what is an ideal world essay

My Ideal World Essay & Paragraphs For Students

As a kid, I loved imagining what the perfect world would be like. In this essay, I will describe my vision for an ideal place where everyone is happy and things work smoothly. One day, real life could be just as great as the world in my head.

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Essay On My Ideal World

In my ideal world, there would be no bullying or rude behavior between people. (Topic sentence) Everyone would treat each other with kindness like best friends do. No one would feel left out or made fun of, so confidence and teamwork could reign supreme instead of nasty attitudes. With smiles as currency, who would not want to get up each morning in such a light-filled land?

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Another key part of my ideal place involves leaders focused on the greater good. Laws and guidelines would unite communities by being reasonable, not overbearing. (Transition) Listening to citizens and compromising would solve problems, not force. (Topic sentence) Leaders lead by moral example, so trust between governance and people could eliminate corruption. Civic participation empowers all voices while shared hope for the future ties society close.

A Clean Environment

My perfect world also cares deeply for the natural realm, providing for our needs and wants. Clean water, fresh air and healthy soil maintain a sustainable balance. (Transition) Eco-initiatives create green jobs while renewing resources for generations ahead to discover nature’s beauty. (Topic sentence) Respecting inhabitants, big and small, teaches humanity that nature’s wonders come with caring for all. Together as stewards, our earth and its inhabitants thrive prosperously as one community joined in hands.

Advanced Technology

Though simple in ways, technological progress moves society closer to my ideal, with discoveries improving lives every day. Medical breakthroughs cure illness; efficient cars run on air. Machines handle labor so creativity and relationships can blossom freely. (Transition) However, nature remains treasured, and machines serve not to overtake humankind. Online worlds unite distant friends while safeguarding privacy. Advances enhance life’s experiences when guided with wisdom.

Lasting Peace

Most of all, peace would exist between all people and nations in a perfect world. Cooperation overcomes squabbling over perceived differences for the sake of shared hopes. (Topic sentence) Understanding, compassion and nonviolence resolve conflicts, so energy focuses on mutual interests like science, arts and exploration. Without fear of harm, the fullest potential of the human spirit could flourish across borders as one.

In closing, while still just a dream, envisioning an ideal world motivates making real life closer bit by bit. With effort gradually shifting perspectives on what moves society ahead harmoniously, one day, compassion will be reality’s common currency where all people’s voices and inherent worth ring clear. I hope such a world might pass through each small act of kindness.

Hello! Welcome to my Blog StudyParagraphs.co. My name is Angelina. I am a college professor. I love reading writing for kids students. This blog is full with valuable knowledge for all class students. Thank you for reading my articles.

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What Is the Ideal World? 5 Utopias Proposed by Famous Philosophers

What is the ideal world? Is it a utopia where everyone is happy and has no material problems? Or is it something else?

What would an ideal world look like? Most of us would agree that an ideal world is a place where everyone can live in peace and harmony; a place where there is no poverty or hunger, and where all people have the opportunity to reach their full potential. Unfortunately, there is no definitive answer to this question as it is, at least to some degree, a matter of personal opinion.

Some believe that the ideal state is one where everyone is happy and content with their lives. Others may think that the ideal state is one where there is perfect harmony and balance between all individuals and groups. Ultimately, what constitutes an ideal state depends on the values and beliefs we prioritize. In this article, we’ll take a look at the ideal world according to five famous philosophers: Plato, Thomas More, Campanella, Burke, and Godwin. We will explore what they believe the perfect world would look like and what it takes to get there.

1. Plato’s Ideal World: A Perfectly Balanced State

The theory of the ideal state is most fully represented by Plato in the  Republic,  and it was further developed in the  Laws . According to Plato, true political art is the art of saving and educating the soul; therefore, he puts forward the thesis that true philosophy coincides with true politics. Only if a politician becomes a philosopher (and vice versa) can a true state be built based on the highest values of the Truth and the Good.

The ideal state, according to Plato, like the soul, has a tripartite structure. Following this tripartite structure (management, protection, and production of material goods), the population is divided into three classes: producers or workers, auxiliaries, and guardians or soldiers. A fair state structure should ensure their harmonious coexistence.

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The first and “lowest” class is formed from people whose lustful tendencies prevail. The second, protective class of people is formed from people in whom the strong-willed principle prevails. They feel a watchful duty and are vigilant against both internal and external danger. If the virtue of moderation and a kind of love for order and discipline prevails in a person, then they can be part of the most worthy class of people, and it is those who are meant to manage the state.

According to Plato, only aristocrats are called to govern the state as the best and most wise citizens. Rulers should be those who know how to love their City more than others and who can fulfill their duty with the greatest zeal. Most importantly, these rulers need to know how to recognize and contemplate the Good. In other words, the rational principle prevails in them, and they can rightfully be called “sages”.

So, a perfect state is the one in which the workers are guided by moderation, the military by courage and strength, and the ruling class by wisdom.

The concept of justice in an ideal state is based on the idea that everyone does what they have to do; it concerns the citizens in the City in analogy with the parts of the soul in the soul. Justice in the outer world is manifested only when it is also present in the soul. Therefore, in a perfect City, the education and upbringing of citizens must be perfect, and this education will have to be tailored to each class in a specific way.

Plato attaches great importance to the education of guards as an active part of the population from which rulers emerge. Education worthy of rulers had to combine practical skills with the development of philosophy. The purpose of education is to give a model that the ruler should use in an effort to embody this Good in the state.

In  the Republic  Plato states that living in an ideal world is not as important as it might seem. It can be good enough to live according to the laws of this City, that is, according to the laws of the Good, Truth, and Justice. After all, before appearing in reality externally, that is, in history, the Platonic City is first born inside people themselves.

2. The Utopian Wonder Island by Thomas More

Utopia   by Thomas More , written in 1516, is the book that gave the name to the corresponding genre in literature and the new model of the ideal world. More’s Utopia is an island nation. The king rules in this state, but the highest administrative positions are elected. The problem, however, is that every citizen of Utopia is tightly tied to their professional corporation, which means they have no chance of gaining access to management.

Since the rulers are very far-removed from the people, there is no single thought-out ideology or religion on the island: belief in a single deity is preferred, but everyone is free to think through the “details” at their own discretion. You can be Christian or a pagan. It cannot be said that some Gods are better than others or that no Gods exist at all.

There is no money and private property on the island. Organized distribution of goods has completely supplanted free trade, and instead of the labor market, there is a universal labor service. Utopians do not work very hard, but only because enslaved people do the dirty and hard work. The islanders enslave their citizens as punishment for shameful acts; alternatively, foreigners awaiting execution for a crime they committed can also be enslaved.

Under these conditions, no aesthetic diversity is possible: the life of one family is no different from the life of another; language, customs, institutions, laws, houses, and even the layout of cities throughout the island are the same.

Of course, the project of the English writer was never realized, but some of its features are easy to recognize in contemporary states. These similarities are not due to funny coincidences, but due to universal patterns. For example, More believed that rejecting private property inevitably led to a cultural unification – something that can be observed in states where private property was limited in some way. Another obvious insight we can take from More’s utopia is the following: without a technological breakthrough, it is possible to reduce the labor load for some citizens only by super-exploiting others.

3. The City of the Sun  by Tommaso Campanella

The ideal world model of Tommaso Campanella’s  City of the Sun   is perhaps the most famous and most “totalitarian” of all utopias. In the  City of the Sun , according to the utopian idea, all kinds of teaching aids were to be depicted right on the walls: trees, animals, celestial bodies, minerals, rivers, seas, and mountains.

All troubles, all crimes, Campanella believed, came from two things – from private property and from the family. Therefore, in the City of the Sun, everything is a common good, and monogamous marriage and the right of parents to have a child are declared a relic of the past. “Solariums”, these new utopian citizens, always work together, they eat only in common dining rooms, and sleep in shared bedrooms.

The ideas of democracy are alien to solariums. A caste of priest-scientists leads the city: the high priest, named Metaphysician or the Sun, and his co-rulers – Power, Wisdom, and Love. Nobody chooses them; on the contrary, the supreme rulers appoint all the lower-lever leaders, priests-scholars of the lowest rank.

Science is the religion of solariums. The goal of their life is to climb the steps of rational knowledge. And it is built in strict accordance with scientific principles, which, in turn, are applied to everyday empiricism by priests.

At the top of the temple are twenty-four priests who, at midnight, at noon, morning, and evening, four times a day, sing psalms to God. They must observe the stars, mark their movements with the aid of an astrolabe, and study their powers and effects on human affairs. By doing this they know what changes have occurred or are about to occur in certain areas of the earth and at what time. They determine the best times for fertilization, the days of sowing, harvesting; they are, in a sense, transmitters and a link between God and people.

You might read this description and think: what is wrong with this harmonious system? Where does it fail? Why is a society governed by scientists and based on science not viable? One could argue that the City of the Sun is not a utopia because a person cannot be happy without the opportunity to be alone with themselves, with their wife/husband, children, favorite things, and even their sins. Like any other utopia that forgoes private property, Campanella’s utopia deprives a person of this type of happiness.

4. Burke’s Conservative Utopia

Edmund Burke is the founder of the ideology of conservatism . His  Vindication of Natural Society  is the first conservative utopia. It was written by Burke in response to Viscount Henry Bolingbroke’s  Letters on the Study and Use of History , in which the latter attacked the Church. Burke, interestingly, does not defend the institutions of religion, but the institutions of the state, showing that there is as much sense in their elimination as in the elimination of church institutions.

The philosopher resorts to an ironic form of presentation of an ideal world. He describes every form of government known to humanity. Burke says that all of them – in direct or roundabout ways – lead a person to slavery. Therefore, he suggests, let’s abandon the state and live according to the laws of a “natural society.” If political society, whatever form it may take, has already turned the majority into the property of a few and has led to the emergence of exploitative forms of work, vices, and diseases, then should we continue to worship such a harmful idol and sacrifice our health and freedom to it?

Burke believes that a completely different picture is observed in the state of nature. There is no need for anything that nature provides. In such a state, a person cannot experience any other needs than those that can be satisfied by very moderate work, and, therefore, there is no slavery. There is no luxury here either because no one alone can create the things necessary for it. Life is simple and, therefore, happy.

However, Burke is ironic. His point of view lies precisely in the fact that no development of society is possible without historical continuity, without relying on already existing political, social, and religious institutions. For him, the existing state is natural, and any revolutionary project that breaks social reality is artificial.

5. Godwin’s Anarchist Utopia

Many ignored Burke’s irony and seriously considered him as a theoretician of anarchism . One such person was William Godwin , inventor of the first real anarchist utopia. In the opening part of his  Enquiry Concerning   Political Justice , he mostly paraphrases Burke, and in the second, he offers a positive program.

At the center of Godwin’s ideal worldview is the individual, whose entire behavior is determined by reason. A society can only be healthy if it is built on the principles of reason. There is only one truth, which means that the true structure of society is only one. It is hardly worth looking for this arrangement in the past because the whole history of humanity is a history of crimes. It is a history of state violence against an individual. And not only the state, but in general, everything that enslaves the mind imposes a unifying norm on it.

An ideal person in Godwin’s worldview is the eternal “enemy of the state”. Godwin believes that humanity is waiting for a New Era where small and self-sufficient communities populated by new people will replace states.

So, What Is The Ideal World? 

It’s a question that many people have asked over the centuries, and no single answer has satisfied everyone. In this article, we looked at five different perspectives on the ideal state from famous philosophers. Each of them had their own idea about what constituted a perfect world and how to get there. While their views differed in some ways, they all agreed that striving for something better than the world we live in today was important. And to get there, we’ll need to change our ways and work together towards a common goal.

Plato’s Philosophy: 10 Breakthroughs That Contributed to Society

By Viktoriya Sus MA Philosophy Viktoriya is a writer from L’viv, Ukraine. She has knowledge about the main thinkers. In her free time, she loves to read books on philosophy and analyze whether ancient philosophical thought is relevant today. Besides writing, she loves traveling, learning new languages, and visiting museums.

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What is an ideal world? How would I act in an ideal world as an ideal citizen?

An ideal world would be a much more friendly, helping environment compared to today’s society. In the world today, all individuals have the tendency to be rude, judgmental, competitive, and hostile, just for some examples. In an ideal world, the majority of these tendencies would not exist. No one has the power to stop people from acting all of these different ways, but the way people act can be improved. To improve the world around us, people need to learn to accept others for who they are. Individuals tend to judge each other on all different aspects such as race, gender and sexual orientation. If judgment such as this could be eliminated, that would be one step closer to an ideal world. Another great aspect to improve in society is hostility. There is not hostility just between individuals, but between different nations in today’s society and that makes for an unpleasant environment in parts of the world. An example of this would be the Malaysia Airlines plane that was shot down over Ukraine in mid-July this past summer. This event has caused much hostility among the different countries over the past couple of months. To become an ideal citizen in an ideal world, I would try to make myself a better person than what I am now. However, I would not try to completely change who I am either. One aspect of myself that I would change is that I would try to always look at events with a positive view and try to keep all negative thoughts away from me. This would help me with other aspects such as being less judgmental and being a happier person. Another way I would improve myself is by getting even more involved in my community and I would try to achieve all of my goals to the best of my ability. By being this better person, I would not only be a better member of society but I would be changing myself to better my own future.

4 Comments on What is an ideal world? How would I act in an ideal world as an ideal citizen?

Alejandro Cuevas

Coming back to the utopia part (I’m sorry if I’m sounding obnoxious or something like that, I simply love debates and other people’s opinions on things) I believe that a society in which everybody looks for each other and strives to ultimately help others doesn’t maintain or human nature. We humans are drive by our self-interests, we are egotistical by nature. (This belief is better explained in http://www.princeton.edu/~achaney/tmve/wiki100k/docs/Psychological_egoism.html ) So, in a society where altruism is the ultimate drive for people’s actions, is our human nature maintained? What are we saving? What do we become? We live in a wonderful society in exchange of losing our natural behavior. And you may say then, well, a certain degree of egoism may be present then in people’s lives. But well, then again, from that starting point sprouts traits such as competitiveness.

Stephanie Reed Springer

Alejandro, I disagree to some extent with your assertions that we need to be judgmental and competitive. I think the way Marisa is defining it, being judgmental means having unfair prejudices. She explains that people form opinions based on characteristics like sexual orientation, gender, and race. Judgments based on these factors are actually prejudices, meaning you are lumping an entire group of people under certain stereotypes. These types of judgments are never okay. Where I agree with you is that we do have to judge others on occasion, but we should never do it without getting to know them first. For example, we must determine with whom we want to be friends. Obviously, we can’t be friends with everyone and will have to judge who we like and have shared interests with. On the topic of competition, I think that in a true utopia, you could do away with competition and be motivated solely by self-improvement and the desire to help others.

While I definitely like to believe in the idea of an “ideal world”, to what extent will this be good? For instance, you mentioned some bad traits like “judgmental” or “competitive”. What would happen to the world if there was no sense of competitiveness between individuals? And I’m parting from the point that this sense of competitiveness usually sparks progress and self-superation in society. Or, for instance, being judgmental is also a “necessary evil” (if you want to call it that). We need somebody to point out our flaws in order to improve. It is hard to accept, but ultimately necessary. While I’m not seeking to avow these two “traits” in their full extent, it is important to not rule them out completely. An utopia usually brings to your mind happiness, joy, and a sense of peacefulness. However, to what degree is an utopia actually related to this? Can humans achieve such state while maintaining their inherent human behaviors (that is, the traits and attitudes that define your humanity)?

I like the classification that you made with the unpleasant characteristics of people who are rude, judgmental, competitive, and hostile. I think that these traits stem from something deeper, and that is the insecurity that each one of us feels. People would have no reason to try to look down on one another or prove individual worth if each person was fully content with himself or herself. I think that it is this internal issue that is manifested through our interactions with other people. In order to become this ideal person in an ideal world, like anyone else, you must start with this internal issue first.

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Essay on My vision of an ideal world order

September 30, 2019 by Sandeep

If you had the power to model and shape an ideal world order, what would your vision be? In order to envision this, there several more questions to introspect on. What kind of world would we want to live in?

What would that look like? What kinds of activities would be at the forefront of culture? In what areas would the most energy be devoted to? What kind of role models would be best for your ideal world?

Once these questions, among many more, are answered to your satisfaction, you will have a rough idea of what your ideal world order would be. But before that, let us understand what a world order is.

What is World Order?

The definition of a world order is a system controlling events in the world, especially a set of arrangements established internationally for preserving global political stability. It is an international-relations term describing the distribution of power among world powers.

World order as a term can be used both analytically and prescriptively. Both usages serve important purposes in grasping the realities of political life on a global level. Analytically, world order refers to the arrangement of power and authority that provides the framework for the conduct of diplomacy and world politics on a global scale.

Prescriptively, world order refers to a preferred arrangement of power and authority that is associated with the realisation of such values as peace, economic growth and equity, human rights, and environmental quality and sustainability. This essay is in reference to world order prescriptively.

My Ideal World Order

My ideal world order would contain several different aspects, some similar to the current world, while others from a completely different perspective. Here are some of the changes I envision in an ideal world.

Energy Utilisation

We all know that due to climate change, or rather, the climate catastrophe, we have only twelve years to save our Earth. It has occurred to me quite often that one of the main reasons for global warming is the over utilization of resources for energy. Scientists are already working on ways to use solar energy to generate electricity.

In my ideal world order, the world would run using the help of a Dyson sphere. A Dyson sphere is a hypothetical mega structure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output. In this way, the pollution output rate would fall massively, global warming would decrease, and the world would be a much better place to live in.

World Equality

In my world order, men & women would be considered as equal. Members of the LGBTQ community would be treated as equals. Racism would never be even thought of. There would be no poor and rich difference, but not with communism. No discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, sexual preferences, colour, caste, religion, or opinions would exist.

Every individual would be expected and by social presence adhere to a moral code of conduct, which would include respecting each other, respecting the law, adhering to the law, minding one’s manners in both public & private life. This sort of equality would promote justice and indirectly would improve the law and order situation to its best.

If we could avoid the discrimination, we can avoid the tag of under-developed, developing and developed countries; as each and every country will come upfront to help each other with their requirements in a mutual understanding.

Education System

In my ideal world, there would be little at most to absolutely no resemblance to the current education system. The grading system would be completely abolished. Fishes would be taught to swim as well as they can, monkeys would be taught to climb trees, lions to roar and catch prey, deer to graze and hide from lions.

Elephants would learn to use their trunks to the best of their abilities, squirrels to differentiate between good nuts and bad ones, birds to fly as high as their wings allow, the flightless ones to walk/swim as much as they can. To sum it up, each one would be taught to harbour their own talent and work on that to make it the best they can.

Of course, I don’t mean to say that in an ideal world, we will be educating animals; these animals are simply in reference to differently abled human beings.

Another point under education is that it would be completely free. A school in Assam has begun accepting one small bag of plastic waste as a school fee. The waste collected is then either reused or recycled. Imagine if all the schools and universities used this method!

Our world would be so spotlessly clean, children at a young age would learn how easy it is to reduce wastage and plastic, and parents would not have to go into debts simply to afford good education for their children.

Student debts would also considerably go down, which in my opinion, is an amazing thing. Many students even now are burdened by heavy tuition fee. How nice it would be to unload that burden from their backs!

A Peaceful Existence

In my ideal world order, there would be absolutely no terrorism or war at all. Governments would want only the best for their respective countries – not just to make their nation a superpower, but rather to ensure the welfare of their citizens. All countries would be friendly with each other, with no hostility, disagreements or anger.

Armies would be smaller and digital protection on LoC would be higher. Governments of different countries would be expected to maintain peace, encourage fair & free trade, and cut the beginning of any terrorist seeds at the bud itself.

The world will have deep-rooted respect and pride for the soldiers who sacrifice their personal life to safe-guard the country. A terror free world will also promote tourism and merry amongst the masses who could travel to any part of the country without any fear.

Although people would still be allowed to follow the religion and faith they chose, there would be no fights or trifles among devotees of different religions. Everyone would strictly follow a policy of ‘Live and let Live’.

Addiction Control

Another great hit would be on the addiction forming substances. I would not increase the taxes on alcohol & tobacco products each year, as the government does now to reduce addictions; rather I would completely close down the industries producing these products along with any drug related activities.

This would help a lot many families from getting shattered. Despite of the known health hazards, these addiction forming substances lure the trade industry with their high margin and revenue generation for any country.

My vision is more confined to the general well-being of the human beings with respect to their health, with is undoubtedly much more important than the wealth. In addition, we would form more rehab centres which are verified to help patients overcome addictions and cure themselves.

There are also other ways to get the same feeling as these drugs give, but in a helpful way. Researcher have found several spots in the fore brain, especially in the hypothalamus, which on electrical stimulation, forms a pleasure spot. These stimulation could be given in return for marvellous deeds or for a clean-up drive. This not only motivates people to live their best lives, but also keeps them happier than they could be with drugs.

This is a brief summary of my vision of an ideal world order. The ideal will always be approximate and never exact. However, our vision of an orderly world does not have to remain simply a vision.

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This entry discusses philosophical idealism as a movement chiefly in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, although anticipated by certain aspects of seventeenth century philosophy and continuing into the twentieth century. It revises the standard distinction 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, in favor of a distinction earlier suggested by A.C. Ewing, between epistemological and metaphysical arguments for idealism as itself a metaphysical position. 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 and the late defense of idealism by Brand Blanshard.

With the possible exception of the introduction (Section 1), each of the sections below can be read independently and readers are welcome to focus on the section(s) of most interest.

1. Introduction

2. idealism in early modern rationalism, 3. idealism in early modern british philosophy, 5. german idealism, 6. schopenhauer, 7. nietzsche (and a glimpse beyond), 8. british and american idealism, 9. the fate of idealism in the twentieth century, primary literature, selected secondary literature, other internet resources, related entries.

