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Philosophy vocabulary · Schools and Movements

Idealism

Meaning in philosophy, with examples

/aɪˈdɪəlɪzəm/nounCommon term

In philosophy, idealism means: The metaphysical view that reality is fundamentally mental or depends on minds, so that no world exists entirely independent of thought or experience.

In Turkish: idealizm

How it is used

Berkeley's subjective idealism says that to be is to be perceived; Kant's transcendental idealism and the German idealism of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel are other major forms. In everyday English idealism means pursuing high ideals, which is a different sense.

Example sentences

  1. Berkeley's idealism denies that matter exists independently of perception.

  2. German idealism dominated philosophy in the decades after Kant.

Common collocations

  • German idealism
  • transcendental idealism
  • subjective idealism
  • absolute idealism
  • metaphysicsThe branch of philosophy that studies the basic nature of reality: what exists, what things are, and ideas such as time, cause, identity and possibility.
  • empiricismThe view that all or most of our knowledge comes from experience through the senses, rather than from reason alone.
  • dialecticA method of reaching truth through the clash of opposing positions, from the questions and answers of Plato's dialogues to Hegel's account of ideas developing through contradiction.
  • mind-body problemThe question of how the mind, with its thoughts and feelings, is related to the body and especially to the brain.

More terms: Schools and Movements

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