Idealism

Introduction
Approaches to understanding idealism
- Basic doctrines and principles
  - The union of individuality and universality
  - The contrast between contemporaneity and eternity
  - The doctrine of internal relations and the coherence theory of truth
  - The dialectical method
  - The centrality of mind in knowledge and being
  - The transmutation of evil into good
- Basic questions and answers
  - Ultimate reality
  - The given
  - Change
- Basic arguments
  - Esse est percipi: “To be is to be perceived”
  - The reciprocity argument
  - The mystical argument
  - The ontological argument
Types of philosophical idealism
Criticism and appraisal

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

Portrait of Benedict de Spinoza, 17th-century Dutch-Jewish philosopher, with shoulder-length dark hair, white collar, and black robe, set against a dark background.

At a Glance

idealism summary

Related Questions

How did American Hegelian idealism develop in the United States?
How did Berkeley distinguish active spirits from passive sensible ideas?
How did Berkeley explain the continued existence of objects when no person perceives them?
How did Bertrand Russell challenge Berkeley’s argument that to be is to be perceived?
How did Borden Parker Bowne’s personalism differ from absolute idealism?
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How did the Marburg school adapt Kantian idealism to modern physics?
How do internal relations support the idealist theory of truth?
How does Berkeley’s subjective idealism differ from solipsism?
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How does absolute idealism differ from personalism?
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How does metaphysical idealism describe the nature of reality?
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What did Fichte mean when he said that the Ego posits itself?
What does George Berkeley mean by the phrase “to be is to be perceived”?
Why did Berkeley reject John Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities?
Why did Fichte treat moral will as an important principle of reality?
Why did Immanuel Kant criticize Berkeley’s idealism?
Why did Kant compare his philosophy to the Copernican revolution?
Why do idealists argue that matter can be explained by mind?
Why does idealism give mind or spirit a central role in reality?
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Where did Marxism come from?
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External Websites

Lawrence University - The Refutation of Idealism
University of Notre Dame - Idealism: The History of a Philosophy
Learn Religions - The History of Idealism
Queensborough Community College - Idealism
CFR Education - Idealism Versus Realism
Gresham College - The Triumph of Idealism
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Idealism
University of Cambridge - Sociology Research - The Impact of Idealism

F.H. Bradley F.H. Bradley, detail of a portrait by R.G. Eves, 1924; in the collection of Merton College, Oxford.

Idealism

philosophy

Written by

Daniel Sommer Robinson

Professor and Director, School of Philosophy, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, 1946–54. Author of Royce and Hocking: American Idealists and others.

Daniel Sommer Robinson

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Britannica Editors

Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree....

Britannica Editors

Last updated

Nov. 1, 2026 •History

Idealism, in philosophy, any view that stresses the central role of the ideal or the spiritual in the interpretation of experience. It may hold that the world or reality exists essentially as spirit or consciousness, that abstractions and laws are more fundamental in reality than sensory things, or, at least, that whatever exists is known in dimensions that are chiefly mental—through and as ideas. Thus, the two basic forms of idealism are metaphysical idealism, which...

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