The terms “idealism” and “idealist” are by no means used only within philosophy; they are used in many everyday contexts as well. Optimists who believe that, in the long run, good will prevail are often called “idealists”. This is not because such people are thought to be devoted to a philosophical doctrine but because of their outlook on life generally; indeed, they may even be pitied, or perhaps envied, for displaying a naïve worldview and not being philosophically critical at all. Even within philosophy, the terms “idealism” and “idealist” are used in different ways, which often makes their meaning dependent on the context. However, independently of context one can distinguish between a descriptive (or classificatory) use of these terms and a polemical one, although sometimes these different uses occur together. Their descriptive use is best documented by paying attention to the large number of different “idealisms” that appear in philosophical textbooks and encyclopedias, ranging from metaphysical idealism through epistemological and aesthetic to moral or ethical idealism. Within these idealisms one can find further distinctions, such as those between subjective, objective and absolute idealism, and even more obscure characterizations such as speculative idealism and transcendental idealism. It is also remarkable that the term “idealism”, at least within philosophy, is often used in such a way that it gets its meaning through what is taken to be its opposite: as the meaningful use of the term “outside” depends on a contrast with something considered to be inside, so the meaning of the term “idealism” is often fixed by what is taken to be its opposite. Thus, an idealist is someone who is not a realist, not a materialist, not a dogmatist, not an empiricist, and so on. Given the fact that many also want to distinguish between realism, materialism, dogmatism, and empiricism, it is obvious that thinking of the meaning of “idealism” as determined by what it is meant to be opposed to leads to further complexity and gives rise to the impression that underlying such characterizations lies some polemical intent.

Within modern philosophy there are sometimes taken to be 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.

Idealism in sense (1) has been called “metaphysical” or “ontological idealism”, while idealism in sense (2) has been called “formal” or “epistemological idealism”. The modern paradigm of idealism in sense (1) might be considered to be George Berkeley’s “immaterialism”, according to which all that exists are ideas and the minds, less than divine or divine, that have them. (Berkeley himself did not use the term “idealism”.) The fountainhead for idealism in sense (2) might be the position that Immanuel Kant asserted (if not clearly in the first edition of his Critique of Pure Reason (1781) then in his Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics (1783) and in the “Refutation of Idealism” in the second edition of the Critique ) according to which idealism does “not concern the existence of things”, but asserts only that our “modes of representation” of them, above all space and time, are not “determinations that belong to things in themselves” but features of our own minds. Kant called his position “transcendental” and “critical” idealism, and it has also been called “formal” idealism. However, Kant’s position does not provide a clear model of idealism at all. While Kant himself claimed that his position combined “empirical realism” with “transcendental idealism”, that is, combined realism about external, spatio-temporal objects in ordinary life and science with the denial of the reality of space and time at the level of things as they are in themselves, it also insisted upon the reality of things as they are in themselves existing independently from our representations of them, thus denying their reducibility to representations or the minds that have them. In this way, Kant’s position actually combines the transcendental ideality of space and time with a kind of realism about the existence of things other than minds.

So instead of using Kant as any kind of model for epistemological idealism, in this entry we will distinguish between metaphysical and epistemological arguments for idealism understood as a metaphysical doctrine, namely that everything that exists is in some way mental. We thus agree with A.C. Ewing, who wrote in 1934 that all forms of idealism

have in common the view that there can be no physical objects existing apart from some experience, and this might perhaps be taken as the definition of idealism, provided that we regard thinking as part of experience and do not imply by “experience” passivity, and provided we include under experience not only human experience but the so-called “Absolute Experience” or the experience of a God such as Berkeley postulates. (Ewing 1934: 3)

in other words, while reducing all reality to some kind of perception is one form of idealism, it is not the only form—reality may be reduced to the mental on other conceptions of the latter. Thus Willem deVries’s more recent definition of idealism as the general theory that reduces reality to some form or other of the mental is just:

Roughly, the genus comprises theories that attribute ontological priority to the mental, especially the conceptual or ideational, over the non-mental. (deVries 2009: 211)

We also agree with Jeremy Dunham, Iain Hamilton Grant, and Sean Watson when they write that

the idealist, rather than being anti-realist, is in fact … a realist concerning elements more usually dismissed from reality. (Dunham, Grant, & Watson 2011: 4)

namely mind of some kind or other: the idealist denies the mind-independent reality of matter, but hardly denies the reality of mind (or, on their account, which goes back to Plato, Ideas or Forms as well as minds; we will not consider pre-modern forms of idealism in any detail). However, following Ewing (see his chapters II, IV–V, and VIII), we will distinguish metaphysical from epistemological arguments for idealism. Metaphysical arguments proceed by identifying some general constraints on existence and arguing that only minds of some sort or other satisfy such conditions; epistemological arguments work by identifying some conditions for knowledge and arguing that only objects that are in some sense or other mental can satisfy the conditions for being known. In particular, epistemological arguments for idealism assume that there is a necessary isomorphism between knowledge and its object that can obtain only if the object of knowledge is itself mental; we propose that this is the difference between epistemologically-motivated idealism and a more neutral position, which might be identified with philosophers such as Rudolf Carnap, W.V.O. Quine, and Donald Davidson, holding that of course we always know things from some point of view, but any “external” question about whether or not our point of view “corresponds” to independent reality is either meaningless or at least not answerable on theoretical grounds. It is in order to preserve the distinction between traditional idealism and positions such as the latter that we recommend retaining the claim that reality is in some way or other exclusively mental and thinking of epistemological arguments for idealism rather than epistemological idealism as such.

Of course these strategies can be combined by a single philosopher. Berkeley does so, and so does Kant in arguing for the transcendental idealist part of his complex position. Others separate them, for example F.H. Bradley and J.McT.E. McTaggart constructed metaphysical arguments for idealism, while Josiah Royce and Brand Blanshard offered epistemological arguments.

In what follows, we will concentrate mainly on the discussion of philosophical theories that either endorse or claim to endorse idealism on ontological and/or epistemological grounds. At some points in its complex history, however, above all in the social as well as philosophical movement that dominated British and American universities in the second half of the nineteenth century and through the first World War, idealism in either of its philosophical forms was indeed connected to idealism in the popular sense of progressive and optimistic social thought. This was true for figures such as Bradley and Royce and their predecessors and contemporaries such as Thomas Hill Green and Bernard Bosanquet. There has recently been considerable interest in British or more generally Anglophone idealism as a movement in social philosophy, or even a social movement, but we will not pursue that here (see Mander 2011; Boucher & Vincent 2012; Mander [ed.] 2000; and Mander & Panagakou [eds.] 2016).

Our distinctions between epistemological and ontological idealism, on the one hand, and that between metaphysical and epistemological arguments for idealism, on the other hand, has not always been clearly made. However, the American philosopher Josiah Royce pointed in the direction of our distinction at the end of the nineteenth century. On Royce’s definitions, epistemological idealism

involves a theory of the nature of our human knowledge ; and various decidedly different theories are called by this name in view of one common feature, namely, the stress that they lay upon the “subjectivity” of a larger or smaller portion of what pretends to be our knowledge of things. (1892: xii–xiii)

Metaphysical idealism, he says, “is a theory as to the nature of the real world , however we may come to know that nature” (1892: xiii), namely, as he says quoting from another philosopher of the time,

the “belief in a spiritual principle at the basis of the world, without the reduction of the physical world to a mere illusion”. (1892: xiii; quoting Falckenberg 1886: 476).

But Royce then argued that epistemological idealism ultimately entails a foundation of metaphysical idealism, in particular that “the question as to how we ‘transcend’ the ‘subjective’ in our knowledge”, that is, the purely individual, although it exists for both metaphysical realists and idealists, can only be answered by metaphysical idealists (1892: xiv). We will argue similarly that while epistemology can entail idealism, on the assumption that the isomorphism between knowledge and the known must be in some sense necessary and that this can be so only if the known as well as knowledge is in some sense mental, this should be distinguished from the more general and extremely widespread view that our knowledge is always formed within our own point of view, conceptual framework, or web of belief. This view may well be the default position of much twentieth-century philosophy, “continental” as well as “analytic”, but does not by itself entail that reality is essentially mental.

Our distinction between epistemological and metaphysical arguments for idealism can also be associated with a distinction between two major kinds of motives for idealism: those which are grounded in self-conceptions, i.e., in convictions about the role that the self or the human being plays in the world, and those based on what might correspondingly be called world-convictions, i.e., on conceptions about the way the world is constituted objectively or at least appears to be constituted to a human subject. Concerning motives based on self-conceptions of human beings, idealism has seemed hard to avoid by many who have taken freedom in one of its many guises (freedom of choice, freedom of the will, freedom as autonomy) to be an integral part of any conception of the self worth pursuing, because the belief in the reality of freedom often goes together with a commitment to some version of mental causation, and it is tempting to think that the easiest (or at least the most economical) way to account for mental causation consists in “mentalizing” or idealizing all of reality, thus leading to ontological idealism, or at least to maintain that the kind of causal determinism that seems to conflict with freedom is only one of our ways of representing the world, thus leading to epistemological idealism. Motives for idealism based on world-convictions can be found in many different attitudes towards objectivity. If one is to believe in science as the best and only way to get an objective (subject-independent) conception of reality, one might still turn to idealism, at least epistemological idealism, because of the conditions supposed to be necessary in order to make sense of the very concept of a law (of nature) or of the normativity of logical inferences for nature itself. If one believes in the non-conventional reality of normative facts one might also be drawn to idealism in order to account for their non-physical reality—Plato’s idealism, which asserts the reality of non-physical Ideas to explain the status of norms and then reduces all other reality to mere simulacra of the former might be considered a forerunner of ontological idealism motivated by concern for the reality of norms. An inclination toward idealism might even arise from considerations pertaining to the ontological status of aesthetic values (is beauty an objective attribute of objects?) or from the inability or the unwillingness to think of the constitution of social and cultural phenomena like society or religion in terms of physical theory. In short: There are about as many motives and reasons for endorsing idealism as there are different aspects of reality to be known or explained.

Although we have just referred to Plato, the term “idealism” became the name for a whole family of positions in philosophy only in the course of the eighteenth century. Even then, those whom critics called “idealists” did not identify themselves as such until the time of Kant, and no sooner did the label come into use than did those to whom it was applied or who used it themselves attempt to escape it or refine it. As already mentioned, Berkeley, the paradigmatic idealist in the British tradition, did not use the name for his own position, which he called rather immaterialism; and Leibniz, at least some versions of whose monadology might be considered idealist, also did not call his position by that name. Rather, in contrasting Epicurus with Plato, Leibniz called the latter an idealist and the former a materialist, because according to him idealists like Plato hold that “everything occurs in the soul as if there were no body” whereas on the materialism of Epicurus “everything occurs in the body as if there were no soul” (“Reply to the Thoughts on the System of Pre-established Harmony contained in the Second Edition of Mr. Bayle’s Critical Dictionary, Article Rorarius”, 1702, PPL : 578), although in this text Leibniz also says that his own view combines both of these positions. It seems to have been Christian Wolff who first used “idealism” explicitly as a classificatory term. Wolff, often considered the most dedicated Leibnizian of his time (although in fact his position was more eclectic than at least some versions of Leibniz’s) set out to integrate the terms “idealism” and “materialism” into his taxonomy of philosophical attitudes of those “who strive towards the knowledge and philosophy of things” in the Preface to the other [second] Edition of his so-called German Metaphysics [ Vernünfftige Gedancken von Gott, der Welt und der Seele des Menschen, auch allen Dingen überhaupt, den Liebhabern der Wahrheit mitgetheilet (Halle: Carl Hermann Hemmerde, 1747)]. Wolff distinguishes between two basic attitudes, one of which he sees exemplified by the skeptic, the other by what he calls “the dogmatist”. The skeptic doubts the possibility of knowledge in general and thus refuses to defend any positive claim at all. By contrast, the dogmatist puts forward positive doctrines, and these can be divided into those which posit as fundamental either one single kind of entities [ Art der Dinge ] or two different kinds. Wolff names the supporters of the first position “monists” and the adherents of the second “dualists”. This amounts to the division of all dogmatic doctrines, i.e., all knowledge-claims with respect to the ultimate constitution of reality, into monistic and dualistic theories. Here is where the term “idealist” then makes its appearance in Wolff’s typology: he distinguishes within the monists between idealists and materialists. Idealists “concede only spirits or else those things that do not consist of matter”, whereas materialists “do not accept anything in philosophy other than the corporeal and take spirits and souls to be a corporeal force”. Dualists, on the contrary, are happy “to accept both bodies and spirits as real and mutually independent things”. Wolff then goes on to distinguish within idealism between “egoism” and “pluralism”, depending on whether an idealist thinks just of himself as a real entity or whether he will allow for more than one (spiritual) entity; the first of these positions would also come to be called solipsism, so that solipsism would be a variety of (ontological) idealism but not all idealism would be solipsism.

Wolff’s way of classifying a philosophical system was enormously influential in eighteenth-century Continental philosophy—for example, it was closely followed by Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten in his 1739 Metaphysica , which was in turn used by Kant as the textbook for his metaphysics (and anthropology) lectures throughout his career, and whose definition of dogmatic idealism, as contrasted to his own “transcendental” or “critical” idealism, would also be that it is the position according to which there are only minds—and so it is no surprise that almost all talk about idealism was heavily influenced by Wolff’s characterization. This is so because it reflects the main metaphysical disputes in seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century philosophy on the Continent quite well. In terms of Wolff’s distinctions, these disputes can be framed as disputes between (a) monists and dualists and (b) idealists and materialists; positions in this debate were often influenced by perplexities surrounding the (ontological) question of the interaction of substances, although they were also influenced by the (epistemological) debate over innatism. Although neither dualism, whose main representative was Descartes (who asserted the existence of both res cogitans and res extensa ), nor monism, allegedly though debatably represented by Spinoza in its materialistic version ( substantia, deus, natura ) and by Leibniz in its idealistic form (monad, entelechy, simple substance) succeeded in finding satisfying answers to this and related questions, in the early modern era these disputes shaped the conception of what the object of metaphysics ( metaphysica generalis sive ontologia ) was supposed to be.

Prior to Wolff, neither defending nor refuting idealism seems to have been a central issue for rationalist philosophers, and none of them called themselves idealists. Yet what are by later lights idealistic tendencies can nevertheless be found among them.

While Descartes’s “first philosophy” clearly defends dualism, he takes his target to be skepticism rather than idealism, and thus is from our point of view concerned to resist the adoption of epistemological grounds; Spinoza is often though controversially thought to defend a form of materialism, but takes his primary target to be pluralism as contrasted to monism; and Leibniz does not seem overly worried about choosing between idealist and dualist forms of his “monadology”, while his famous thesis that each monad represents the entire universe from its own point of view might be taken to be a form of epistemological ground for idealism, but Leibniz does not seem to conceive of it as such. Nicolas Malebranche’s theory of “seeing all things in God” might be the closest we find to an explicit assertion in seventeenth-century philosophy of an argument for idealism on both epistemological and ontological grounds, and thus as a forerunner of the “absolute” idealism of the nineteenth century. While from a later point of view it may seem surprising that these rationalists were not more concerned with explicitly asserting or refuting one or both versions of idealism, perhaps they were more concerned with theological puzzles about the nature and essence of God, metaphysical questions as to how to reconcile the respective conception of God with views about the interaction of substances of fundamentally different kinds, and epistemological problems as to the possibility of knowledge and cognitive certainty than they were worried about whether the ultimate constituents of reality were mental or material elements.

However, if one were to situate their thoughts within the framework provided by Wolff it is not that difficult to find traces of idealism derived from both ontological and epistemological grounds in their respective positions. With respect to their metaphysical or ontological teachings, this claim may seem surprising. Whereas according to Wolff idealists are representatives of a species of metaphysical monism Descartes is one of the most outspoken metaphysical dualists. Hence to impute idealistic tendencies to Descartes’ metaphysics looks like a mistake. And in the case of Spinoza one could argue that although he definitely is a (very radical) monist and thus could count as an idealist within Wolff’s taxonomy, he is traditionally considered to be rather a materialist in Wolff’s sense. Consequently, it appears as if already for conceptual reasons there is no basis to burden either Descartes or Spinoza with idealism as defined by Wolff. Leibniz, meanwhile, often seems unwilling to commit himself to idealism even though that is the most natural interpretation of his monadology, while only Malebranche, as noted, seems to come close to explicitly asserting epistemological and perhaps ontological arguments for idealism as well.

Nevertheless, both Descartes and Spinoza provide a starting point for their metaphysical doctrines with their conceptions of God, a starting point that is already infected with idealistic elements if idealism is understood as implying a commitment to the primacy or at least the unavoidability and irreducibility of mental items in the constitution and order of things in general. Both agree that in order to gain insight into the constitution of the world one has to find out what God wants us, or maybe better: allows us to know about it (see, e.g., Descartes: Meditations IV , 7–8 and especially 13; Spinoza: Ethics I , XVI). They also agree that the world is created by God although they have different views as to what this means. Whereas Descartes thinks of God as existing outside the world of the existing things He created (see Meditations III , 13 and 22) Spinoza holds that whatever exists is just a peculiar way in which God is present (see Ethics I , XXV, Corollary). Of all existing things all that God permits us to know clearly and distinctly is (again according to both Descartes and Spinoza) that their nature consists either in thinking or in extension. This claim can be seen as providing in the case of Descartes the basis for his justification of ontological dualism. His distinction between extended and thinking substances is not just meant to give rise to a complete classification of all existing things in virtue of their main attributes but also to highlight the irreducibility of mental (thinking) substances to physical or corporeal (extended) substances because of differences between their intrinsic natures (see, e.g., Meditations VI , 19, and Principles of Philosophy I , 51–54). In the case of Spinoza thinking and extension not only refer to attributes of individual things but primarily to attributes of God (see Ethics II , Proposition I, II, and VII, Scholium), making them the fundamental ways in which God himself expresses his nature in each individual thing. This move gives rise to his ontological monism because he can claim that all individual things are just modes in which God’s presence is expressed according to these attributes.

Although the idea that God is the creator of the world of individual existing things (Descartes) or that God himself is manifested in every individual existing thing (Spinoza) might already be considered to be sufficient as a motivating force for subsequent disputes as to the true nature of reality and thus might have given rise to what were then called “idealistic” positions in ontology, other peculiarities within Descartes’ and Spinoza’s position might well have led to the same result, i.e., to the adoption of idealism on ontological grounds. Especially their disagreement about God’s corporeality might have been such a motive. Whereas Descartes vigorously denies the corporeality of God ( Principles of Philosophy I , 23) and hence could be seen as endorsing idealism, Spinoza vehemently insists on God’s corporeality ( Ethics I , Proposition XV, Scholium) and thus could be taken to be in favor of materialism.

Things are different when it comes to epistemological grounds for idealism. It seems to be very difficult to connect Descartes’ and Spinoza’s views concerning knowledge with conceptions according to which knowledge has something to do with a cognizing subject actively contributing to the constitution of the object of knowledge. This is so because both Descartes and Spinoza think of cognition as a result of a process in which we become aware of what really is the case independently of us both with respect to the nature of objects and with respect to their conceptual and material relations. Descartes and Spinoza take cognition to be a process of grasping clear and distinct ideas of what is the true character of existing things rather than a process of contributing to the formation of their nature. According to Descartes the sources of our knowledge of things are our abilities to have intuitions of the simple nature of things and to draw conclusions from these intuitions via deduction ( Rules for the Direction of the Mind III, 4 ff.). For him the cognitive procedure is a process of discovery (see Discourse on the Method , Part 6, 6) of what already is out there as the real nature of things created by God by finding out the clear and distinct ideas we can have of them ( Discourse , Part 4, 3 and 7). In a similar vein Spinoza thinks of knowledge as an activity that in its highest form as intuitive (or third genus of) cognition leads to an adequate insight into the essence of things ( Ethics II , Proposition XL, Scholium II, and Ethics V , Propositions XXV–XXVIII), an insight that gives rise to general concepts ( notiones communes ) on which ratiocinationes , i.e., the processes of inference and deduction, are based ( Ethics II , Proposition XL, Scholium I) the results of which provide the second genus of cognition ( ratio ). Thus the problem for both Descartes and Spinoza is not so much that of the epistemologically motivated idealist, i.e., to uncover what we contribute through our cognitive faculties to our conception of an object, rather their problem is to determine how it comes that we very often have a distorted view of what there is and are accordingly led to misguided beliefs and errors. Given what they take to be a basic fact that God has endowed us with the capacity to know the truth (albeit within certain limits), i.e., to know to a certain degree how or what things really are, this interest in the possibility of error makes perfectly good sense ( Meditations IV , 3–17; Principles of Philosophy I , 70–72; Ethics II , Proposition 49, Scholium).

In his project for a “universal characteristic”, Leibniz can be regarded as having taken great interest in a method for inquiry, but he does not seem to have taken much interest in the epistemological issue of skepticism or the possibility of knowledge, and thus did not explicitly characterize his famous “monadology” as a form of an epistemological ground for idealism. But he did take a great interest in the ontology of substances, God the infinite substance and everything else as finite substances (in contrast to Spinoza, he rejected monism). Yet while the logic of his monadology clearly points toward idealism, Leibniz frequently attempted to avoid this conclusion. One explicitly ontological argument for the monadology that Leibniz often deploys is that, on pain of infinite regress, everything composite must ultimately consist of simples, but that since space and time are infinitely divisible extended matter cannot be simple while thoughts, even with complex content, do not literally have parts, nor do the minds that have them, so minds, or monads, are the only candidates for the ultimate constituents of reality. Thus the late text entitled “The Monadology” begins with the assertions that

The monad which we are here to discuss is nothing but a simple substance which enters into compounds,

There must be simple substances, since there are compounds, [and] the compounded is but a collection or an aggregate of simples,

where there are no parts, it is impossible to have either extension, or figure, or divisibility

and conversely where there is simplicity there cannot be extension or figure or divisibility (§§1–3). Yet monads must have some qualities in order to exist (§8) and to differ from one another, as they must (§9), and if the fundamental properties of matter are excluded, this leaves the fundamental properties of mind, which Leibniz holds to be perception, “The passing state which enfolds and represents a multitude in unity” (§14) and appetition, “the internal principle which brings about change or the passage from one perception to another” (§15; all from PPL : 643–4). This argument clearly seems to imply that all finite substances are ultimately mental in nature (and the infinite substance, God, is obviously mental in nature), thus it seems to be a paradigmatic ontological argument for idealism, from which an epistemological argument for idealism would automatically follow, since if there is knowledge of reality at all, which Leibniz hardly seems to doubt, and reality is ultimately mental, then knowledge too must be of the mental.

Yet Leibniz often seems to avert such a conclusion by appeal to his idea of “pre-established harmony”, and this is possible because he himself interprets this idea in two different ways. Early in his career, in such texts as “Primary Truths” (1680–84) and the “Discourse on Metaphysics” (1686) (both texts unpublished in Leibniz’s lifetime and not known to his immediate successors such as Wolff and Baumgarten), Leibniz introduces the doctrine of pre-established harmony on truth-theoretical grounds. His argument is that everything that is true of a substance is so because the predicate of a true proposition is contained in the complete concept of its subject and because that complete concept reflects the properties or “traces” in the substance that is that subject; that there are true propositions linking every substance in the world to every other, thus the complete concept of each substance must be a complete concept of the universe itself and each substance must bear within itself as properties traces of every other in the universe; and thus that each substance must reflect, or, as mental, represent the entire universe. Yet since (finite) substances are also defined as existing independently of one another (although not existing independently from the infinite substance, God), there is a question as to why each should truthfully represent all the others, which Leibniz answers by appeal to the idea of a pre-established harmony: although considered from the point of view of the concept of substance it does not seem necessary that every substance truly represent all the others, in his goodness, thus in his preference for a maximally harmonious world, God has nevertheless made it such that they do.

