to which reality is ultimately in some sense mental or mind-dependent; any of various views according to which the objects of knowledge or perception are ideas” and the other, proposed as epistemological idealism conceptualized by Kant, “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” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy). How existence is conceptualized within the mind, or by the mind, is where there is a division in the philosophy of “idealism.” Along with Berkeley’s and Kant’s philosophical discourse within the 18th to 19th century the term’s use in the English language dates back to late 18th Century, which was traced back to the French variation idealisme and the German word idealismus (Williams 152). William’s further proposes, “The [root word], idea, Greek, is from the verb ‘to see’, and has a range of meanings from appearance and from to the Platonic type or model” (152). This crucial reference to Plato hints that the origins of idealism, and its philosophy, originate in the concept of forms referenced in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Forms, according to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, “The world that appears to our senses is in some way defective and filled with error, but there is a more real and perfect realm, populated by entities (called “forms” or “ideas”) that are eternal, changeless, and in some sense paradigmatic for the structure and character of the world presented to our senses.” In essence, to every object that is perceived there is an immaterial “ideal” which constitutes the existence of that object perceived; there is a bifurcated approach to understanding and constructing reality which happens within the Soul (synonymous for “mind”) in relation to the forms, the ideals of that which is perceived. In the Allegory of the Cave, the narrated discussion between Socrates and Glaucon, Socrates states, “the prison-house is the world of sight, the light of the fire is the sun, and you will not misapprehend me if you interpret the journey upwards to be the ascent of the soul into the intellectual world...in the world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all, and is seen only with an effort; and, when seen, is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right parent of light and of the lord of light in this visible world, and the immediate source of reason and truth in the intellectual; and that this is the power upon which he who would act rationally, either in public or private life must have his eye fixed” (Plato 3). The founding philosophical concept of “idealism”, that our perception of the world is dependent on the mind and how the mind interacts with ideas and ideals which are immaterial, absolute, and universal. With Plato’s concept of form, we can decipher the origins of “idealism” and this point of reference we can establish how this term is being redefined.