In this mood, Leibniz tends to explain the existence of body as an artifact of the fact that each monad represents the world from its own point of view: physical locations and the bodies that occupy them are just the way in which the difference in the points of view of the monads is represented by them, but have no deeper reality; or, as Leibniz often says, space, spatiality, and bodies are just phenomena bene fundata , i.e., “well-founded modes of our consideration” ( PPL : 270).

However, sometimes Leibniz writes as if space and time are not merely the way in which the pre-established harmony among monads presents itself to (their) consciousness, but as if the mental and physical or extended are two separate realms, each evolving entirely in accordance with its own laws, but with a pre-established harmony between them creating the appearance of interaction. Perhaps Leibniz was genuinely undecided between two interpretations of the pre-established harmony and two conceptions of the reality of body, sometimes being a committed idealism and sometimes a dualist. (As we will see later, even among the most committed absolute idealists of the nineteenth century it is not always clear whether they are actually denying the existence of matter or only subordinating it to mind in one way or another).

Leibniz’s monadology could thus be seen as a forerunner of both epistemological and ontological arguments for idealism, and his conception of space and time as phenomena bene fundata was clearly a forerunner of Kant’s transcendental idealism. But as we have just seen, he did not himself unequivocally affirm idealism, and as we will shortly see subsequent Leibnizians such as Alexander Baumgarten argued for dualism and for a corresponding interpretation of pre-established harmony. Nicolas Malebranche was also a dualist, committed to the existence of both mind and body, and an occasionalist, who held that since causation is necessary connection and the only truly necessary connection is between God’s intentions and their effects, bodies cannot directly cause modifications of minds (or each other) but rather there can be a causal relation between body and mind only if God intends the mind to undergo a certain modification upon the occasion of a certain change in a body (hence the term “occasionalism”). This is a metaphysical argument. His further doctrine that the mind sees all things in God, however, can be seen as an epistemological argument, for it depends on his particular view of what modifications the mind undergoes in perception. He holds that sensations are literally modifications in the mind, but that they are highly indeterminate, or in later terminology lack determinate intentional objects, and that genuine understanding occurs only when and to the extent that the determinate ideas in the perfect intellect of God are disclosed to finite, human minds, to the extent that they are. Malebranche’s position can be considered a theological form of Platonism: Plato held that the true Ideas or Forms of things have a kind of perfection that neither ordinary objects nor representations of them in human minds do, and therefore must exist someplace else; Malebranche takes the obvious further step of supposing that perfect ideas can exist only in the perfect intellect of God. He then supposes that human thought is intelligible to the extent that these ideas are disclosed to it, on the occasion of various sensations themselves occasioned by God but not literally through those sensations. The crucial point is that genuine understanding consists in the apprehension of ideas, even though these are literally in the mind of God rather than of individual human beings, rather than of physical objects, even though the latter do exist. Malebranche had significant influence on both Berkeley and Hume, although neither the former and certainly not the latter accepted his position in its entirety. His position that knowledge consists in individual minds apprehending ideas in some greater mind would also be recreated by idealists as late as T.H. Green and Josiah Royce in the second half of the nineteenth century, as we will later see.

Before we turn to British or Anglophone versions of idealism, earlier or later, one last word about idealism within pre-Kantian rationalist philosophy is in order. As earlier mentioned, dualism rather than idealism became the default position of the German successors to Leibniz, the so-called “Leibnizo-Wolffians” who dominated the teaching of philosophy in many German universities for fifty years from the third decade of the eighteenth century until the time of Kant and in some cases even beyond, and they correspondingly opted for the interpretation of the pre-established harmony as a relation between minds and bodies rather than among minds or monads alone. It may also be noted that defending dualism by means of an explicit “refutation of idealism” became the norm among these philosophers. This may be seen in Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten’s Metaphysica of 1739, which would become Kant’s textbook for his lecture courses in metaphysics and “anthropology” (empirical psychology) until the very end of the eighteenth century. Baumgarten accepts that the ultimate constituents of the world must be simples, hence monads of some kind. But he does not suppose that monads are necessarily minds or intellects, hence a dualism of monads is at least possible. Idealism would be the position that there are only intellectual monads; he says that

An intellectual substance, i.e., a substance endowed with intellect, is a spirit (an intelligence, a person)…. Whoever admits only spirits in this world is an idealist. ( Metaphysics , §402, pp. 175–6)

Baumgarten follows Wolff in distinguishing between two possible forms of idealism, first egoism, which admits the existence of only one spirit, that of the person contemplating such a doctrine, and then idealism proper, which allows the existence of multiple spirits. But both are refuted by the same argument. This argument builds on a Leibnizian principle not hitherto mentioned, the principle of plenitude, or the principle that the perfection of the most perfect world, which is the one that God created, consists in the maximal variety of the universe compatible with its unity or coherence (e.g., “Monadology”, §58, PPL : 648), which was in turn the basis of one of Leibniz’s arguments for the identity of indiscernibles. Baumgarten then argues simply that a universe that contains not only more substances but also more kinds of substances rather than fewer is a more perfect universe, and necessarily exists in preference to the other; and a universe that contains not only multiple minds rather than a single mind but also bodies in addition to minds is therefore a more perfect universe than either of the former would be, and is therefore the kind of world that actually exists. In his words,

the egotistical world, such as an egoist posits, is not the most perfect. And even if there is only one non-intellectual monad possible in itself that is compossible with spirits in the world, whose perfection either subtracts nothing from the perfection of the spirits, or does not subtract from the perfection of the spirits so much as it adds to the perfection of the whole, then the idealistic world, such as is posited by the idealist, is not the most perfect, ( Metaphysics , §438, [2013: 183])

and hence not the kind of world that exists. No one outside of the immediate sphere of Leibnizianism would ever again proffer such a refutation of idealism. But both Baumgarten’s recognition of idealism and his refutation of it in a university textbook make it clear that by the middle of the eighteenth century idealism had become a standard topic for philosophical discussion, a position it would retain for another century and a half or more.

The relation between ontological and epistemological arguments for idealism is complex. Idealism can be argued for on ontological grounds, and then bring an epistemological argument in its train. Or an epistemological argument can be offered independently of ontological assumptions but lead to idealism, especially in the hope of avoiding skepticism. The first option may have been characteristic of some rationalists, such as Leibniz in his more strictly idealist mood. Both forms of argument are found within early modern British philosophy. We find epistemological considerations pushing toward idealism in both Hobbes and Locke in spite of the avowed materialism of the first and dualism of the second, who therefore obviously did not call themselves idealists. Berkeley argues for idealism on epistemological grounds and then adds ontological considerations in order to avert skepticism, although he calls his position immaterialism rather than idealism. Berkeley’s contemporary Arthur Collier, who explicitly denies the existence of mind-independent matter without giving his own position a name, argues first in an epistemological mood, then moves from epistemology to ontology. Hume, by contrast, although calling himself neither an immaterialist nor an idealist, nevertheless adopts epistemological arguments for idealism similar to some of Berkeley’s, but then uses that position as the basis for a critique of traditional metaphysical pretensions, including those to idealism—while also being drawn to idealism in resistance to what he regards as the natural tendency to dualism. Hume’s critical attitude toward metaphysics is subsequently taken up by Kant, although Kant famously asserts on practical grounds some of the very same metaphysical theses that he argues cannot be asserted on theoretical grounds.

The British philosophers were all hostile toward dogmatic metaphysics in Wolff’s sense, although until the time of Hume, who had some familiarity with Leibniz, the metaphysics with which they were familiar were those of Descartes, Aristotelian scholasticism, and Neo-Platonism, which had become domesticated in Britain through the work of the Cambridge Platonists in the second half of the seventeenth century. All of these movements fed into the general movement of rationalism, while the British philosophers, typically lumped together under the rubric of empiricism in spite of their own differences, all believed, albeit for different reasons, that the doctrines put forward by dogmatic metaphysicians rest on a totally unfounded conception of knowledge and cannot survive rational scrutiny (empiricists might themselves be considered critical rationalists). Thus the primary task of philosophy for these philosophers became that of providing a theory of knowledge based on an adequate assessment of the constitution of human nature, for they were interested in knowledge only as a human achievement. However, it is not human nature in general that is of interest in this context but the workings of those human powers or faculties that are responsible for our human ability to relate to the world in terms of knowledge-claims. (Thus Kant’s attempt to argue on practical grounds for metaphysical theses that could not be justified on theoretical grounds would be a major departure from the methods of the British empiricists.) These faculties were attributed by the British as well as their Continental opponents to what was called “spirit” or “mind” ( mens , consciousness, Bewußtsein ), an attribution which resulted in moving the “operations of the mind” into the center of philosophical attention. Reflections on the conditions of the possibility of knowledge led Hobbes and Locke to idealism in spite of their ontological commitments to materialism or dualism respectively, while Berkeley concluded that their epistemology would lead to a skepticism that could be avoided only by his own more radical “immaterialist” ontology. Hume’s position remains complex and for this reason controversial. His thesis that our beliefs in causation, external objects, and even the self are all founded on “custom” and imagination rather than “reason” may be considered an epistemological position without ontological implications, thus not an argument for idealism; but while he sometimes seems to attempt to avoid commitment on ontological questions altogether, at other times, as in his argument that the existence of external objects in addition to our impressions is only a fiction, he seems to infer idealism from his epistemology. In spite of their differences, almost all British philosophers from Hobbes up to and including Hume insisted that the highest priority for philosophy is to give an analysis of the conditions and the origin of knowledge, while they gave not only somewhat different accounts of what these conditions consist in and how they contribute to a convincing story about the origin of knowledge but they also had to face quite interesting “metaphysical” consequences from their respective accounts.

This is easily confirmed by looking briefly at some of their main convictions concerning knowledge, starting with Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679). As Hobbes points out in the chapters Of Philosophy and Of Method in the first part ( Computation or Logic ) of the first section ( Concerning Body ) of his Elements of Philosophy (1655), knowledge is the result of the manipulation of sensory input based on the employment of logical rules of reasoning (ratiocination) in acts of what he calls “computation”. He describes the details of this process most succinctly in a short passage in chapter 6 of the first part ( Human Nature ) of his The Elements of Law, Natural and Politic (1640), his first major philosophical work. After distinguishing what he calls “sense, or knowledge original” from “knowledge … which we call science”, he goes on to “define” knowledge “to be evidence of truth, from some beginning or principle of sense” and formulates four principles that are constitutive of knowledge:

The first principle of knowledge therefore is that we have such and such conceptions; the second, that we have thus and thus named the things whereof they are conceptions; the third is, that we have joined those names in such manner, as to make true propositions; the fourth and last is, that we have joined those propositions in such manner as they be concluding. (1640: I.6.4)

The message is straightforward with respect to both the basis and the formation of knowledge: senses (sensations) are basic to our acquisition of knowledge in that they lead to conceptions (representations) to which we attach names (concepts) which we then put together into propositions which, if true, already constitute knowledge, and from which there arise further knowledge if we draw conclusions in an orderly way from them.

Although the account given by Hobbes of the origin and the formation of knowledge is rightly called empiricist because it traces all knowledge back to the senses or sensations and their non-sensory causes, i.e., to what he calls “things without us”, it is by no means directly committed to either idealism or dualism; on the contrary, Hobbes’s preferred ontological position is materialism. Nevertheless, his account may lead to an early form of epistemologically motivated idealism. This is so because although Hobbes makes no claims as to either the constitution and the reality of what causes sensations or to any specific contribution on the part of the subject of knowledge to what we take to be the “accidents or qualities” of objects, he states, again most explicitly in the part on Human Nature in The Elements of Law , (1) that there are causes of our sensations which by way of their motions give rise to what we sense as qualities, but (2) that these qualities only have the status of “seemings and apparitions”. In his own words: “The things that really are in the world without us, are those motions by which these seemings are caused” ( Elements of Law , I.2.10). While he is confident that there are external objects, and thus has no intention of affirming idealism, nevertheless because in Hobbes’s opinion we could have conceptions of these seemings even if there were no objects around ( Elements of Law I.1.8) there is for him no basis on which to found any metaphysical claims to the real existence of an external world or any epistemological basis for claiming knowledge of the real constitution of a subject-independent world or its real existence. Thus, Hobbes’s epistemology allows him at most agnosticism about the existence of objects other than our representations of them, even if it does not force him into outright idealism. This is nicely confirmed by a passage from part II ( The First Grounds of Philosophy ) where he declares:

Now things may be considered, that is, be brought into account, either as internal accidents of our mind, in which manner we consider them when the question is about some faculty of the mind; or as species of external things, not as really existing, but appearing only to exist, or to have a being without us [emphasis added]. And in this manner we are now to consider them. ( Elements of Law II.7.1)

In spite of a pre-reflective disposition toward dualism, an explicit argument for an agnostic attitude with respect to the ultimate constitution of reality is also characteristic of John Locke (1632–1704). Already in The Epistle to the Reader of An Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690) he denounces rationalist metaphysics as a “Sanctuary of Vanity and Ignorance” and declares in the first book of his Essay right at the outset:

I shall not at present meddle with the physical consideration of the mind; or trouble myself to examine, wherein its essence consists, or by what motions of our spirits, or alterations of our bodies, we come to have any sensation by our organs, or any ideas in our understandings; and whether those ideas do in their formation, any, or all of them, depend on matter or no [emphasis added]: These are speculations, which, however curious and entertaining, I shall decline. (Book I, chap. I, 2; see also II.XXI.73)

Instead he restricts his investigation to the “purpose to enquire into the original, certainty, and extent of human knowledge” ( Essay I.I.2). Such an investigation presupposes an acquaintance with our own minds, and thus according to Locke the most pressing task is to understand the mind or the understanding itself. And because for Locke the sole material the mind has the ability to process are ideas, the most pressing task if one wants to understand the possibility of knowledge is to give an account of “how he [the mind] comes by them [the ideas]” ( Essay II.I.1). There is no need to go into the details of Locke’s conception of how the mind gets ideas and what the understanding does with them in order to arrive at knowledge. Although his description of these processes differs in some interesting ways from the model Hobbes proposes, in the end both Hobbes and Locke share the view (1) that whatever we can know depends on our having ideas which must be somehow based in sensation, (2) that there must be some external cause (Hobbes) or some source of affection (Locke) which gives rise to sensory ideas, yet (3) ultimately we are ignorant about the real constitution of these causes and these sources. What we know is the content and structure of our own ideas, although we have no reason to deny the existence of external objects and even assume that in some regards external objects resemble our ideas of them (in the case of primary qualities).

Obviously it is mainly point (3) that is of importance for the question of whether dualism or idealism is involved in Locke’s version of the operations of the mind. Again, as in the case of Hobbes, it seems that Locke’s position is meant to be neutral against and compatible with all these alternatives and that he wishes to stay agnostic with respect to them. This is indicated especially well by his theory of substance and his remarks concerning the limits of knowledge. Substances, Locke famously holds,

are such combinations of simple Ideas, as are taken to represent distinct particular things subsisting by themselves. ( Essay II.XII.6)

If one analyzes our concept of a substance one

will find he has no other Idea of it at all, but only a Supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities, which are capable of producing simple Ideas in us. ( Essay II.XXIII.2)

The reasons for this supposition are two: (1) we cannot make sense of the concept of an unsupported quality or of ideas subsisting by themselves, (2) we know from experience that “a certain number of these simple Ideas go constantly together” or “exist together” ( Essay II.XXIII.2–3). Although Locke thinks of these reasons as totally compelling, he sees quite well that they do not justify any claim as to what a substance or a thing really is, what its nature or constitution consists in. Thus he never gets tired of emphasizing that we only have a confused idea of substance (a claim also made by Leibniz about three-quarters of our knowledge, although he held that we have a clear concept of what substance is), and repeats quite often (at least three times in Essay book II, chap. XXIII alone) that

Whatever therefore be the secret, abstract nature of substance in general, all the ideas we have of particular distinct sorts of substances, are nothing but several combinations of simple ideas, co-existing in such, though unknown, cause of their union, as makes the whole subsist of itself. ( Essay II.XXIII.6)

He restricts this agnostic attitude not just to corporeal substances or bodies but extends it to spiritual substances or minds as well:

It is plain then, that the idea of corporeal substance in matter is as remote from our conceptions and apprehensions, as that of spiritual substance or spirit; and therefore from our not having any notion of the substance of spirit, we can no more conclude its non-existence, than we can for the same reason deny the existence of body; it being as rational to affirm there is no body, because we have no clear and distinct idea of the substance of matter, as to say there is no spirit, because we have no clear and distinct idea of the substance of a spirit. ( Essay II.XXIII.5)

This criticism of any metaphysical claims concerning the ultimate constitution of reality is accompanied by a more general warning against the overstepping of the natural limits of our cognitive faculties. According to Locke it is just a fact about human nature that there are limits to the powers of the understanding. These powers are meant to be bestowed to us by God to an extent sufficient for us to know “Whatever is necessary for the Conveniences of Life, and Information of Virtue” ( Essay I.I.5; see also II.XXIII.12) but only to that extent. If therefore the nature and the constitution of substances both corporeal and spiritual are beyond our cognitive grasp then we should take this to be a hint that God has set limits to what we can know because he sees no reason for us to know everything. Even if the powers He endowed on us would be magnified infinitely we still would remain clueless as to what substances really are because we still would be stuck in a world of qualities (this is one way of reading Essay II.XXIII.12). Thus, in the end metaphysical knowledge of any kind is meant to be beyond our reach. This, however, is nothing we should be concerned about:

For, though the comprehension of our understandings comes exceeding short of the vast extent of things; yet we shall have cause enough to magnify the bountiful author of our being, for that proportion and degree of knowledge he has bestowed on us, so far above all the rest of the inhabitants of this our mansion. ( Essay I.I.5)

For Locke, ontological agnosticism is an expression of piety. Locke’s position may be regarded as a theological expression of the most fundamental epistemological motivation for idealism: no matter how much we know about objects and at what level of detail, we still know them only from our own, human point of view, but whether objects exist beyond our experience of them is really none of our business. But neither is Locke prepared to assert that only spirits or minds exist; that too would exceed the bounds of human knowledge.

The agnosticism with respect to the ultimate constitution of substances and things or of the fundamentum in re of “the ideas thereof” characteristic of Hobbes and Locke is challenged forcefully by George Berkeley (1685–1753), for whom their agnosticism becomes a form of skepticism and even impiety. In his Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge (1710) he raises doubts about whether an agnostic stance along the lines of Hobbes and Locke can be upheld consistently if one thinks about the origin and the properties of ideas the way they do. Although in his Treatise Berkeley does not mention Hobbes at all and addresses Locke not by his name but by formulas like “esteemed philosopher” and “learned author” (1710: Introduction, §11) very few times, it is abundantly clear that he wants to confront especially Locke with a painful choice: either his conception of a substance or a thing has “no distinct meaning annexed to” it (1710: Part I, §17) and is nonsense, or he has to endorse not just epistemological agnosticism but full-blown idealism or, in Berkeley’s term, immaterialism. In other words, Berkeley’s point is that Locke cannot afford to be agnostic with respect to the metaphysical status of substances and things if he wants us to think of ideas as the immediate objects of human knowledge. Arthur Collier (1680–1732) would make a similar argument.

Berkeley offers both epistemological and metaphysical arguments for his immaterialism. His epistemological arguments begin from the premise that ideas and only ideas are the objects of human knowledge, a presupposition that he at least considered uncontroversial. Although his taxonomy of the different kinds of ideas deviate in ways that are not of interest here from Locke’s classification, he agrees with Locke that ideas exist only “in the mind” (1710: Part I, §2). He takes the mind to be a “perceiving, active being” which itself is not

any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived. (1710: Part I, §2)

From these stipulations he derives his most fundamental and famous claim (1) that “the existence of an idea consists in being perceived” (1710: Part I, §2) or that “their esse is percipi ” (1710: Part I, §3) by the perceiving, active mind. Already here Berkeley has the means in place to cast into doubt the meaningfulness of the assumption that there might exist unperceived objects or things. This is due to his restriction of existence to what is perceivable or, even narrower, to what is perceived: If the only objects that exist for a mind—whether it is my own mind or the mind of other human beings or the divine mind—are ideas because there is nothing else that can exist for the mind, then the very concept of something that exists but is not for the mind or is unperceived is a contradiction in terms. Thus if, as Berkeley supposes Locke does, one thinks of things as consisting of collections of ideas, he asks how could one take a thing to be something other than ideas and nevertheless to exist? This question underlies Berkeley’s confidence in what is often referred to as his “master argument”, the argument that one cannot conceive of anything existing unconceived because in trying to do so one is still conceiving of the object (1710: Part I, §23). This seems open to the obvious objection that he is confusing the content of a proposition (for example, “The earth may still exist after the extinction of all conscious life”) with the act of entertaining (“conceiving”) such a proposition, which of course cannot take place except in a conscious being; but if he is already committed to the thought that objects of knowledge are nothing but ideas, it is at least understandable that he should overlook this distinction.

The second conviction, also meant to be damaging to Locke’s view about substances, on which Berkeley rests his case in favor of idealism is the more strictly metaphysical claim (2) that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea” (1710: Part I, §8). Although this claim is initially put forward in the context of his well-known criticism of Locke’s primary-secondary-quality distinction, it is equally relevant for his denial that there are things “without the mind”. The reasoning on which this claim is based seems to be the following: For two items to stand in the relation of likeness they must have something in common. However, if an idea is mind-dependent and if ideas are all there is for the mind, then what is “without the mind” must be different in every respect from an idea. Thus a relation of likeness cannot obtain between ideas “in the mind” and things “without the mind”. Berkeley puts this point quite bluntly by appealing to observation:

If we look but ever so little into our thoughts, we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except only between our ideas. Again, I ask whether those supposed originals or external things, of which our ideas are the pictures or representations, be themselves perceivable or no? if they are, then they are ideas, and we have gained our point; but if you say they are not, I appeal to any one whether it be sense, to assert a colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest. (1710: Part I, §8)

There is a third metaphysical claim that is essential to both Berkeley’s criticism of Locke and the idealistic position he is going to adopt for himself. This is the claim (3) that ideas are passive and causally inert, i.e., they can neither produce nor alter another idea (1710: Part I, §25). This claim he also purports to base on observation:

whoever shall attend to his ideas, whether of sense or reflection, will not perceive in them any power or activity; there is therefore no such thing contained in them. A little attention will discover to us that the very being of an idea implies passiveness and inertness in it, insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do any thing, or, strictly speaking, to be the cause of any thing. (1710: Part I, §25)

Perhaps this is intended as an epistemological premise for an ontological claim. Be that as it may, again the primary function of this claim is to discredit a Lockean view according to which we have to think of the primary qualities of things—which are contents of the most fundamental ideas we have of them—as the causes of sensations or of sensory ideas. It is, however, also meant to support the untenability of the assumption that agnosticism with respect to the real existence of mind-independent things is a viable option for a believer in Locke’s model of how and by what means we acquire knowledge of objects.

Berkeley’s criticism of Locke’s theory concerning substances is not carried out for its own sake. On the contrary, it is meant to establish what Berkeley thinks to be the unavoidable metaphysical consequences of a position that takes ideas “in the mind” to be the only material for the operations of the mind in its acquisition of knowledge. These metaphysical consequences consist in a thoroughgoing idealism or “immaterialism” with respect to the nature and constitution of things or substances. Berkeley’s way of establishing this result is open to many questions. However, the basic outline of his overall argument can be sketched thus: If existence is restricted to ideas (and minds) and if, what is undoubtedly the case, things or substances exist, then things or substances must be ideas (or minds) too. Now, as Locke has convincingly shown, we can have ideas of particular things or substances, e.g., gold and lead, humans and sheep, distinguished by our ideas of their various properties, but we have only a confused or obscure idea of substance in general, which we suppose to underlie whatever collection of ideas we take to be a thing or a substance of one kind or another. But if we cannot have any ideas of things or substances other than our ideas of their properties, which clearly exist in minds, then the only clear ideas of things that we have is as ideas, and in that case, if they do not seem to exist in our own individual, human minds, then things or substances must be ideas in some other non-human, i.e., divine mind. This divine mind cannot be itself an idea because it must be conceived as an active principle that can be the cause of ideas, a principle of which we can have no idea but only a “notion” (1710: Part I, §26, §27). Therefore, the very fact that we take things or substances to be real commits us to the claim that things are ideal entities perceived by the mind of God. Idealism, one could say, is the only tenable basis for a realistic stance for Berkeley, but it leads to a realism about minds, human and divine, rather than of what he always calls material substance. And if one is to accept his re-interpretation of causality as a purported relation between ideas in terms of his theory of marks and signs, in particular his theory that what we think of as ideas of objects are signs of (God’s plan for) future possible ideas for us (cf. 1710: Part I, §65 f.), then one also has to agree to idealism. In Berkeley’s view, the only alternative to idealism is not materialism but skepticism.

Up until the point at which he introduces the mind of God into his argument, all of Berkeley’s epistemological considerations might be thought of as expressions of the basic insight that we can only conceive of reality from our own point of view, which are then extended into full-blown idealism in order to avoid the whiff of agnosticism or skepticism and supplemented with the existence of a divine mind in order to satisfy an ineliminable tendency to believe in the existence of something more than one’s own mind or even of human minds in general. We will later see that the tendency to preserve both the impulse to idealism and the conviction that there is something more than ordinary human minds by positing a more than human mind is characteristic of many versions of idealism until the end of its glory days at the beginning of the twentieth century. This tendency is decidedly absent from the philosophy of David Hume, however.

Arthur Collier was a much more obscure clergyman than Berkeley. He published his Clavis Universalis: Or, A New Inquiry after Truth, Being a Demonstration of the Non-Existence, or Impossibility, of an External World in 1713, the same year that Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge appeared, and three years after Berkeley’s Three Dialogues ; however, he states that he had originally conceived his position a decade earlier, so before he could have read Berkeley. Although the work was not widely read, it was translated into German by Johann Christian Eschenbach in 1756, and then noticed by Thomas Reid and following him Dugald Stewart. It was republished in English in 1837 along with Collier’s other philosophical work, A Specimen of True Philosophy , in a collection of Metaphysical Tracts edited by Samuel Parr, and then again in 1909, edited with an introduction by Ethel Bowman. By “external” Collier meant “independent, absolute, or self-existent”, and his position is that “all matter, body, extension, &c.” (which he also frequently calls “expansion”) depends “on mind, thought, or perception, and that it is not capable of an existence, which is not thus dependent” (Collier 1713 [1909: 6]). Collier’s position is thus full-throated idealism, which he emphasizes is neither skepticism nor a denial that bodies exist, but the position that

such and such bodies, which are supposed to exist, do not exist externally; or in universal terms, that there is no such thing as an external world. (1713 [1909: 9])

Collier argues for his idealism on both epistemological and more purely metaphysical ground. His work, although a footnote in the history of philosophy, is interesting precisely because it so clearly illustrates the dual strategies for arguing for idealism,

Collier’s most purely epistemological argument is that we are all familiar with (visual) experiences that are assumed to be of external objects but which do not differ from similar experiences which are clearly not of external objects, yet that there is no discernible difference between the latter and the former, thus that if the latter are in or entirely dependent upon the mind, then so must be the former. He uses examples such as those of imaginary beings, chimeras or centaurs (1713 [1909: 17]), which he supposes we (visually) represent just as vividly (his term, anticipating Hume) as other objects, secondary qualities (1713 [1909: 21–2]), cases of double vision, cases of experiences which change, such as different phases of the moon, when no one would believe that the external objects is changing (1713 [1909: 33]), and mirror images, which everyone believes exist in the mind, not in the piece of glass outside us, and yet are indiscernible from other images of their objects. He also equates being visible with being “present to the mind”, and asks how something could be present to the mind if it were elsewhere from the mind? (1713 [1909: 35]). He infers that to be visible is to be in or dependent upon the mind, and thus that to be outside of the mind would necessarily be to be invisible (1713 [1909: 56]).

This begins the more purely metaphysical part of Collier’s argument: that to be visible is to be in the mind we can consider an epistemological premise, but then he argues that nothing can be both visible and invisible at the same time, which is of course quite true independently of epistemology. A further argument he makes is that since God can give created minds any ideas directly, it would be needless for him to give us our ideas indirectly, by creating independent objects to cause ideas in us, and God does nothing useless (1713 [1909: 60–2]). This is a metaphysical, in this case theological argument, directed against the occasionalists Nicholas Malebranche and his English follower John Norris rather than against Locke. The most interesting of Collier’s metaphysical arguments for idealism, however, take the form of antinomies, and have sometimes been held to anticipate Kant’s first and second antinomies (Bowman in Collier [1713] 1909: xxiv). Collier argues that there are sound arguments that an external world must be both finite and infinite in “expanse” or extension (1713 [1909: 63]), that it must be both finitely and infinitely divisible (1713 [1909: 68]), and that it must both be in motion as a whole and have moveable parts, but also cannot be either of these (1713 [1909: 78]). Since the concept of an external world is in these ways contradictory, such a thing cannot exist. It is striking, however, that Collier does not actually provide the arguments for what would become the theses and antitheses of Kant’s first two antinomies, instead providing only a version of Zeno’s paradox to prove the impossibility of moving parts within an extended universe, an antinomy that Kant dos not take over.

It is not inconceivable that Kant knew of Collier’s work through Eschenbach’s translation, although there is no direct evidence for that. It is more likely that Collier’s argument that the difference between what we ordinarily take to be a veridical perception and a mere imagination or hallucination is merely a matter of vividness, and that the latter can become as vivid as the former and thereby undermine any use of vividness as a criterion of externality (1713 [1909: 19–20]), could have been known to Hume and influenced his formulation of the distinction between impressions and ideas in his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40). So at this point we can turn to Hume.

Whether or not David Hume (1711–1776) learned from Collier, he learned a great deal from Berkeley, above all his empiricist epistemology, but for the most part he tried to avoid Berkeley’s outright commitment to idealism. Hume’s view that our knowledge consists of our ideas, our recognition of “philosophical” relations among them, such as identity and difference, and our recognition of “natural” relations among them such as causation, which are established by imagination and custom, could constitute an epistemological ground for idealism—causality, in particular, which Hume regards as the basis of all our knowledge of existence, is at the same time reduced to a way of feeling and thinking, in other words a state of mind. But depending on how he is read, Hume either accepts the skepticism about possible external objects that Berkeley tries to avoid with his ontology that renders any external objects other than other human or divine minds impossible, or else holds that even if there are valid arguments for skepticism it is psychologically impossible for human beings to remain in a skeptical frame of mind, thus we naturally even if not rationally believe in the existence of objects apart from our ideas of them. However, in those passages, prominently in Book I, Part IV of his early Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), where Hume entertains a kind of monism that sees both “minds” and “objects” as nothing but different sets or “bundles” of one sort of thing, namely, perceptions, impressions and their paler copies, ideas, his position might seem much like Berkeley’s idealism, with the difference that while he reduces all reality to mental states like impressions and ideas he does not see these as properties that must inhere in substantial minds any more than in substantial bodies, both of which are fictions that we introduce in order to explain continuities among those impressions or ideas (although it may be difficult to explain who is introducing those fictions without resorting to substantial minds after all).

Hume’s potentially idealist approach to causation is clearly on view in his 1748 Enquiry concerning Human Knowledge , which was quickly translated into German and would eventually provide Kant with the stimulus for his own aprioristic rather than empiricist argument for idealism with regard not only to causation but to all of what he called the categories of pure reason, including especially substance and interaction as well as causation. But since Kant was not familiar with the contents of Hume’s earlier Treatise of Human Nature , he did not know that Hume too had generalized his approach to causality to the cases of mind and body, nor did he know that Hume may have tried to sidestep Berkeley’s commitment to substances but not his idealism altogether by his theory of both minds and bodies as bundles of perceptions. Kant would try to avert Berkeley’s version of idealism by a different stratagem, but before we come to that we must consider Hume’s position more fully. Hume accepted from Locke and Descartes before him that the immediate objects of consciousness are what they had called ideas, although he reserves that word for copies or subsequently recalled perceptions rather than the originally experienced perceptions that he calls impressions. He also adopts the view of his predecessors that knowledge lies in the recognition of relations among impressions, ideas, or both, and divides those relations into two kinds, philosophical and natural. Philosophical relations are those immediately evident on reflection on or comparison of particular ideas, and include resemblance, identity, spatial and temporal relations such as above and below or before and after, number and degree, and logical contrariety (Hume 1739–40: I.I.5), while natural relations are those that are not immediately evident on reflection on a single impression or idea or in a single comparison of any number, but which instead become evident, or more properly are formed, only through repeated experience. Hume’s best known argument is then that causation is not a philosophical but a natural relation: the causal relation is comprised by temporal succession, spatial contiguity, and necessary connection, and while the first two are philosophical relations that are immediately apparent, the necessary connection between different ideas—those of a cause and its separate effect—is, unlike the necessary identity of two qualitatively similar ideas, not immediately apparent, as Hume puts it, to reason (1739–40: I.III.2), but instead grows only out of repeated experience, the repeated experience of qualitatively similar pairs of impressions which causes them to become linked in the mind, as we would ordinarily say, or at least in consciousness, as the careful Hume should say at most (1739–40: I.III.6). In fact, Hume’s argument is that repeated experience itself has two effects: it creates a habit of thought such that upon the presentation of an impression of one kind that has repeatedly been experienced in spatial and temporal conjunction with one of another kind, a vivid version of the idea of the kind of impression with which the first kind of impression has been repeatedly associated immediately occurs—this is the essence of causal inference or belief, because a belief is nothing but an idea that is almost as vivid and forceful as the impression of which it was once a copy (1739–40: I.III.7–8; this is the thought Hume could have learned from Arthur Collier)—and further, there is an actual feeling of the mind (as we would ordinarily say) being tugged from the one impression to the other idea—this is the basis of the idea of necessary connection, a connection which the mind then “spreads” upon its objects to form the idea of a necessary connection among them or their states (1739–40: I.III.14).

Hume’s theory of causation points toward idealism by relocating the relation of causation from the external objects where we would ordinarily suppose it to obtain to the mind, which we would ordinarily suppose knows but does not constitute the relation known. In Hume’s words,

Tho’ the several resembling instances, which give rise to the idea of power, have no influence on each other, and can never produce any new quality in the object , which can be a model of that idea [of power or causation], yet the observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in the mind , which is its real model…. Necessity, then, is the effect of this observation, and is nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another. (1739–40: I.III.14, para. 20)

Several things may be noted about this theory. For one, if it had been Hume’s intent to raise a general skepticism about causation, based on the famous worry about induction that he himself raises, especially in the subsequent Enquiry , namely that an assertion of causality claims that future impressions will occur in the same patterns as past ones but there is no basis “in reason” for assuming that the future will resemble the past, then the relocation of causation from the domain of objects to the domain of the mind should make no difference, because we have no more reason to believe that the mind will behave the same way in the future as it has in the past than we do to believe that about anything else. So we must either believe that Hume is very confused, not realizing that his skepticism about induction as applied to external objects must undermine our confidence in his application of induction to the mind itself, or else that he is very arch, and that he means us to do his skeptical work for him by carrying over skepticism about induction to the case of the mind itself, or else that he is not really worrying about issues of justification and thus of the threat of skepticism at all, but just means to be giving a plausible description of the only possible basis for causal inference, namely the mind’s experience of itself. The last possibility may well seem to be the most plausible, leading to the “naturalist” reading of Hume promoted by Norman Kemp Smith, Barry Stroud, and Don Garrett rather than the “skeptical” reading of Hume accepted by Hume’s contemporaries such as James Beattie and Thomas Reid and defended recently and more skillfully by Robert Fogelin.

There is a further issue with Hume’s treatment of causation that is largely suppressed in the Enquiry but that was evident in the Treatise , namely, that although, as we saw in the last passage quoted, Hume sometimes describes necessary connection as being displaced from the object to the mind, on his own strict interpretation of empiricism there is a problem in positing the existence of either objects or minds distinct from perceptions. This is what pushes Hume towards his own form of idealism. That is, although we naturally speak of perceptions as being of objects and in or by the mind, on the view that all knowledge is founded on perception and that in perception we are immediately acquainted with nothing but perceptions, it becomes problematic how we could have knowledge either of the mind itself or of any object of perceptions distinct from those perceptions. Hume puts the former point succinctly by arguing that we have no perception of the self distinct from our perception of its perceptual states:

For my part, when I enter most intimately into what I call myself , I always stumble on some particular perception or other, of heat or cold, light or shade, love or hatred, pain or pleasure. I can never catch myself at any time without a perception, and never can observe any thing but the perception. (1739–40: I.IV.6.3)

He then argues that in fact the self is

nothing but a bundle of different perceptions, which succeed each other with an inconceivable rapidity, and are in a perpetual flux and movement. (1739–40: I.IV.6.4)

and that the idea of a continuous self is but a fiction or illusion created by relations of resemblance and continuity among perceptions in the bundle, just as both the idea of and belief in causal connection were created by repetition of pairs of impressions. Without saying that the objects of perception are also nothing but bundles of related perceptions, Hume presents a similar account of how the idea of objects distinct from our perceptions of them is generated by our impression of continuity among perceptions: although only philosophers reflect on this, in fact we know that perceptions are fleeting and transitory; we mistake continuity among them for enduring identity; and we then invent something other than perceptions, something not fleeting and transitory, to which to ascribe that enduring identity (1739–40: I.IV.2). In neither case, however, do we actually have a clear idea of any object or substance distinct from our perceptions: we do not have such an idea of external objects or their substance, but neither do we have a clear idea of the mind or its substance. The only ideas we have are copies of our impressions, or perceptions.

Hume’s attack on the supposition that we have an idea of the mind as distinct from its impressions thus constitutes a rejection of Berkeley’s commitment to the existence of mental substances, but not of idealism altogether. On Hume’s account, we are not entitled to assert the existence of both ideas and the minds, human or divine, that have them, but only the existence of the former. At the same time, he does not seem to think that we are forced into skepticism about either minds or external objects by his approach, that is, into a position that there may really be minds and external objects but we cannot know that fact or their real qualities; yet he still has a lingering worry that although there are psychological mechanisms leading us to form the fictions of minds and bodies beyond perceptions, we do not really know what we are talking about when we talk about such things, and thus cannot even coherently doubt whether we have knowledge of them—our talk about them is explicable but meaningless. Hume thus seems to end up with an uneasy compromise between idealism and agnosticism.

The first major philosopher actually to call himself an idealist was Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), although as soon as he did so he labored to distinguish his position from Berkeley’s by calling his position empirical realism combined with transcendental idealism, by which he means that space and time are ineliminable properties of our experience and of things as they appear to us but not real properties of things as they are in themselves. However, since Kant neither denies the existence of things independent from our representations of them nor asserts that these things must be mental in nature, the transcendental idealist part of his position cannot be straightforwardly identified with idealism as he understood it or as we are understanding it here, namely, as the position that reality is ultimately mental in nature. While Kant thinks that he has given a sound argument for the transcendental ideality of space and time, he thinks he has given no reason at all to question the existence of things independent from our representations of them.

The sources as well as the form of Kant’s position are complex. Kant was deeply impressed by what he knew of Leibniz (many of the texts that are crucial to later understandings of Leibniz, such as “Primary Truths”, having been unknown in Kant’s times, or others, such as the New Essays on Human Understanding , having been published only when he was well into his career) and the view that space and time are phaenomena bene fundata as well as by what he knew of Hume and his view that causation is a form of thinking that we impose upon our experience rather than something we directly experience. He was more generally impressed by the empiricist argument that our knowledge of objects depends upon experience of them. However, he thought that both the Leibnizian and the Humean approaches failed to account for the possibility of synthetic a priori knowledge, that is, knowledge that goes beyond the mere analysis of concepts, that thus does more than merely unpack explicit or tacit definitions, but yet legitimately claims universal and necessary validity. But, unlike Plato, the original apriorist avant la lettre , he does not see synthetic a priori knowledge as leading to realism about objects having the features that we know a priori , nor, like Malebranche, the theological Platonist, does he see such knowledge as knowledge of the mind of God; rather, he sees it as providing the conclusive argument for the idealist aspect of his position through the premise that we can only know to be necessary and therefore universally valid the forms that we ourselves impose upon our experience. Thus precisely because we have a priori knowledge of space and time, in his view they can be only features of our own representations of things, not properties or relations of those things as they are in themselves. At the same time, even though when he wrote his main works he was not well-informed on the aporia about subjects and objects about which Hume had ultimately thrown up his arms in the Treatise , which has here been characterized as the tension in Hume between agnosticism and idealism, Kant recognized that we cannot talk about what he called appearances without conceding the real existence of subjects to which objects appear as well as the objects that appear to such subjects. Kant was thus led to what he called “transcendental idealism”, a position that combines idealism about the main forms of objects, that is, the view that we ourselves impose spatiality, temporality, substantiality, causality, and other forms upon our experience and precisely because we know these forms a priori cannot regard them as also the real forms of objects independent of ourselves, with a kind of ontological realism, the view that in some sense both our selves and our objects really do exist independently of our representations of them. Although he identifies his own “transcendental idealism” with “empirical realism” he does not want to call his own position “transcendental realism”, because for him that would be the view that objects independent of our representations do exist with the forms that we represent them as having; that is, in Kant’s terms, transcendental realism would be the view that things really are spatial and temporal independently of our representing them as such. Neither would he even be happy to call this conception of things in themselves a kind of idealism, because it is part of his position that, at least from what he calls a theoretical point of view, we cannot suppose that even our own minds are really as they appear to us, nor can we assert that the reality that ultimately underlies the appearance of minds is essentially different from the reality that ultimately underlies the appearance of bodies. Yet he remains confident that we are entitled to assert the existence of some sort of reality underlying the appearance of both minds and bodies. And to make matters even more complicated, he is confident that we can rationally believe both ourselves and God to be mental in nature from what he calls a “practical” point of view, that is, as necessary presuppositions of rationally attempting to do what morality commands. A complete characterization of Kant’s position would thus be empirical realism about space, time, causation, and the other categories, transcendental idealism about space and time but combined with realism about the existence of things in themselves, and now practical idealism about the nature of ourselves as things in themselves and the nature of God, as in both cases essentially mental or spiritual.

Kant had already published a number of substantial scientific as well as philosophical works before the “great light” of transcendental idealism came to him in 1769, leading to his first statement of it the following year in his inaugural dissertation, On the Forms and Principles of the Sensible and Intelligible Worlds (1770). But it would then take him another decade, the so-called “silent decade”, to publish his full argument for transcendental idealism in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason , which appeared in 1781, and even then the relation between the empirical realism and transcendental idealism that he developed in that work continued to vex him: the first substantial review of the book in 1782 charged him with Berkeleianism, in other words, with idealism, and Kant then tried to rebut that accusation in his attempted popularization of the Critique , the Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics of 1783, and to further defend that rebuttal of ordinary idealism in the “Refutation of Idealism” that he added to the second edition of the Critique of Pure Reason in 1787. Even then he was not done with the subject, as we know from a dozen further drafts of the “Refutation” that he composed after that second edition of the Critique . Indeed, Kant continued to struggle with the clarification of his own position to the end of his life, attempting a restatement of transcendental idealism in the uncompleted material for a final book that has come down to us under the name of the Opus postumum . But since it was Kant’s presentations of his position in the two editions of the Critique and the Prolegomena that were most influential in his own time and have been since, we shall concentrate on those texts here. It was in these texts that Kant attempted to perfect his combination of empirical realism about space, time, and the categories, transcendental idealism with regard to space and time, and yet realism (agnosticism) about the actual existence of things distinct from our representations of them. It was then primarily in his writings in moral philosophy, above all the Critique of Practical Reason of 1788, that he developed what we have called his practical idealism about the real nature of the self and God. The second half of Kant’s third and final critique, namely, the Critique of Teleological Judgment in the Critique of the Power of Judgment , uses Kant’s complex position to justify the revival of a teleological approach to nature that would seem to have already been outmoded in Kant’s time, but that will lie beyond the purview of the present article (see Guyer 2005).

Kant’s arguments for his transcendental idealism are distributed across all parts of his Critique of Pure Reason . He gives a direct argument for it in the Transcendental Aesthetic, supplemented by the Transcendental Analytic, and he gives an indirect argument for it in the Transcendental Dialectic by arguing that only his transcendental idealism can allow us to avoid the paradoxes or confusions of traditional metaphysics. We will comment first on Kant’s direct argument for transcendental idealism and then on his indirect argument for it through the critique of traditional metaphysics.

The direct argument is based on Kant’s claim, substantiated in the Transcendental Aesthetic, that we necessarily represent space and time and objects in them by means of our a priori representations of space and time, which are thus pure forms for the intuition of particular objects, and that we can construct proofs of theorems about space and time by appeal to our a priori representations or in “pure intuition”. But how does this lead to any form of idealism? Kant’s chief argument is that space and time can represent

no property at all of any things in themselves nor any relations of them to each other, i.e., no determination of them that attaches to objects themselves and that would remain even if one were to abstract from all subjective conditions of intuition,

and that space and time themselves can instead be only our a priori representations of them and the spatial and temporal features of objects in space and time only features of our representations of them or of the “appearances” of objects, because

neither absolute nor relative determinations can be intuited prior to the existence of the things to which they pertain, thus be intuited a priori . (A 26/B 42)

The decisive point of this argument is the following: although because of our forms of intuition our particular representations necessarily have spatio-temporal structure, any objects that had that structure independently of our so representing them would at best have such structure contingently , and thus the supposedly synthetic a priori propositions about space, time, and their mathematics would not be necessarily true throughout their domain. This argument thus exploits the key epistemological premise for idealism, namely that any isomorphism between knowledge and the known must be necessary. Kant is arguing that since we have no ground to assert a necessary isomorphism between the spatio-temporal structure of our experience and the spatio-temporal structure in things as they are in themselves, we must deny the latter altogether. Kant makes this key move several times. In the Critique , he poses the rhetorical question,

If there did not lie in you a faculty for intuiting a priori ; if this subjective condition were not at the same time the universal a priori condition under which alone the object of…intuition is possible; if the object ([e.g.,] the triangle) were something in itself without relation to your subject: then how could you say that what necessarily lies in your subjective conditions for constructing a triangle must also necessarily pertain to the triangle in itself. (A 48/B 65)

Similarly, in the Prolegomena he writes that

Pure mathematics, and especially pure geometry, can have objective reality only under the single condition that it refers merely to objects of the senses, with regard to which objects, however, the principle remains fixed, that our sensory representation is by no means a representation of things in themselves, but only of the way in which they appear to us,

for on the contrary supposition

it absolutely would not follow from the representation of [e.g.] space, a representation that serves a priori , with all the various properties of space, as foundation for the geometer, that all of this, together with what is deduced from it, must be exactly so in nature. The space of the geometer would [or could] be taken for mere fabrication and credited with no objective validity, because it is simply not to be seen how things would have to agree necessarily with the image that we form of them by ourselves and in advance. (§13, Note I, 4:287)

So, Kant concludes, in order to be necessarily true throughout their domain, the synthetic a priori propositions about space and time—and this includes not just the specific propositions of geometry or mathematics more generally but also the general propositions derived in the metaphysical expositions, such as that space and time are infinite singular wholes with parts rather than instances—must be true only of the representations on which we impose our own forms of intuition, and cannot be true of things as they are in themselves. This is Kant’s chief argument for transcendental idealism, the view that the way things appear to us essentially reflects our cognitive capacities rather anything intrinsic to them, combined with what we could call theoretically indeterminate ontological realism, the view that there are things independent of our representations of them but because our most fundamental ways of representing things cannot be true of them we cannot know anything about them other than this fact itself—until, that is, Kant brings his practical argument for our own ultimately mental nature and the mental nature of God on board.

In a passage added to the second edition of the Critique , Kant also points out that by arguing for the “transcendental ideality” of spatio-temporality—that it is a necessary feature of our representations of things but not a feature of things as they are in themselves at all—he does not mean to degrade space to a “mere illusion”, as did “the good Berkeley” (B 71): his position is that it is a subjective but necessary feature of our way of representing things, similar to secondary qualities such as color or fragrance (B 70n) in being subjective but unlike them in being necessary (see also A 29/B 45), and he thinks that by failing to see that the spatiality (in particular) of our representations is necessary, Berkeley has unnecessarily “demoted” it to a mere illusion. Kant’s larger objection to the charge that his position is not different from Berkeley’s is, however, that while denying the spatiality and temporality of things as they are in themselves, he has provided no reason to deny that there are things distinct from our representations of them and our own minds as representing them. But since this larger objection is most clearly expounded and defended in the Prolegomena and the “Refutation of Idealism” added to the second edition of the Critique , which is inserted into the Transcendental Analytic, discussion of it can be deferred for now.

Kant does not need to mount a separate argument for transcendental idealism in the Transcendental Analytic, because while that is aimed at showing that the use of certain concepts (the categories of pure understanding) and principles (the principles of pure understanding) are necessary conditions of any cognition of objects at all, indeed of self-consciousness (apperception) itself, but also yield knowledge only when applied to intuitions, pure intuitions in the case of pure mathematical cognition and empirical intuitions in the case of everything else (thus Kant’s famous statement “Without sensibility no object would be given to us, and without understanding none would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind”, A 51/B 75), since empirical intuitions have already been shown to yield appearances rather than things in themselves, it automatically follows that the categories and principles of pure understanding will also yield cognition only of appearances. Nevertheless, Kant reaffirms transcendental idealism during the course of the Transcendental Analytic.

The Transcendental Dialectic, the second half of the Critique of Pure Reason in which Kant provides the critique of traditional metaphysics is explicitly intended to give an indirect proof of transcendental idealism (B xx). Specifically, the middle section of the Dialectic, entitled “The Antinomy of Pure Reason”, is supposed to provide this indirect proof. All three sections of the Dialectic, thus the preceding “Paralogisms of Pure Reason” and the following “Ideal of Pure Reason”, are supposed to show that the faculty of reason’s inevitable conception of the “unconditioned”, that which is a condition for everything else but itself has no condition, can never provide knowledge of any object because knowledge requires intuition as well as concept, and intuition is always conditioned—the representation of any region of space is conditioned by more surrounding it, and that of any region of time is likewise conditioned by the representation of more time before and after it. Reason can form “transcendental ideas”, more properly, “transcendent concepts” (A 327/B 384), that is, the ideas of an unconditioned subject (the self as substance), an unconditioned whole of all things and events (a completed world-whole), and an unconditioned ground of all possibility (God) (A 334/B 393). These ideas, according to Kant, may be useful as guidelines for scientific research and even necessary for the purposes of practical reason, but they outrun the limits of intuition and therefore theoretical cognition. This general claim itself does not entail transcendental idealism, that is, it does not identify space and time with our own forms of intuition. However, Kant’s claim is that the paradoxes diagnosed in the “Antinomy of Pure Reason” can only be resolved on the basis of transcendental idealism. In the case of the first two antinomies he argues that both sides essentially concern space and time or the things in them (these are the arguments that as we saw were missing from Arthur Collier’s anticipation of the first two antinomies), and that since space and time as forms of intuition are indefinitely extendable and divisible, both sides of the debates, the theses and the antitheses, are false: space and time and thus the totality of things and events in them (the world) are neither bounded and finite or unbounded and infinite but indefinite (even though particular things within space or periods within time may have determinate boundaries). In the case of the third and fourth antinomies, however, Kant argues that the distinction between appearances and things in themselves that is at the heart of transcendental idealism makes it possible for both sides to be considered true, since they concern different objects: in the empirical world of experience, there are only ever indefinitely extending chains of causes and effects, each moment of which is necessary relative to its causal laws (the third antithesis) but contingent because no antecedent cause is absolutely necessary or necessary considered in itself, but outside of the empirical world there is nothing to prevent there being an absolutely necessary thing in itself (God) nor acts of absolute spontaneity on the part of that absolutely necessary being or even lesser beings, such as finite agents. Thus, Kant argues that the antitheses of the third and fourth antinomies are actually true of the world as it appears, while the theses of these two antinomies are possibly true of things in themselves, namely of God as the ground of the entire world of appearance and of ourselves as spontaneous agents grounding our own appearances of action. Again, Kant’s ultimate claim will be that we have necessary and sufficient practical grounds for affirming both our own freedom and the existence of God, but these do not yield theoretical cognition (B xxx).

Kant’s antinomies led to the dialectical methods of Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, and were thus to prove immensely influential. But it was clearly controversial whether the antinomies in fact required the distinction between appearances and things in themselves; Hegel, for example, surely thought not. For the argument that only transcendental idealism can resolve the antinomies seems to be circular: unless one assumes that our representations of space and time give us not only reliable but also complete information about the nature of space and time and all things in them, there is no reason to assume that the limits of our representations of space and time—their indefiniteness and the contingency of any starting- or stopping-point in them—are also in fact true of space and time and everything in them in themselves. Kant’s indirect proof for transcendental idealism therefore is not conclusive (see Guyer 1987: chapter 18).

Kant himself did not think so, of course. He was utterly committed to transcendental idealism. When confronted with the challenge that transcendental idealism was nothing but Berkeleianism, however, that is, the reduction of all reality to ideas and the minds that have them, he recoiled. This objection was made in the first substantial review of the first edition of the Critique , written from an empiricist point of view by Christian Garve and then redacted by J.H. Feder in 1782 (Garve-Feder 1782, Garve 1783, in Sassen 2000, pp. 53–8, 59–77). Kant defended himself by a more precise formulation of his doctrine in the Prolegomena (1783) and further by the insertion of a “Refutation of Idealism”, specifically “material idealism”, into the Transcendental Analytic in the second edition of the Critique (1787). Kant’s claim in the Prolegomena is that his position should be called “formal” or “critical” idealism rather than “material” idealism because it merely identifies space and time with our forms of intuition but does not otherwise deny the reality of the objects in space and time. As he puts it:

There are things given to us as objects of our senses existing outside us, yet we know nothing of them as they may be in themselves, but are acquainted only with their appearances, i.e., with the representations that they produce in us because they affect our senses. Accordingly, I by all means avow that there are bodies outside us, i.e., things which, though completely unknown to us as to what they may be in themselves, we know through the representations which their influence on our sensibility provides for us, and to which we give the name of a body—which word therefore merely signifies the appearance of this object that is unknown to us but is nonetheless real. Can this be called idealism? It is the very opposite of it. (4:288–9)

At this stage, Kant’s response to the identification of his position with traditional ontological idealism is basically incredulity: he cannot understand it because in his view he has only given reasons for removing space and time from things to our representations of them, just as earlier philosophers had given (different) reasons for relocating properties like color from object to subject, but has provided no arguments against the existence of those things themselves, which he, like any other sane person, takes for granted.

By the time of the second edition of the Critique , however, Kant must have come to see the need for a positive defense of the assumption of the existence of things in themselves that ground our spatio-temporal representations of body (although, since those things in themselves are not supposed to be spatio-temporal and causality is supposed to be a spatio-temporal relation, they cannot precisely be said to cause our spatio-temporal representations). Kant’s argument—which in the following years he would attempt to improve a dozen times (see Guyer 1983, Guyer 1987: Part IV, and Kant 2005)—is that we can only achieve “empirically determined consciousness” of our own existence, or a determinate temporal ordering of our own representations, by correlating them with something enduring outside of and distinct from them:

The perception of this persistent thing is possible only through a thing outside me and not through the mere representation of a thing outside me. (B 275)

Spatiality may be acknowledged to be only my way of representing things outside me, but insofar as anything in space is used to determine the order of my own representations it must be regarded as being ontologically distinct from my representations of it even if its phenomenology is subjective, that is, even if spatiality is only our way of representing ontological independence (see A 22/B 37). In this way Kant proves, contra Berkeley who denies it and Descartes who doubts it, that our phenomenologically spatial representations are “grounded” in something ontologically distinct from those representations. Kant’s “Refutation” was intended precisely to demonstrate that transcendental idealism, the argument that our most basic forms of knowledge in fact reflect only our own forms of intuition and conceptualization, could and must be combined with indeterminate ontological realism, that is, assurance of the existence of objects independent of our representations of them combined with ignorance of their nature, other than their non-spatio-temporality.

It may well be asked of Kant’s “Refutation of Idealism”, as it had already been asked of his yet-to-be-named transcendental idealism in 1770 by such distinguished contemporaries as Johann Heinrich Lambert, Johann Georg Sulzer, and Moses Mendelssohn, whether it is really compatible with the transcendental ideality of time , that is, whether it does not presuppose the reality of the temporality of the enduring object it proposes by means of which to determine the sequence of our own representations as well as of the self that has that sequence of representations (isn’t the sequence of representations, they essentially asked, really a sequence?). But we will not further pursue that question here, because all of Kant’s successors were more concerned with the viability of Kant’s general distinction between appearances and things in themselves rather than with the specifics of Kant’s argument for transcendental idealism from a priori knowledge or of Kant’s proof that we can assert the existence of things in themselves in spite of that distinction. This concern began with the famous objection of F.H. Jacobi, made in the appendix to his 1787 book on David Hume, that without the assumption of things in themselves he could not enter into the critical system, but that with it he could not remain within the system; that is, he felt that once the distinction between appearances and things in themselves was made all ground for the assumption of the existence of things other than our own representations was removed even if Kant had made no explicit argument against that existence. We will also not further explore what we have called Kant’s practical transcendental realism, that is, his argument that morality requires us to believe that we have free wills and immortal souls and that there is an omniscient, omni-benevolent, and all-wise God, thus that those constituents of reality are essentially mental in nature. Rather, we now turn to Kant’s successors to see how they tried to save Kant’s insight into the idea that the most fundamental forms of knowledge ultimately depend on fundamental operations of self-consciousness without ending up with Kant’s combination of that with indeterminate ontological realism.

Kant can thus be seen to have made two major points about transcendental idealism. (1) Although he never questions the existence of something independent of our representations of it, he can claim to have shown that when it comes to the ultimate constitution of this reality as it may be considered independently of the way it appears to beings endowed with reason and (human) sensibility we can know nothing on theoretical grounds; on practical grounds, as we have seen, he insisted that we can rationally believe, for example, that we really are free. We neither can know whether—to use a Hobbesian expression again—“ without us” or—to use Kant’s own term “ in itself ”—there are material objects that consist of substances and their attributes standing in spatio-temporal or other (e.g., causal) relations to each other and constituting a law-governed whole called nature. Nor can we know whether whatever we experience as an object is in the end some mental product of a divine mind having creative powers totally different from those of which we can make sense. Thus we are bound to be agnostic with regard to any metaphysical theoretical claims as to the real constitution of the world, and this implies that there is no way to convince us of either idealism or determinate realism about the character of things in themselves. (2) However, whenever we talk about objects of cognition, i.e., of objects that are addressed by us in terms of concepts and judgments, we have to accept them as being conceptual constructions based on our subjective forms of intuitions and on very specific conceptual rules for bringing together or unifying data: an object of cognition is that “in whose concept a manifold of what is given through sensibility is united” ( Critique of Pure Reason , B 137). This means, according to Kant, that the assumption of the conceptual constitution of objects of cognition is unavoidable. This is the part of his position that Kant calls empirical realism.

Kant’s Solomonic verdict was not much appreciated by the main representatives of post-Kantian German idealism. Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi, as already mentioned, immediately criticized Kant’s allowance of things in themselves of unknown determinations, and replaced it with a straightforward fideism about external existence (which he alleged to find in Hume’s rejection of the psychological possibility of skepticism). However, the general tendency of the idealists, beginning with Johann Gottlieb Fichte, was to reject Kant’s transcendental idealism by arguing that there is no real opposition between what is traditionally taken to be a subject-independent world that is present to us in the mode of “givenness” and “being” and a world that is conceived of as subject-dependent in that it is formed by conceptual tools or other “thought-ingredients” stemming from some subjective activity or other. In other words, Kant’s successors removed his restriction of a necessary isomorphism between knowledge and the known to the case of appearances, and took it to be a general relation between thought and being. This led to a new conception of idealism whose distinguishing character consists in the endorsement of the claim of the “inseparability of being and thinking” where the term “inseparability” is meant to cover sometimes reciprocal dependence and sometimes strict identity. This conception was established primarily by epistemological considerations and realized by introducing entirely new ways of thinking about what ultimately constitutes reality based on a dynamic conception of self-consciousness that the German idealists took to be at the heart of Kant’s theory of the transcendental unity of apperception (and had been arrived at by Kant on the basis of epistemological , not: ontological, considerations!). According to this conception, reality has to be conceived as a result of an activity paradigmatically manifested in the unique manner in which consciousness of oneself arises. Reality is essentially mental, while the mental is essentially active. In order to find out the true nature of reality one has to gain insight into the operations of this activity.

This approach to answering fundamental metaphysical questions by casting into doubt the traditional distinction between ontology and epistemology not only leads to a different conception of what idealism is all about. Above all, it means that one has to sketch out the difference between idealism and whatever is taken to be its opposite (realism, naturalism, materialism, sensualism etc.) not in terms of different kinds of “stuff” either material or mental but to turn away from any “matter” whatsoever. Rather, idealism is now defined in terms of the opposition between dynamic elements like activities and forces as the primary constituents of reality and more substantial items like material objects and (spiritual) persons. Idealism understood in this fashion becomes the name of a “metaphysical” (in a non-traditional sense) world-view that is opposed to what especially Fichte and Schelling liked to call “dogmatism” and is rooted in assumptions about dynamic processes that are operative in the course of self- and object-constitution. There is thus a fundamental difference between the idealism of German idealism and the immaterialism of Berkeley: where Berkeley’s idealism focused on ideas as the “stuff” of existence and assumed minds, whether human or divine, as their repository, the German idealists focused on the mind as active and largely tried to suppress the traditional ontology of substances and their accidents within which Berkeley still worked, which Hume questioned but for which he supplied no alternative, and which Kant again defended by conceiving of substance and accident as relational categories.

Although overcoming the distinction between thought and being by relying on self-relating activities might be seen as a common goal of all the major German idealistic thinkers, they pursued this project in very different directions. The first post-Kantian philosopher who embarked explicitly on the project to elaborate a dynamic idealistic conception of reality that was based on what he took to be conditions of knowledge/cognition and agency and that was built on a specific conception of self-consciousness was Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762–1814) while he was a professor at the university of Saxe-Weimar in Jena from 1794 to 1799. In his Doctrine of Science (1794/95) and in the First and Second Introduction into the Doctrine of Science (1797) he famously set out to demonstrate that the primordial act of self-positing lies at the basis of all reality as far as it is an object of knowledge/cognition and agency . His starting-point is an epistemological question: how does it come that we cannot help but experience objective reality the way we do, i.e., in terms of spatio-temporal objects standing in determinate relations? Where do these representations of objects, of relations and especially the belief that they exist come from? And (most importantly): how can we have knowledge of objective reality that is not subject to skeptical doubts? In order to answer these questions Fichte pursues at different times different strategies. The best known and most influential of these attempts is documented in the first published version of his Doctrine of Science . In what follows we will focus primarily on the line of thought presented in this text, although Fichte changed his arguments considerably in the First and Second Introductions into the Doctrine of Science.

Following the early Doctrine of Science , we must, according to Fichte, accept three fundamental principles ( Grundsätze ) of human knowledge without which we could not even make sense of the idea that we can know that there is something real at all. The first states that self-consciousness or the I is a spontaneous (unconditioned) act that in taking place creates or posits the I as having existence or being ( ein Akt, der im Vollzug sein eigenes Sein schafft ). The I understood as this self-positing act that gives rise to its own being and reality Fichte characterizes as “deed-act”, also translated as “Act” ( Tathandlung ), and it is through this deed-act/Act that what we take to be real or having being comes to the fore. Fichte arrives at what he presents as his first principle of human knowledge on the basis of two assumptions. The first is that we can only properly be said to know assertions (judgments or propositions) which exhibit the character of certainty [ Gewissheit ], or those which thus express what is actually and certainly the case; the second maintains that a regress in the process of justification with regard to such assertions can only be avoided if we are able to furnish some principle or fundamental proposition which is “utterly unconditioned” [ schlechthin unbedingt ] (as Fichte puts it), one, that is, which cannot be derived from any other principle, and which, for its part, is of such a kind that it alone guarantees the utter certainty, and thus the indubitability, that is, the immunity to skeptical objections, of a given proposition. This second assumption leads him to the claim that the unquestionable certainty of a proposition can never be demonstrated discursively (by appeal to purely conceptual considerations) or intuitively (by appeal to any sensuous perception), and that, on the contrary, the ground of unconditional certainty can only be found in the constitution of self-consciousness itself. Fichte identifies as an appropriate method by means of which the principle in question can be derived a procedure which he calls “abstractive reflection”. This kind of reflection, according to Fichte, takes its point of departure from a proposition which everyone regards as unquestionably certain, from a so-called “fact of empirical consciousness”. From this fact, this indubitable proposition, the process of reflection isolates (abstracts) the elements which belong to the content of such a proposition, i.e., belong to that about which the proposition asserts something. What is supposedly left, after this abstraction, is simply the form of the proposition which consists precisely in affirming the ascription, or non-ascription, of a predicate to a subject. The proposition which Fichte selects as the point of departure for his “abstractive reflection” is the logical law of identity in the form “ A = A ”, a law that is rightly regarded as utterly certain, i.e., certain without recourse to any further grounds and thus as intrinsically certain. This fact alone already shows that we have the capacity (the faculty) of claiming something as certain without reference to any further grounds, or, in Fichte’s own terminology, of “positing” something absolutely [ etwas schlechthin zu setzen ]. Reflection on this fact shows according to Fichte that the utter certainty of the law of identity is grounded in the positing activity of the I (which in this case posits identity), an activity which consists precisely in postulating the being of what has been posited as identical. Otherwise this activity would not be real, would have no being.

This result, however, is not yet sufficient to give us the first unconditioned and fundamental principle of all knowledge. This is so because we have arrived at the I as the guarantee of the absolute certainty of a proposition only on the basis of an empirical fact, namely the proposition “ A is A ” which has been presupposed as utterly certain. Fichte now rightly observes that the “I am”, as the condition of the certainty of an empirical fact, itself merely possesses the status of an empirical fact [ Tatsache ]—if the utterly certain proposition were not given, one would never be able to affirm the utter certainty of the “I am”. Up to this point the “I am” has “only been grounded on a fact, and possesses no other validity than that attaching to a fact” ( GA I, 2, 257). But in order to discover the first utterly unconditioned principle of all knowledge, we must establish not only the utter certainty of the law of identity, but also the unconditional certainty of the “I am” in such a way that this certainty does not depend upon the presence of a fact at all. In other words: we must be able to answer the question how the utterly unconditioned certainty of the proposition “I am” is possible. It is Fichte’s reflections on this question which lead to his conception of the I as a deed-act/Act ( Tathandlung ). He reasons along the following lines: we know from our analysis of the conditions of certainty of the law of identity that the I has the capacity to posit something absolutely in the I. But in order to be able to posit something absolutely in the I, the I itself must be posited. We have also already seen that the absolute positing of the I consists in the activity of positing being. If this is so, and if the “I am” is to depend on nothing else as its condition, we must think of the I as the product of its own positing activity, since it would otherwise be quite impossible to explain its being. Now this, in turn, is supposed to imply that we must think the I as an activity which posits its own existence insofar as it is active: the I

is at the same time the actor and the product of the act; the actor, and that which the activity brings forth; act and deed are one and the same; and the “I am” is therefore the expression of an Act. (GA I, 2, 259)

For Fichte, a deed-act/Act is not supposed to be a fact, that is, something which is simply already discovered as given, since the Act is logically and ontologically prior to any facts insofar as it ultimately constitutes (posits) everything which can be a fact for an I. The I, understood as Act, is supposed to be something absolutely posited precisely because it posits itself, and this self-positing constitutes its essence and guarantees its being, its reality. Again, as Fichte says: “That whose being (essence) merely consists in positing itself as being, is the I, as absolute subject” (GA I, 2, 259). This means, for Fichte, that the I, so understood, displays all the characteristics which make it an appropriate candidate for the first utterly unconditioned principle of all knowledge. Fichte tries out various formulations for expressing this first principle in a really adequate fashion. His most accessible formulation is certainly the one he furnishes at the end of section 10 of the first paragraph of the Doctrine of Science : “The I originally posits its own being absolutely” (GA I, 2, 261). This insight that the I must be conceived as self-positing activity, an activity whose performance consists in its self-realization is meant to make any distinction between epistemological and metaphysical idealism obsolete.

The second principle postulates a necessary act of counter-positing ( Entgegensetzen ) to the self-positing activity of the I resulting in what Fichte calls a Non-I, and the third focuses on an activity that gives rise to the concept of divisibility. Fichte attempts to justify the introduction of these two principle on systematic grounds, although these principles can only be described as unconditional in a qualified respect, by exploiting his own distinction between the form and the content of a proposition. According to Fichte, every proposition (judgment) can be treated as either conditioned or unconditioned in relation to its content, or to its form, or to both. If a proposition is unconditioned in either or both of these respects, then it can be described, in Fichte’s terminology, as a fundamental principle [ Grundsatz ]. While the second principle is meant to establish (as a condition of knowledge/cognition!) the possibility of the reality of “otherness”, of something which is not the I, the third principle shows how to mediate between the self-positing and the counter-positing acts of the I by reciprocal limitation, thereby introducing a subject-object opposition within the I. Both these principles are presented as codifications of two further unconditional acts of positing on the part of the I. According to Fichte, the I possesses, in addition to the capacity for self-positing that is captured in the first principle, the further capacity of positing a non-I freely and simply (without any further ground). That is to say, it has the ability, through what Fichte calls an “absolute act” [ absolute Handlung ], to posit something as non-I that is opposed to the I. Fichte’s second principle codifies this act of “counter-positing”. Finally, the I is further characterized by a third capacity, that of freely and simply positing the divisibility of the I and the non-I. The third principle specifically captures this notion of divisibility.

It is not difficult to grasp what Fichte is attempting to accomplish with the introduction of his second principle. It is supposed to do justice to our inexpungible everyday conviction that there is an external world independent of ourselves, the objects of which are outside of and distinguished from us, and to which we can relate in terms of knowledge and action alike. But for Fichte this conviction is justified not because an external world independent of ourselves compels us to understand it as characterized in such and such a way. On the contrary, it is justified because it belongs to the distinctive structure of the I to organize its world dichotomously through the subject-object distinction or the opposition of the I and the non-I. It is more difficult, on the other hand, to grasp the significance which Fichte wishes to ascribe to the third principle of divisibility. The motivation for introducing it is obviously to present the non-I not only as the negation of the reality which the I claims to posit in positing its own being, but rather to ascribe independent reality, independent being, to the non-I. In pursuing this purpose by recourse to the concept of divisibility, Fichte appears to make the implicit presupposition that being or reality should be regarded as a kind of quantity, as something given in degrees (intensively considered) or parts (extensively considered). Once we accept this presupposition, then we cannot in fact avoid bringing something like Fichte’s third principle into play. For the assumption that we have to conceive reality as a distributable plurality, together with the notion that there are real objects possessed of an existence independent of the subject, means that it is necessary, within the Fichtean model of positing, to identify a factor responsible for distributing reality between the I, understood as the knowing subject (and not as absolute self-positing ego), and the non-I, understood as the object that it is to be known.

On the basis of these three principles and by reflecting on the purported interplay between self-positing and counter-positing in a highly original way, Fichte arrives at a portrait of reality in which all “ordinary” objects, like walls, trees and people, and their “normal” interactions and dependencies, like causal, spatio-temporal, and physical force relations, find a place. This portrait is claimed to be idealistic because it is the outcome of an insight into the dynamics of these fundamental and opposed positing acts and because in the end these activities, according to Fichte, are, metaphysically speaking, all there is: “for the philosopher there is acting, and nothing but acting; because, as a philosopher, he thinks idealistically” ( Second Introduction , section 7; Werke I, 498). Idealism thus starts to become what could be called from a traditional point of view a “hybrid” position that intimately connects epistemological and ontological elements in that it “explains … the determinations of consciousness”. i.e., our common sense conception of reality as an object of knowledge/cognition and agency, “out of the acting of the intellect [ Intelligenz ]” without thinking of the intellect as some sort of existing subject:

For idealism the intellect is an acting and absolutely nothing else; one should not even call it something active because by this expression one points to something substantial which is the subject of this activity. ( First Introduction , section 7, Werke I, 440)

A consequence that Fichte explicitly draws from this understanding of idealism is that one can no longer think of realism as a position that is opposed to idealism. Rather

realism, … i.e., the assumption that objects totally independently of us exist outside of us, is contained in idealism itself and becomes explained and deduced in it. ( Second Introduction , footnote at end of section 1, Werke I, 455)

Because in Fichte’s philosophical world everything is based on the I as a pure activity, it is not that surprising that his idealism very often was called “subjective idealism”, even though he would resist any identification with Berkeley’s substance-accident form of immaterialism. He avoids that conception by introducing what could be called an ontology of pure action.

Fichte’s dynamic conception of idealism was adopted almost immediately by Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854), who in the first period of his philosophical career became next to Fichte the most outspoken defender of this hybrid variety of idealism. In doing so he transformed Fichte’s I-centered approach to reality via an analysis of the conditions of knowledge/cognition and agency into an idealistic version of a monistic ontology. In this he was followed by Hegel. Whereas Fichte had mainly struggled to find an adequate expression for his activity-based conception of a self-positing I and had referred to anything outside the I only as the non-I posited by the I itself, in his early writings on the philosophy of nature Schelling tries to supplement Fichte’s approach by giving a much fuller account of nature, understood as everything that appears to be independent of us, in terms of the I-constituting activities. Because of Schelling’s elevation of nature to a central topic in his presentation of an idealistic worldview his position became characterized, although somewhat misleadingly, as “objective idealism”. On his account, we have to think of reality as an original unity ( ursprüngliche Einheit ) or a primordial totality ( uranfängliche Ganzheit ) of opposites that is internally differentiated in such a way that every particular item within reality can be seen as a partial, incomplete, or one-sided expression, manifestation, or interpretation of the most basic dynamic opposition characteristic of the whole of reality. This view of reality, which in early Schelling is quite explicitly linked to Spinoza’s one-substance ontology, obviously does not lead directly to any idealism whatsoever: one could just as well give it a naturalistic reading. In order to connect a monistic ontology to idealism, one has to somehow identify the activities at work in the constitution of the world-whole with mental or spiritual elements that are supposed to give conceptual structure to reality. This can be and was done by Schelling at different stages of his philosophical career in different ways. In the first edition (1797) of his book Ideas for a Philosophy of Nature ( Ideen zu einer Philosophie der Natur ), he set out to prove idealism by trying to show that “the system of Nature is at the same time the system of our mind” ( IP 30; SW 1, 134). This claim is not meant to state a reciprocal relation of dependence between nature and mind and their characteristic features, i.e., according to Schelling, matter and concept, thereby presupposing that nature and mind, matter and concept nevertheless have some reality independently of each other. He rather wants us to think of nature and mind, matter and concept as being identical in the sense of being the same: the one is the other and vice versa. The reason why we as finite minds have to differentiate between them at all lies in a double perspective which is forced on us by our natural predisposition to distinguish the “outside us” from the “in us” (cf. IP 39; SW 1, 138) when looking at reality—thus Schelling sees dualism as a psychological tendency but not a philosophical option. If this disposition and its conditions were understood in the right way, we would comprehend that, as he famously writes, “Nature should be made Mind visible, Mind the invisible Nature” ( IP 42; SW 1, 151) thereby making room for an idealistic conception of reality as World-Soul ( On the World-Soul is also the title of a 1798 publication by Schelling.)

As a systematic counterpart to the construction of the phenomena of nature out of different dynamic factors (forces, activities), in 1800 Schelling presented his System of Transcendental Idealism . Here he set out to demonstrate the development of mental phenomena out of these factors which he here calls the unconscious and the conscious activity starting with sensation ( Empfindung ) and intuition ( Anschauung ) until he arrives via acts of willing at the aesthetic activity manifested in works of art. He thinks of these transcendental idealistic demonstrations as a necessary complement to his philosophy of nature (cf. SW III, 331 f.) and describes their mutual relation thus:

As the philosophy of nature brings idealism forth out of realism, in that it spiritualizes the laws of nature into laws of intelligence, or adds the formal to the material, so does transcendental philosophy bring realism out of idealism, by materializing the laws of intelligence into laws of nature , or adds the material to the form. ( SW III, 352)

On this conception both together, philosophy of nature and transcendental idealism, exhaust the entire scope of philosophy, which reveals itself in the end to be nothing but a “progressive history of self-consciousness” ( fortgehende Geschichte des Selbstbewusstseins ) ( SW III 331).

This early approach to establishing an idealistic monism and thereby vindicating a Fichte-inspired dynamic version of ontological idealism was in turn given up by Schelling a couple of years later in the second edition of the Ideas and criticized by him as providing a basis only for what he now calls “relative idealism” ( IP 52; SW 1, 163). It is replaced by what he now names “absolute idealism” ( IP 50; SW 1, 162). Both his criticism of his earlier World-Soul conception and his endorsement of absolute idealism are at least to a certain degree due to Hegel’s discussion of Schelling’s philosophy in his Difference between Fichte’s and Schelling’s System of Philosophy (1801). Schelling’s new conception, which underlies what came to be known as his “System of Identity” ( Identitätssystem ), takes reality to be a dynamic whole which he describes as the “undivorced” ( ungeschieden ) or undifferentiated unity of the absolute-ideal or subjectivity and the absolute-real or objectivity in an “eternal act of cognition” ( IP 47; SW 1, 157). This eternal act is all there is, it is “the absolute”. It is disclosed in two fundamentally different forms, one of which is characterized by the prevalence of subjectivity whereas in the other form objectivity prevails. These two forms give rise to the distinction between an “ideal world” and “Nature” ( IP 49; SW 1, 161). However, according to Schelling these forms have to be distinguished from the “eternal cognitive act” or the absolute from which the ideal world and Nature originate. This act is pure activity of knowing that creates its objects in the very act of cognition by giving them a form. Because reality is conceived thus as a dynamic self-organizing cognitive process that lies at the basis of even the most fundamental opposition between subject and object, Schelling thinks of his ontological monism as a version of idealism. He writes:

If we therefore define philosophy as a whole according to that wherein it surveys and presents everything, namely the absolute act of cognition, of which even Nature is again only one side, the Idea of all ideas, then it is Idealism. Idealism is and remains, therefore, the whole of philosophy, and only under itself does the latter again comprehend idealism and realism, save that the first absolute Idealism is not to be confused with this other, which is of a merely relative kind. ( IP 50; SW 1, 162)

In the end, then, after 1800 Schelling (arguably as well as Fichte in his post-Jena period) seems pushed toward a “non-dogmatic” idealism that combines ontological as well as epistemological idealism within a monistic framework.

Although Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) too embraces a dynamical conception of idealism in the spirit of Fichte and Schelling, he deviates from both of them by not relying on mental activities of some subject or other or on some primordial subjectless cognitive act as the most basic features of reality. He thus tries to transcend any traditional form of idealism. Given his deep distrust of irreconcilable dichotomies, of anything unmediated and one-sided, one cannot expect Hegel to be an advocate of an idea of idealism that is conceived of in terms of an alternative to or an opposition against realism or materialism or whatever else. He thus shares with Fichte and Schelling the hostility against any attempts to privilege idealism over and against realism (or something else) or the other way round, but avoids the suspicion of a reversion to idealism in a monistic guise better than either of his predecessors. In the case of Hegel, this hostility towards privileging idealism shows especially well in his criticism of reductive programs as well as of “bifurcating” ( entzweiend ) or separating positions in metaphysics and epistemology. A reductive program according to which either everything physical/material is reducible to something mental and thus confirms idealism or everything mental can be reduced to something physical/material and thus gives rise to realism or materialism is, in his eyes, “ridiculous” (cf. GW 6, 290 ff). A bifurcating or separating position results from a project that is based on the claim that one has to distinguish between a world “for us” and a world “in itself”, where the former is a subject-dependent and in this sense idealistic world while the latter is the “real” world although it is essentially totally inaccessible by any subjective cognitive means. It is because of its one-sidedness and its putting “the real” outside of our grasp that such a “subjective” idealism is for Hegel unacceptable (see his criticism of Kant in Faith and Knowledge , GW 4, 325 ff.). His objections to and his contempt for both idealism and realism in their mutually exclusive forms are well documented in almost all of his writings throughout his philosophical career.

Thus, when Hegel in the second edition of his Science of Logic (1831) nevertheless claims that in the end “[e]very philosophy is essentially idealism or at least has it as its principle” ( GW 21, 142), he must mean by idealism something other than traditional idealism and certainly something other than Kant’s indeterminate ontological realism. Rather, he must mean by idealism a philosophical outlook that is immune against the charge of grounding a philosophical system in a conception of reality that is committed to the acceptance of any irreconcilable oppositions. Now, for Hegel the most fundamental opposition both from a systematic and a historical perspective is the opposition between thinking and being, or rather, in the preferred terms, between subject and object. Looked at from a systematic perspective, this opposition is fundamental because of its apparent unavoidability, already at a descriptive level, when it comes to an assessment of the ultimate characteristics of reality: after all, we want to be able to hold fast to the distinction between what is only (in) our (subjective) thought and what is (objectively) the case. Considered from a historical point of view it shows that—at least within the tradition of occidental philosophy—the opposition between thinking and being lies at the bottom of the most influential attempts (with very few exceptions like Parmenides and possibly Spinoza) to give a philosophical account of the essence of reality and its multifarious ways of appearing to us. The traditional conviction of the fundamental and irreconcilable opposition between thinking and being finds expression in many different ways. These ways include the belief that there is being that is totally independent of or without any relation to thinking, or the conviction that thinking is somehow external to being in that being is just the self-standing provider of material on which a by itself contentless ( inhaltslos ) thinking imposes a certain conceptual form, or the assumption that even if there were no thinking there would be being and vice versa. However, according to Hegel it can be demonstrated that to think of thinking and being as fundamentally opposed in any of these ways leads to inconsistencies resulting in contradictions, antinomies and other bewildering deficiencies. Hence an idealistic philosophical system that is to overcome these deficiencies has to get rid of the underlying fundamental opposition and to show that thinking and being are not opposed but ultimately the same. This claim as to the sameness or the identity of thinking and being (subject and object) is the cornerstone of Hegel’s metaphysical credo and together with some other assumptions leads relatively smoothly to a version of ontological monism as the only convincing shape of an idealistic system.

However, a closer look at how Hegel tries to realize a monistic idealism reveals that it proved rather complicated to establish a philosophical system based on the identity of thinking and being or subject and object. At the outset this project was to be realized within the boundaries of two conditions. The first was to present an argument in favor of the superiority of idealism that would not just make the endorsement of idealism a question of individual character or what a person wants to be, a move he thought to be characteristic of both Fichte’s and Schelling’s defense of idealism. The second was to abandon the view also, according to Hegel, sometimes to be found in Fichte and Schelling, that one has to think of idealism as an alternative and in opposition to dogmatism/ realism/ materialism. Not to meet these two conditions were in Hegel’s eyes two unacceptable shortcomings of any attempt to establish a convincing idealistic worldview. He expressed his dissatisfaction with attempts of this kind to establish idealism as the superior approach in philosophy quite early ( Faith and Knowledge , 1802) by referring to them under the title “philosophy of reflection of subjectivity” ( Reflexionsphilosophie der Subjektivität ). This kind of philosophy of reflection, though favoring subjectivity and hence giving priority to the conceptual and in this sense ideal contributions of the mind to what shows up as reality is still according to Hegel stuck in what he later used to call the “opposition of consciousness” ( Gegensatz des Bewusstseins ) (in both the, Phenomenology and the Science of Logic ). This kind of philosophy is committed to a mode of thinking that takes place within a framework in which the opposition of thinking and being or subject and object is still basic, dissolved only superficially by either abstracting from one of the opposed sides or by establishing a relation of domination between the elements opposed, without transcending and transforming them into a whole, his renowned “Subject-Object”, a whole that is both constituted by these elements, the subject and the object, and that at the same time constitutes them as its own internal differentiations. This way of overcoming oppositions by thinking of the elements opposed as having significance only insofar as their mutual relation can be conceived of as being constituted by the unity they together form led Hegel to claim that in order to avoid the idea of self-standing or irreducible oppositions and hence to escape the charge of one-sidedness in cases where the prioritization of opposites is at stake, one has to follow the methodological maxim that for every opposition there has to be a unity in place that consists of the elements opposed. Hegel took this principle to imply that the “absolute”, the totality of what there is and can be, must be conceived of as what he sometimes calls the “identity of identity and non-identity” ( Difference-Writing , beginning of Schelling chapter) or as the “unity of unity and multiplicity/diversity” ( Natural Law Essay , section II) where the terms “identity/unity” in each of these formulations are meant to refer to both the whole that gives rise to what is opposed and to one of the elements in opposition.

But does the acceptance of such a methodological recipe as a means by which to transcend oppositions in order to solve the problem of one-sidedness not just give rise to a justification of an idealism that is not just a one-sided alternative to realism/dogmatism/materialism? It appears that on the basis of this methodological device two sensible options are available both of which do not settle the question of superiority. However, whereas the first option leads to a negative result regarding the alleged superiority of idealism, the second opens up at least the chance of a positive result. Those favoring the negative option would start from the claim that the very idea of a “Subject-Object”, i.e., of a whole that is prior to and constitutive of its elements, cannot be defended by any rational means. They would end up recommending just giving up on idealism as well as its opposites as positions whose superiority can be defended philosophically, because there is no rational way to decide which of them has to be favored over the other. It is in fact a reaction Hegel himself sometimes advocates when he states, e.g., in his Lectures on the History of Philosophy (chapter on later skeptics) that both idealism and dogmatism have the status of proclamations/assurances and thus turn out to be equipollent. Supporters of the positive option would have to give credit to the rationality of the strategy, sketched above, of how to overcome oppositions in a philosophically acceptable way and thus would allow for a “Subject-Object” as the common whole in which the opposed sides can be united. But even such an admission would not lead directly to an argument for the superiority of idealism. It would only provide a reason for favoring a position that could be described as real-idealism ( Real-Idealismus ), a synthetic product that integrates idealism and its opposites into a unity whose elements, though still distinguishable, are at the same time in some sense identical or (in Hegel’s idiom) sublated ( aufgehoben ). It is easy to show that most of the German idealists were strongly attracted by this positive solution. At some point in their philosophical careers both Fichte and Schelling explicitly used the term “Real-idealism” in order to characterize their views. Even Hegel late in life, in a review of a treatise by Ohlert ( GW 16, 287 ff.), made use of this term as a name for his metaphysical teachings.

This solution seems to have been in line with Hegel’s way of conceiving of how to overcome oppositions in his early Jena writings. Unsurprisingly, however, he became dissatisfied with such a tactic because of its inherent limitations. This dissatisfaction shows explicitly for the first time in the preface of the Phenomenology of Spirit . From then onwards he tried in different ways to find a justification of idealism in sensu stricto , i.e., a justification of a view that (1) attributes priority to non-sensible activities, especially to the activity of thinking, that (2) makes realism/materialism/dogmatism obsolete and that (3) allows for subject-object identity without thereby being committed to Real-Idealism. The reasons for his dissatisfaction with attempts that lead to Real-Idealism (among them most of his own pre-phenomenological systematic sketches) are quite simple. In the first place, it is rather obvious that the move to transcend oppositions by making the opposed elements parts of an integrating unity looks like a makeshift, a terminological stipulation that cannot do justice to what it is meant to achieve, namely, to allow the opposed elements to develop out of a unity that is prior to them. Instead of commencing with a developing unity, this move, according to Hegel, remains damaged by presupposing the opposed components as self-standing, thereby making the unity dependent on the elements and not the other way around. Secondly, the unity presented as resulting from a process of integration of what is taken to be opposed cannot be conceived as representing a real identity of opposites because of its status as a synthetic product. Unities in order to qualify as real unities after Hegel’s taste could be pictured in analogy to the “ Kippfiguren ” of Gestalt psychology. Both these reasons (together with a couple of more idiosyncratic ones) led Hegel to believe that the method of overcoming oppositions by stipulating unities is not ultimately feasible for the task at hand, hence not able to solve the problem of one-sidedness and consequently of no use in the endeavor of justifying the superiority of idealism.

The question, then, is how to proceed in order to establish a version of the subject-object-identity idea that is neither subject to the charge of one-sidedness nor to that of just postulating it without any argument as a given fact. Though this seems to be a purely technical task, i.e., a task to conceptualize the Subject-Object unity/identity in a different way than had been done in the real-idealism approach, and although Hegel recognized early the insufficiencies of Fichte’s, Schelling’s, and even his own initial suggestions for overcoming oppositions, it took him quite a while to come up with a proposal that both avoids the one-sidedness problem and the suspicion that it operates with unfounded assumptions while at the same time it supports the superiority of idealism as a metaphysical doctrine. This is so because he had to realize that it is not just a metaphysical/ontological question as to the status of the Subject-Object unity/identity that is at stake, but that there is an epistemological worry to be answered before the metaphysical/ontological question can even be addressed. As became increasingly clear to him, the task he had to face consists in demonstrating two things: (1) that it is epistemologically warranted to claim that there are indeed unities of basic oppositions (like subject-object, identity-nonidentity, unity-multiplicity, thinking-being) that precede their constitutive elements/parts in that they are at the basis of their constitution while at the same time consisting of them and (2) that it is metaphysically/ontologically necessary to think of the most basic unity/identity, i.e., that of subject and object in an idealistic fashion, i.e., as a spiritual/mental ( geistig ) item paradigmatically realized in thinking. For Hegel it is the epistemological task that must be solved first before the metaphysical task of giving an idealistic account of the subject-object unity/identity in terms of the sameness of what is different/opposed can be tackled. His idealism needs epistemology as well as metaphysics.

The first task mentioned amounts to answering the question: how can one convince what he calls in the Phenomenology a “natural consciousness” ( natürliches Bewusstsein ), i.e., an ordinary human being that is committed to the common discursive/conceptual standards of reasoning—how can one convince such a subject by discursive means (and not just by appeal to some strange non-standard procedures like intellectual intuition or revelation) of the epistemic legitimacy of the assumption of a subject-object unity/identity that is prior to and constitutive of its parts/elements? Because the answer to this epistemological question is meant to ground the metaphysical/ontological claim concerning the ultimate constitution of reality, Hegel thought fit to address it in the form of an introduction to what subsequently had to be elaborated in a systematic way as a metaphysical doctrine about what there ultimately is. This epistemological task turned out to be much more difficult than Hegel initially thought. This is documented by the surprisingly many numbers of different sketches of what he took to be an “introduction” to his system even before he published the best known version of this introduction, the Phenomenology of Spirit in 1807. Actually, the Phenomenology is not just the best known, it is the only version of an introduction Hegel ever elaborated in detail, at least in print, that explicitly addressed the task at hand as an epistemological problem. In the second edition of the exposition proper of his system, the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline published much later in 1827 (first edition 1817) he chose a different introductory path to his metaphysical project under the title “Positions of Thought towards Objectivity” ( Stellungen des Gedankens zur Objektivität ) for reasons that have to do with a different assessment of the epistemological task. However, the Phenomenology still remains the most straightforward attempt to settle the question as to the metaphysical priority of the subject-object identity as an epistemological problem.

Although looking at Hegel’s different pre-phenomenological attempts to find a suitable introduction to his central metaphysical/ontological doctrine is an interesting enterprise in its own right, it cannot be dealt with here in detail. It would lead to a discussion of why Hegel initially, i.e., from 1801 to maybe 1806, thought of what he in this early period called “logic” as a discipline that could function as an introduction to his metaphysics. Of all the fragments that were passed down to us from this period the most complete “logical” version of an introduction is the so-called Jena Systemdraft II from 1804/05. This system-draft contains a so-called Logic as a discipline that is meant to present the process of “elevating” ( erheben ) an epistemic subject equipped with traditionally accepted methodological and logical convictions to the “standpoint of science” ( Standpunkt der Wissenschaft ), i.e., to a standpoint that is based on the metaphysical doctrine of Subject-Object identity. This process is delineated by Hegel as an introductory logical process that proceeds by means of a criticism of standard logical forms like judgments and inferences as well as of object constituting concepts, i.e., of Kantian categories.

In order to deal with the epistemological problem of demonstrating the priority of unities/identities over and against their opposed elements, in the Phenomenology Hegel starts with an analysis of the conditions of knowledge where knowledge is understood as an achievement of a subject’s activity of dealing discursively/conceptually with the objective world or the world of objects. For him an inquiry into the conditions of knowledge is the right starting point because knowledge understood as the activity of gaining conceptual access to the world is the only discursive attitude available to a subject towards determining what is objectively real, i.e., towards the world. The approach Hegel is pursuing in order to arrive at the desired result, i.e., the proof of the priority of unity/identity, can be outlined thus: he first introduces the conception of knowledge ( Erkennen ) that is leading his investigation. According to this conception knowledge is to be taken as a discursive/conceptual relation established between a subject and an object that allows for some sort of correspondence ( Entsprechung ) between them. The possibility of this correspondence depends on getting hold of structural features that are shared by subject and object on the basis of which a knowledge relation can be established. This is the assumption of isomorphism that underlies any epistemologically-motivated move toward idealism.

With the concept of knowledge settled, Hegel chooses as the point of departure for his analysis a configuration of this knowledge relation between subject and object that proceeds on the assumption that the relata of this relation, i.e., the subject and the object stand in complete opposition to each other, each of them being self-standing and a pure another to each other. This configuration is what Hegel calls “sense certainty”, a configuration in which the knowledge relation is supposed to obtain between two items, a subject-this and an object-this, that are totally isolated from each other, have no conceptualizable internal connection whatsoever. Such a conception of the knowledge relation proves to be unwarranted because, according to Hegel, it can be shown that the idea of a cognitive relation between totally independent items makes no sense. Instead one has to acknowledge that the very attempt to establish such a (unreasonable) conception already presupposes that there indeed is a structural affinity between subject and object, an affinity that enables an object to be an object for a subject and that enables the subject to relate to the object. Hegel wants us to think of this mutual affinity in terms of conceptual determinations necessary to come up both with the concept of an object of knowledge and with a tenable account of a knowing subject. Thus in the case of e.g., “sense certainty” the affinity claim is expressed in the result that in order to be an epistemic object an object of cognition has to exhibit the conceptual characteristics of universality ( Allgemeinheit ) and singularity ( Einzelnheit ) provided by the subject and that the subject itself in order to be thought of as an epistemic subject must have at its disposal the conceptual resources (in this case the concepts of universality and singularity) necessary to determine the conceptual features of its object. The entire process run through in the Phenomenology is meant to enrich the features a subject and an object have to share in order to arrive at a complete concept of both what a subject and an object are.

In the Phenomenology the initial scenario of “sense certainty” that is based on the absolute opposition between the knowing subject and the object known sets the stage for a long series of configurations or models of knowledge that is aimed at demonstrating that knowledge in a complete or absolute sense can only take place in a setting where subject and object share all their respective structural features, i.e., where both, the subject and the object, have the same conceptual determinations and thus are identical. This amounts according to Hegel to the insight that if knowledge is analyzed in terms of a subject-object relation there is for knowledge ( Erkennen ) in the end no difference between the subject and the object or, as he is fond of saying, that there is a difference that is no difference ( ein Unterschied, der keiner ist ). Among other things this means for Hegel that knowledge in the strict sense is ultimately self-knowledge or a state of affairs where a subject that stands in the relation of knowing ( erkennen ) to an object is “in truth” related to itself, or, as he famously puts it, in the act of knowing ( Erkenntnisakt ) the subject “is in the other (the object) with itself (exclusively related to itself)” ( im Anderen bei sich selbst sein ).

This epistemological account presented in the Phenomenology of how the very possibility of discursive/conceptual knowledge is based in an original identity of opposites or a subject-object unity/identity becomes metaphysical/ontological implications because of the conviction Hegel shares with the other post-Kantian idealists that knowledge is a real relation. By this he and his idealistic allies mean (a) that knowledge is a relation between real relata and (b) that knowledge is real only if the relata are real. This conviction puts constraints on how to conceive of this unity/identity when it comes to its content (in a metaphorically analogous way in which, say, in propositional logic a semantics puts constraints on the interpretation of its syntax). This unity/identity established as the basis of knowledge has to meet (at least) two conditions. First of all it has to be such that the subject-object split can be grounded in it and secondly it must allow for an interpretation according to which it is real or has being ( Sein ). These conditions function as constraints on how to conceive of subject-object-unity/identity because they specify what can count as an acceptable interpretation (a semantics) of an otherwise purely structural item (a syntactic feature). Without meeting these two conditions all we have by now (i.e., at the end of the Phenomenology ) is a claim as to the grounding function of a unity/identity of subject and object structure (a syntactic item) that is still lacking an interpretation as to the content (the semantic element) of all the terms involved in that structure.

It is by providing an interpretation to the unity/identity structure that Hegel arrives at a defense of idealism in a non-oppositional sense. Put somewhat distant from his terminology but relying heavily on his own preliminary remarks on the question “With What must the Beginning of Science be made?” in the Science of Logic, his line of thought can be sketched roughly thus: the Phenomenology has demonstrated that knowledge can only be realized if it establishes a relation between real items. These items have to be structurally identical. Realized or “real” knowledge ( wahres Wissen ) in contradistinction to opinion/defective knowledge (what Hegel calls “false knowledge”) is a discursive/conceptual relation that can only be established by thinking. Hence if there is knowledge thinking must be real, must have being ( Sein haben ). Now, thinking is an objective , a real activity in the sense that it gives rise to determinations that constitute both the subject and the object. Because it is a discursive/conceptual activity its reality/objectivity implies that what is constituted by it, i.e., the subject and the object have to be conceived of as discursive/conceptual structures whose reality/being just consists in nothing else than their being thought— not their being the object of thought. Conceived of that way thinking not only fulfills the two conditions mentioned above (i.e., it grounds the subject-object divide and it is real, has being), it is at the same time the only candidate to satisfy them (because there is no other discursive/conceptual activity available). Therefore, in order to account for a discursive/conceptual model of reality one has to start from the identity of thinking and being or from the fact that only thinking is real.

From this argument as to the sole reality of thinking, it is easy to derive a new conception of idealism that is not subject to the objections mentioned above that Hegel raised against (what were, in his eyes) the one-sided attempts by his fellow post-Kantians, in particular Fichte and Schelling. If all there is is thinking and if thinking is taken to be not only/primarily an activity of a (human) subject or something that can be present to the senses, but is conceived of as self-standing discursive/conceptual and in this respect ideal activity that opens up first and foremost a space for opposition in the general shape of subject and object then indeed, as he puts it, “every philosophy is essentially idealism” ( GW 21, 142) as long as it shares (regardless of whether explicitly or implicitly) this basic conviction of the reality of thinking. This idealism is non-oppositional, for it “the opposition between idealistic and realistic philosophy is therefore without meaning” ( GW 21, 142). One might doubt whether the term “idealism” is a very fitting name for the position Hegel endorses. In a way this term is rather misleading in that it seems to suggest that for Hegel the term “thinking” has connotations that point in the direction of the mental, the spiritual. Though Hegel definitely wants these connotations to obtain in certain contexts, they play no role in his metaphysical views. There the only relevant fact is the reality of thinking and the consequences of this fact. Hegel himself seems not to have been too happy with the term “idealism” as a characterization of his philosophy. This is shown by the fact that he very rarely uses it to this purpose. However, setting aside questions of terminology, it is safe to say that for Hegel’s general conception and defense of idealism three points are the most important to acknowledge: (1) it is a metaphysical (and not primarily an epistemological) conception of idealism, (2) it is a conception that establishes idealism by relying on the sole reality of thinking which in turn is taken to be an immediate fact, a given ( Vorhandenes , cf. GW 21, 55f.) in an almost Cartesian fashion, (3) however, contrary to the Cartesian “I think” this real thinking is not conceived of as an activity of a human or non-human subject but as an autochtonous activity that in the process of its own determination gives rise to conceptions of both subject and object founded in the primordial identity of thinking and being. Hegel certainly departs from Berkeley’s substance-based idealism, on which all that exists is finite minds and their ideas and the infinite mind and its, although it can certainly be asked what pure thinking not grounded in thinkers is supposed to be.

Hegel’s basic claim as to the identity of thinking and being might be said to have some initial plausibility if one takes such a claim to be a somewhat metaphorical expression of the view that in our ways of thinking about objects some conceptual elements are invariably involved. Understood along these lines, Hegel’s claim could be considered, as it often is, as nothing but a peculiar version of Kant’s empirical realism. Such an interpretation might even be suggested by the impression that Hegel as well as Kant takes thinking to be an activity that is characterized by operating on and with concepts and that what Hegel calls “being” can easily be identified with what within Kant’s epistemological framework is called “reality”, that is, the empirical reality of intuited objects rather than their transcendent grounds. Although this impression is by no means entirely groundless, it is still misleading because it does not do justice to the ontological connotations that Hegel wants to connect with this claim. For Hegel’s idealism it is indeed essential to convince us that it is a demonstrable fact that the world ultimately has to be conceived of as a thought (and thus as a conceptual item) that has objective existence or (in his terminology) that the world is the unique (because all-encompassing) Concept (written with a capital “C”) that is engaged in the process of its own realization (its objective expression), i.e., a realized concept. Therefore each individual object contained in the world, be it a physical (a tree, a lemon), a social (a society, a state) or a cultural (an artwork, a religion) object, has to be taken to be an element in this process, thus having the status of a partial manifestation of the all-encompassing Concept/world (subject/object, thinking/being). Obviously this conception of what the world and the objects it consists of really are—if it is not meant to be just another variation of either a dogmatic idealist claim in the spirit of Berkeley or a transcendental idealism à la Kant—has to use the terms “concept” and “real” in a way that is different from their traditional or normal use in the history of modern philosophy since Descartes. And so it is. For Hegel a concept is not a general representation in the mind of a subject nor is the term “real” meant to be restricted to hinting at the presence of some type of matter either physical or mental. Rather, Hegel thinks of a concept as providing what could be called a “structure plan” for its own realization, and he takes the term “real” to designate the successful realization of a structure plan or a concept; thus Hegel attempts to use these terms in a teleological sense without any mentalistic (i.e., psychological or representationalistic) ontological commitments. Although these somewhat unconventional connotations of Hegel’s concepts of “concept” and “real” (which have a certain basis in a peculiar German use of these terms) might be confusing, they are—at least in his eyes—by no means without descriptive value. Thus, to use examples that Hegel mentions in the Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit , it makes perfectly good sense to describe a fully grown oak-tree as the realization of its concept, i.e., what is contained as genetic structure in the acorn out of which the tree has developed, or to think of a political state as a realization of what belongs to the concept of a state, making the state the realization of a concept or an “objective thought”. However, although these examples can throw some light on why Hegel might think of his approach as leading to an ultimately idealistic conception of reality, the idealistic aspect of his view strictly speaking has to do with his theory of what he calls “the Concept” (with a “C”) whose realization is the world. It is this theory that commits him not just to idealism because of its radical conceptualism but also to metaphysical monism because of the singularity of the Concept, i.e., the world. Within the framework of this theory the Concept is conceived of as providing something like the master plan or the universal structure that governs not only the conceptual structure of individual kinds of objects but the structure of individual objects as well. This universal structure comes about by means of a process of conceptual self-determination that results in a complete exposition of the conceptual elements contained in the Concept, a process that is documented in Hegel’s Science of Logic . This process of self-determination is understood by Hegel as the way in which the Concept realizes itself. After all, the Concept, being a thought-object or an object-thought itself, must also have reality or being and thus has to realize itself.

Although Hegel definitely wants to overcome what he takes to be shortcomings both of Kant’s philosophy and of the positions of his post-Kantian contemporaries Fichte and Schelling, at the same time he does not want to give up on the post-Kantian project of transforming Kant’s transcendental idealism, which restricts knowledge to the subject’s own experience, into a robust new idealism based on dynamic principles of world-constitution. He differs from Fichte and Schelling in that he does not ground these principles either in some activity of a subject (Fichte) or in a cognitively inaccessible primordial unity (Schelling) but in the idea of a thoroughly conceptual organization of reality giving rise to what he calls in the introduction to the second edition of the Science of Logic an “intellectual view of the universe” ( Intellektualansicht des Universums ) ( GW 21, 34). In this way, Hegel does try to reconcile the need for conceptual elements constitutive of traditional epistemological idealism with (most of) the categorical commitments characteristic of traditional ontological idealism yet in a way that no longer requires the opposition between epistemology and ontology.

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) heaped a great deal of invective on Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel. For that reason, Schopenhauer is not always included among the German idealists. And indeed, nothing could be further from Hegel’s version of absolute idealism than Schopenhauer’s theory on which behind the realm of appearances constructed in accordance with our own conceptions of space, time, and causality—his form of the empirical realism side of transcendental idealism—there is a unitary reality that is utterly irrational or at least arational—his form of Kant’s ontological realism, but flipped from practical to theoretical and from rational to arational. Nevertheless, since Schopenhauer works within a Kantian framework, and identifies underlying reality with pure activity, although of an arational rather than rational kind, it is useful to think of him within the framework of idealism.

Schopenhauer puts forward his theory in his main work The World as Will and Representation ( Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung ), first published in December, 1818 (with an 1819 date on its title page), and then in a much-expanded second edition in 1844 and yet another expanded edition in 1857. This book had been preceded by a doctoral dissertation On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason (1813), which Schopenhauer subsequently regarded as the introduction to his magnum opus. The earlier work includes Schopenhauer’s main modifications to the structure of Kant’s epistemology, while the later work accepts Kant’s idealist interpretation of this epistemology (Book I) and then replaces Kant’s version of the doctrine of things in themselves with Schopenhauer’s own version of the unitary non-rational will underlying all appearance (Book II).

Schopenhauer’s acceptance of the empirical side of Kant’s transcendental idealism combined with his non-rational version of Kant’s ontological realism is, however, on display throughout The World as Will and Representation . Schopenhauer accepts without reservation Kant’s argument that space, time, and causality are forms of our own representation that we know a priori and impose upon the appearances of objects. He does precede this acceptance with a Fichtean argument that “The world is my representation”, where the sheer “mineness” of representation is supposed to be a “form…more universal than any other form”, including space, time, and causality ( WWR , §1, p. 23). Schopenhauer holds that

no truth is more certain, no truth is more independent of all others and no truth is less in need of proof than this one: that everything there is for cognition (i.e., the whole world) is only an object in relation to a subject, an intuition of a beholder. ( WWR , §1, pp. 23–4)

This simple and perhaps inescapable thought may be regarded as the most fundamental epistemological motivation for any form of idealism. On the basis of this proposition, Schopenhauer then tries to distinguish his position from what he takes to be the skepticism of Hume, that there is a real question about whether there is either a subject or an object in addition to representations, and from the dogmatism of Fichte, that both of these can be proved; his own view as initially stated is rather that

the object as such always presupposes the subject as its necessary correlate: so the subject always remains outside the jurisdiction of the principle of sufficient reason. ( WWR , §5, p. 35)

But, speaking of dogmatism, he simply accepts from Kant that

space and time can not only be conceived abstractly, on their own and independently of their content, but they can also be intuited immediately,

This intuition is not some phantasm derived from repeated experience; rather, it is something independent of experience, and to such an extent that experience must in fact be conceived as dependent on it, since the properties of time and space, as they are known a priori in intuition, apply to all experience as laws that it must always come out in accordance with. ( WWR , §3, p. 27)

By this remark, Schopenhauer indicates his recognition that Kant derives his epistemological idealism from his understanding of the implications of our a priori cognition of space and time, but he does not attempt to explain Kant’s inference or to add any argument of his own. Schopenhauer also does not doubt that there is something other than the representing subject beyond what it represents, an underlying reality beginning with its own body as it is rather than as it merely appears.

Schopenhauer’s fundamental departure from Kant is already suggested in this passage:

We have immediate cognition of the thing in itself when it appears to us as our own body; but our cognition is only indirect when the thing in itself is objectified in other objects of intuition. ( WWR , §6, pp. 40–1)

What Schopenhauer means is that although we have an experience of our own bodies, as it were from the outside, through the same forms of space, time, and causality through which we experience all other bodies, including other animate bodies, and in this regard we experience all bodies including our own as mere appearance through the forms we impose on experience, we also have another experience, each of us of his or her own body, as it were from the inside, namely we have an experience of willing an action and of our bodies as the instruments of our wills, with no separation between will and action and thus no relevance of spatial separation, temporal succession, or difference between cause and effect. However—and this is the argument of Book II—our immediate experience of our own bodies as instruments of our wills is an experience of our actions being immediately determined by desire rather than by reason. “To the pure subject of cognition as such, [his] body is a representation like any other among objects”, but

will …and this alone gives him the key to his own appearance, reveals to him the meaning and shows him the inner workings of his essence, his deeds, his movements; ( WWR , §18, p. 124)

and what we discover when we look closely at our wills is that they are governed not by reason but by impulse, at its most fundamental level a “dark, dull driving” ( WWR , §27, p. 174), and even at its highest, most clarified level, still desires or apparently “creative drives” that only “seem to perform their tasks from abstract, rational motives” ( WWR , §27, p. 182). It is not our planning and calculating drives that best express the real nature of the will but our genitals ( WWR , §20, p. 133). Of course, it is well known that following the lead of one’s genitals is a pretty good formula for disappointment, and for Schopenhauer this reveals the frustration to which a will driven by desire ultimately leads: either one does not get what one wants, the object of one’s desire, and is frustrated, or one does, but then one wants more, and either does not get that, so is frustrated, or does, but then wants more, and so on ad infinitum . Trying to truly satisfy desire is the height of irrationality, but for Schopenhauer there is nothing else we can will—we can at best try to escape from the clutches of will altogether, whether through art, asceticism, or compassion.

But of course, if the underlying nature of reality, the thing in itself, is nothing other than will, then escape from its clutches should not really be possible but should at most be apparent. And not only does Schopenhauer equate our experience of ourselves “from the inside” as desire-driven will with our own ultimate reality, our character as things in themselves; he also argues that we have no choice but to think of the underlying reality of all appearance in this way, because this is our only form of insight into—or acquaintance with—anything as a thing in itself. We can only “take the key to the understanding of the essence in itself of things” to be the

key provided…by the immediate cognition of our own essence, and apply it to [the] appearances in the inorganic [and organic] world as well,

even appearances that are more remote from us than any others. Ultimate reality, because, Schopenhauer assumes,

it is everywhere one and the same,…must be called will here as well as there, a name signifying the being in itself of every thing in the world and the sole kernel of every appearance. ( WWR , §23, pp. 142–3)

Schopenhauer devotes many pages to empirical descriptions of the similarities between the forces at work throughout the rest of nature and the merely apparently rational but really non-rational character of our own behavior, but of course the character of things in themselves cannot be inferred directly from any amount of empirical data; Schopenhauer derives his conclusion not from all this empirical illustration but rather from our allegedly immediate rather than empirical insight into the character of our own wills and the very problematic premise that at bottom everything is essentially one. His position thus begins from an epistemological premise, namely that we can know ultimate reality through knowing ourselves, and reaches an ontological conclusion, that ultimate reality must be like ourselves, but in opposition to Kant and the other German idealists he assumes that our own nature is essentially non-rational and therefore that the ultimate character of reality, although it is in a certain sense like the mental, is also fundamentally non-rational.

It may seem far-fetched to think of Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) as an idealist. After all, he presented himself as an almost fanatical anti-idealist throughout his life. In many of his published and unpublished writings as well as in his letters he expresses over and again his dislike and his disdain for what he calls “idealism”. A telling summary of his position concerning idealism is to be found in his letter to Malvida von Meysenburg (20 October 1888):

and I treat idealism as untruthfulness that has become an instinct, a not-wanting-to-see reality at any price: every sentence of my writings contains contempt for idealism. (Nietzsche, eKGWB BVN-1888, 1135 )

This harsh assessment is by no means easy to understand given his known sympathies with a perspectival approach to objects of cognition, his insistence that falsification or tampering ( Verfälschung ) is at the basis of most of our cognitive judgments, and his claims as to the dependence of knowledge on needs. Considerations like these suggest that in spite of his protests, idealistic modes of thinking are not alien to Nietzsche. At least some of his beliefs are compatible with what has been called here epistemological arguments for idealism although Nietzsche himself would have taken these beliefs to express a form of realism. However, before searching for and elaborating on possible idealistic tendencies in his own thoughts, we should find out what “idealism” meant for Nietzsche and why he was so hostile to it.

Idealism, for Nietzsche, seems to be a particularly unappealing form of metaphysics, in other words of philosophy as it has been practiced throughout history from the era of the ancient Greeks up to his own time (because of his contempt for Kant’s postulates of pure practical reason, Nietzsche gave little credence to Kant’s theoretical critique of traditional metaphysics). Philosophy in this traditional shape he took to be a somewhat enigmatic endeavor to pursue the mutually excluding tasks of (culture-forming) art and religion on the one hand and of (cognition-focused) science on the other (see Nachgelassene Fragmente : Notebook 19, [47], [62], [218]; KSA 7. 434). It is doomed to failure because of two fundamental shortcomings. The first is that it gives a privileged status to truth in declaring truth to be the ultimate goal at which it aims. This preoccupation with truth is based on the implicit assumption that truth has some overriding value. This assumption has never been justified, not even addressed by any philosopher. Nietzsche writes in the Genealogy of Morals (1887: Section 24):

Turn to the most ancient and most modern philosophies: all of them lack a consciousness of the extent to which the will to truth itself needs a justification, here is a gap in every philosophy—where does it come from? Because the ascetic ideal has so far been lord over all philosophy, because truth was set as being, as god, as the highest authority itself, because truth was not allowed to be a problem. Do you understand this “allowed to be”?—From the very moment that faith in the God of the ascetic ideal is denied, there is a new problem as well : that of the value of truth.—The will to truth needs a critique—let us hereby define our own task—the value of truth is tentatively to be called into question . ( KSA 5. 401; Third Essay)

However, it is not the problem of the value of truth but the second shortcoming that, in Nietzsche’s eyes, leads directly to metaphysics. It is the tendency of philosophers to deny the obvious, to neglect surfaces in favor of what is allegedly behind them, out of habitual weakness and anxiety to prefer the stable and immutable over and against change and becoming. This critical sentiment Nietzsche expresses quite often at different places in many of his published and unpublished writings. A nice example is the following note:

On the psychology of metaphysics. This world is apparent—consequently there is a true world. This world is conditioned—consequently there is an unconditioned world. This world is full of contradiction—consequently there is a world free from contradiction. This world is becoming—consequently there is an existing [ seiende ] world. All false inferences (blind trust in reason: if A is, there must be its opposing concept B). It is suffering that inspires these inferences: at bottom there are wishes that such a world might be; similarly hatred of a world that causes suffering expresses itself through the imagination of another world, one full of value: the ressentiment of the metaphysicians against the actual world is here creative. (Notebook 8 [2]; reprinted in KSA 12. 327)

This tendency to “falsify” ( verfälschen ) or to “re-evaluate/reframe” ( umdeuten ) reality out of resentment is, according to Nietzsche, especially well documented in the idealistic tradition in metaphysics, as is shown paradigmatically in Plato’s idealism. It was Plato who invented the idea of another world that is much more real, much more true than the ever changing, always unstable world in which we live; he invented the fiction of the supreme reality of an imperishable and everlasting ideal world inhabited by archetypal ideas and immutable forms, a “world in itself” in comparison to which the “ Lebenswelt ” of everyday experience is just a pale shadow. Yet Nietzsche seems undecided how to evaluate the real motives that led Plato to his idealism. Sometimes he wants to distinguish Plato from other idealists by crediting him with some obscure positive reason for endorsing idealism. In section 372 of The Gay Science , entitled precisely “ Why we are not idealists ”, he writes:

In sum: all philosophical idealism until now was something like an illness, except where, as in the case of Plato, it was the caution of an overabundant and dangerous health, the fear of overpowerful senses, the shrewdness of a shrewd Socratic. ( KSA 3. 623)

However, there are other passages where Nietzsche is not in such a charitable mood and where he presents the ultimate reasons for Plato’s strong leanings towards idealism as rooted in weakness and resentment just as with all the other idealists in the history of philosophy (e.g., Ecce Homo 3; reprinted in KSA 6. 311). His ultimate verdict on metaphysics in all its ancient and modern forms is nicely expressed in the following note:

On the psychology of metaphysics. The influence of fearfulness. What has been most feared, the cause of the most powerful suffering (the lust for domination, sexual lust, etc.) has been treated by humans most hostile and eliminated from the “true” world. Thus they have step by step wiped out the affects—claimed God to be the opposite of the evil, i.e., reality to consist in the negation of desires and affects (which is to say precisely in nothingness). Likewise they hate the irrational, the arbitrary, the accidental (as the cause of countless physical suffering). Consequently they negate this element in that-which-is-in-itself, they conceive it as absolute “rationality” and “purposiveness”. In the same way they fear change, transitoriness: therein is expressed an oppressed soul, full of mistrust and bad experience (The case of Spinoza: an inverted sort of person would count this change as charming). A playful being overladen with power would call precisely the affects, unreason and change good in an eudaimonistic sense, together with their consequences, with danger, contrast, dissolution, etc.. ( KSA 13. 536)

However, this thoroughly critical assessment of all forms of idealisms as abominable expressions of intellectual weakness and vindictiveness seems to be at odds with another of Nietzsche’s cherished beliefs, according to which we have to take reality to be not only dependent on but ultimately constituted by the respective perspectives on or the respective ways of interpreting what we encounter. This Nietzschean view can give rise to the impression that in the end he might have been closer to endorsing some form of epistemologically motivated idealism. This leads to the topics of perspectivism and interpretation ( Auslegung ) in Nietzsche.

Although the details are far from clear, the general tendency of his perspectivism is expressed quite well in aphorism 374 from The Gay Science :

How far the perspectival character of existence extends, indeed whether it has any other character; whether an existence without interpretation, without “sense”, does not become “non-sense”; whether, on the other hand, all existence is not essentially an interpreting existence—that cannot be decided, as would be fair, even by the most studious and scrupulous analysis and self-examination of the intellect; for in the course of this analysis, the human intellect cannot avoid seeing itself under its perspectival forms, and solely in these.…Rather, the world has once again become infinite to us: insofar as we cannot reject the possibility that it includes infinite interpretations . ( KSA 3. 626)

This view, according to which, further, the world each of us is experiencing is the product of an interpretation forced on us by some unconscious overriding drive ( Trieb ) that is the formative mark of the individual character of each of us, might be seen as endorsing a version of idealism if, as it is here, idealism is understood as the claim that what appears to be known as it is independent of the mind is in the end inescapably marked by the creative, formative, constructive activities of human mind, whether individual or collective. However, it is far from clear whether Nietzsche wants us to think of this process of interpretation which leads to a specific perspective as a mind-dependent activity. Sometimes it seems as if he is favoring a quasi-Humean view according to which the intellect operates in the service of some anonymous affective and emotional drives in such a way that it just provides a set of necessary means to consciously realize what drives force us to do. The following note, for example, points in this direction:

Against positivism, which would stand by the position “There are only facts”, I would say: no, there are precisely no facts, only interpretations. We can establish no fact “in itself”: it is perhaps nonsense to want such a thing. You say “Everything is subjective”: but that is already an interpretation, the “subject” is not anything given, but something invented and added, something stuck behind…To the extent that the word “knowledge” [ Erkenntnis ] has any sense, the world is knowable: but it is interpretable differently, it has no sense behind it, but innumerable senses, “perspectivism”. It is our needs that interpret the world: our drives and their to and fro. Every drive is a kind of domination, every one has its perspective, which it would force on all other drives as a norm. (Notebook 7 [60]. KSA 12. 315)

In other passages Nietzsche seems to be more in line with a by and large Kantian view according to which the intellect provides some rules of transformation of what is given by the senses as individual and discrete data into more general representations. Thus we find him claiming in section 354 of The Gay Science :

This is what I understand to be true phenomenalism and perspectivism: that due to the nature of animal consciousness , the world of which we can become conscious is merely a surface- and sign-world, a world turned into generalities and thereby debased to its lowest common denominator,—that everything that enters consciousness thereby becomes superficial, thin, relatively stupid, general, a sign, a mark of the herd, that all becoming-conscious involves a vast and fundamental corruption, falsification, superficialization, and generalization. ( KSA 3. 593)

Be this as it may, at least as far as epistemological idealism is concerned it is by no means obvious that either his explicit criticism of idealism or his remarks on the ways we make up epistemic worlds prevent Nietzsche from coming close to an idealist position himself. This is so because in epistemology his main enemy does not seem to be idealism but all forms of realism.

Although his epistemology does not explicitly imply any ontological claims, one could be tempted to see Nietzsche as toying with some ontologically idealistic fantasies. His speculations concerning the will to power as the ultimate dynamic foundation of all reality fall into this category. For example,

Perspectivism is only a complex form of specificity[.] My idea is, that every specific body strives to become lord over all of space and to expand its force (—its will to power) and to repel everything that resists its own expansion. But it perpetually collides with the equal efforts of other bodies, and ends by making an arrangement (“unifying”) with those that are closely enough related to it:—thus they conspire together to power. And the process goes on…. (Notebook 14 [186]. KSA 13. 373 f.)

This idea of conspiring forces as the supreme world-constituting entities can look like an allusion to Kant’s physics of attraction and repulsion, but also to a version of ontological idealism like those of Fichte and Schelling because it too invites us to conceive of dynamic processes as ontologically prior to (physical or mental) objects and events. Thus, in the end there are no real obstacles to thinking of Nietzsche as an idealist on ontological as well as epistemological grounds, although the speculations that lead him in the former direction may be separable from the latter.

However, even after the heyday of German idealism that ended with Hegel’s death, it is not just the work of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche that show traces of idealistic thinking in the German speaking world. Although it goes beyond the scope of this article, some hints about the fate of idealism in Germany might be appropriate. Interest especially in metaphysical versions of idealism waned in Germany in the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth (although it remained lively in other parts of Europe, e.g., in Italy, in the person of Benedetto Croce), but engagement with idealist positions and points of view did not entirely vanish. The decline of interest in idealism during this period had to do primarily with a certain aversion against what was taken to have been an excessive and extravagant usurpation of all fields of intellectual discourse by the classical German philosophers under the pretext of idealism. This line of criticism was voiced most forcefully by influential natural scientists like Hermann von Helmholtz. Marginalization of idealism in these years also was an effect of the rise of Neo-Kantianism, which at least partly came into being both in its Marburg-school (Hermann Cohen, Paul Natorp, Ernst Cassirer) and in its Southwest(Heidelberg)-school (Wilhelm Windelband, Heinrich Rickert, Emil Lask) version as a reaction against the German idealists. Although insofar as Neo-Kantianism was a reaction mainly to absolute idealism it could not entirely reject epistemological arguments of the kind that had traditionally led to idealism, especially in its Kantian variety. Hence idealistic tendencies can be found in Neo-Kantianism too, and Martin Heidegger’s later version of realism can be interpreted as a response to the idealism in Neo-Kantianism.

Despite these critical attitudes towards idealism, which contributed to its decline as a major philosophical position in the German intellectual milieu before the first World War, idealistic claims based on metaphysical and/or epistemological arguments can still be found in the works of some of the (at least at that time) better known philosophers. In particular, the writings of Friedrich Adolf Trendelenburg (1802–1872) and Rudolf Hermann Lotze (1817–1881) are documents of a lasting influence of idealistic figures and practices of thought, as was highlighted in detail by Beiser (2013). Trendelenburg’s interpretation of his central concept of motion ( Bewegung ) and Lotze’s vindication of his theory of value ( Wert ) reveal quite tellingly their efforts to preserve essential idealistic features of both Hegel’s metaphysics (Trendelenburg) and Kant’s epistemology (Lotze). It also has to be kept in mind that during this period there were still active right (old) and left (new) Hegelians who were either critically or apologetically committed to a broadly Hegelian or idealistic framework in philosophy. There were also those around who sympathized with certain aspects of Hegel’s philosophy. All these voices had some impact on philosophical discussions mainly about religion (e.g., Immanuel Hermann Fichte, Christian Hermann Weisse) and politics (e.g., Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, David Friedrich Strauss). A similar observation can be made with respect to Karl Marx and the Marxists: although they were outspoken opponents of an idealism in Hegel’s sense, their anti-idealism did not stop them from entertaining idealistic notions of the development of history or the unavoidability of social progress, with eventually profound consequences for twentieth-century history. In spite of all this, it is fair to say that idealism fell out of fashion in the German speaking world, and has stayed that way.

Things were different in the English-speaking world, where idealism became an important topic in a wide spectrum of philosophical discussions ranging from metaphysics via aesthetics to moral and social theories. In England, Scotland, and Wales an idealism that was ultimately both epistemological and ontological in motivation became the dominant approach to philosophy for several decades, while in the United States idealism could not monopolize philosophy, having to share the stage with and ultimately reach an accommodation with pragmatism, but it nevertheless also flourished for several decades. The best known and most outspoken spokesmen in favor of idealistic conceptions in metaphysics and elsewhere in Britain in these years were Thomas Hill Green and Francis Herbert Bradley at Oxford and John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart at Cambridge, while in the United States the most prominent idealist was Josiah Royce at Harvard, where idealism’s having to share the stage with pragmatism was personified in Royce’s friendly rivalry with William James and in Royce’s ultimate attempt to synthesize his view with that of Charles Sanders Peirce. Although all of these figures are frequently characterized as being indebted to Hegel’s writings and advocating a Hegelian view of reality, their various positions are at best in a somewhat indirect, almost only metaphorical, sense informed by Hegel’s philosophy. In fact, these philosophers were more willing to call themselves idealists than had been the earlier German idealists who supposedly inspired them, but who as has been argued were just as interested in escaping as in accepting the label. This is shown most tellingly insofar as their approach to a defense of idealism goes back to a state of the discussion characteristic of the period prior to Hegel and German idealism in general, rather connecting more directly to an understanding of idealism influenced by eighteenth-century disputes in the wake of Berkeley. None of these figures except perhaps Royce continued to explore a dynamic conception of idealism distinctive of Hegel and the other German idealists—Royce in fact wrote more extensively and insightfully on Hegel and his immediate predecessors than any of the others with the exception of McTaggart. In general, the late nineteenth-century idealists were more inclined to think of idealism or, maybe more accurately, spiritualism again as a genuine alternative to materialism and embark again on the controversy whether matter or mind/spirit is the ultimate “stuff” of reality. These philosophers were thus more willing to identify themselves as idealists than had been their predecessors. However, these philosophers were not all equally monists. Both Bradley and McTaggart, for whom a defense of idealism consists mainly in establishing the ontological point that reality is exclusively spirit, were, and thus their idealism could also be called “spiritual monism”. But both Green at the beginning of the movement and Royce towards its end strove for more nuanced positions, not excluding the existence of matter from their idealisms, and thus resisted monism. But all their efforts to establish a convincing form of idealism, whether in the form of spiritualism or in a form that allowed some role for matter as well, became rapidly unfashionable even during the lifetimes of all these philosophers (except for Green, who died young) due to what was called “the revolt against idealism” staged at the turn of the twentieth century in Britain by Bertrand Russell and G. E. Moore and a decade later in the United States by a group of “New Realists”. However, as we will suggest at least Russell was himself pushed back in the direction of some form of idealism, perhaps only on epistemological grounds, by the time his own thought reached the stage of his “logical atomism”. For the most part, however, after the attacks on Bradley and Royce, explicit avowal of idealism became rare, with a few exceptions such as the prominent defense of idealism by Brand Blanshard in the 1930s and less prominent defenses by Timothy Sprigge and John Foster in the early 1980s

Thomas Hill Green (1836–82) was the first of the great Oxford idealists. He is best remembered for a lengthy polemic with Hume that he published in the form of an introduction to a collected edition of Hume that he co-edited and for his posthumously published Prolegomena to Ethics , which is a polemic against utilitarianism from the point of view of a perfectionism inspired by Kant as well as by Hegel. But the first of the four books of the Prolegomena is a “Metaphysics of Knowledge”, beginning with a statement of “The Spiritual Principle in Knowledge and in Nature” (1893: 13), which argues for a form of idealism on both epistemological and ontological grounds, and Green’s posthumous works also included a set of lectures on Kant in which he engaged quite directly with Kant’s form of idealism. Green also left behind a set of Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation that form one of the crucial documents of the political and social philosophy of British idealism and of idealism in the broadest sense mentioned at the outset of this entry.

Green’s motivation in arguing for idealism in the Prolegomena is to prepare the way for a conception of the will as free and creative as the foundation of his ethics—in this regard Green’s view is as much in the spirit of Kant’s practical idealism as it is Hegelian. Green’s idealism is expounded in three main steps. First, and here also much influenced by Kant, he argues that knowledge never consists in the mere apprehension of discrete items, but in the recognition of order or relation, and that such order or relation is not given but is constituted by and in consciousness. Thus,

The terms “real” and “objective”…have no meaning except for a consciousness which presents its experiences to itself as determined by relations, and at the same time conceives a single and unalterable order of relations determining them, with which its temporary presentation, as each experience occurs, of the relations determining it may be contrasted. ( Prolegomena , 1893: 17)

From this he infers that

experience, in the sense of a consciousness of events as a related series—and in no other sense can it help to account for the knowledge of an order of nature—cannot be explained by any natural history, properly so called, (1893: 21–22)

but must instead be constituted by mind itself, or,

the understanding which presents an order of nature to us is in principle one with an understanding which constitutes that order itself. (1893: 23)

Thus far, Green’s position could be considered an epistemological argument for idealism. However, he quickly moves beyond a merely epistemological argument, because his next move is to argue that since the order of which any individual human being is in various ways and to various degrees aware obviously extends beyond what could plausibly be thought to be constituted just by that individual, the order of which we are each aware must be constituted by a mind or intelligence greater than that of any of us, thus there must be “an eternal intelligence realized in the related facts of the world”, and the world must be “a system of related facts rendered possible by such an intelligence”, which intelligence “partially and gradually reproduces itself in us, communicating piece-meal but in inseparable correlation” aspects of that order to each of us if not complete knowledge of it to any of us (1893: 38). Green’s insistence on a supra-individual intelligence as the source of cosmic order in which individual intelligences in some way participate is a decided move beyond epistemology, and in his own view it is also a significant departure from Kant, whose agnosticism about the real nature of things in themselves, at least in the theoretical mood, “would at once withhold us” from such an inference to the “spirituality of the real world” (1893: 43). However, and here is the third main thesis of Green’s form of idealism, the participation of individual human beings in the supra-individual intelligence which constitutes the comprehensive system of relations can be seen as an apprehension of some portion of that order by animal organisms :

in the growth of our experience, in the process of our learning to know the world, an animal organism, which has its history in time, gradually becomes the vehicle of an eternally complete consciousness; (1893: 72)

it is the eternal consciousness,

as so far realized in or communicated to us through modification of the animal organism, that constitutes our knowledge, with the relations, characteristic of knowledge, into which time does not enter, which are not in becoming but are once for all what they are. (1893: 73)

Green’s form of spiritualism is thus not incompatible with ontological dualism: the object of all knowledge is the complete and eternal order of things, which must be constituted by an intelligence greater than that of any individual human being, but individual human beings are in fact organisms, thus matter, to which some aspect of that intelligence is communicated. The epistemological aspect of Green’s idealism is complete, because knowledge on the part of an individual is understood as consisting in a grasp of an order that is itself mental, but his ontology is not exclusively mentalistic, for while it includes the necessary existence of a supra-individual intelligence or spirit but allows the existence of animal organisms (and thus presumably of other forms of matter as well).

Francis Herbert Bradley (1846–1924), however, argued for a more exclusive spiritualism, or an idealist ontology. Bradley presents his metaphysical views on the constitution and the main characteristics of reality most explicitly in Appearance and Reality: A Metaphysical Essay, which was first published in 1893 and reprinted many times during his lifetime. He famously proceeds from the claim that the traditional and received “ideas by which we try to understand the universe” are contradictory (1893: 11 [1897: 9]). He substantiates this claim by examining a range of central concepts from metaphysics and epistemology, among them the concepts of primary and secondary qualities, of substance and attribute, of quality and relation, space and time, of causality as well as the concept of a thing and that of the self. The best known of his destructive arguments against these conceptions is that against qualities and relations because it played a role in the discussion that arose at the turn of the twentieth century between Bradley, Russell and Moore (among others) about the logical and ontological status of relations, i.e., whether they are “internal’’ or “external” to their terms. As to qualities and relations Bradley claims:

The arrangement of given facts into relations and qualities may be necessary in practice, but it is theoretically unintelligible. The reality, so characterized, is not true reality, but is appearance. (1893: 25 [1897: 21])

He starts with pointing out that “[q]ualities are nothing without relations” (ibid.). This is so because in order to be qualities they have to differ from other qualities and hence have to be distinct. However, without relations they could not be distinct. But distinctiveness presupposes plurality and plurality relations.

Their plurality depends on relation, and, without that relation, they are not distinct. But, if not distinct, then not different, and therefore not qualities. (1893: 28 [1897: 24])

Not only without relations are qualities nothing, “[u]nfortunately, taken together with them, they are equally unintelligible” (1893: 30 [1897: 25]). The reason is that one cannot account for their distinctiveness if their distinctiveness is based on their being different: “In short, qualities in a relation have turned out as unintelligible as were qualities without one” (1893: 31–32 [1897: 27]). The same holds, according to Bradley, from the side of relations. “They are nothing intelligible, either with or without their qualities” (1893: 32 [1897: 27]). They are nothing intelligible without qualities because “a relation without terms seems mere verbiage” (ibid.). They are nothing intelligible with qualities either for in order for a relation to relate it must stand in a relation to what it relates which makes it into a quality that requires “a new connecting relation” (ibid.) if it is to relate to that quality. Bradley summarizes as the result:

The conclusion to which I am brought is that a relational way of thought—any one that moves by the machinery of terms and relations—must give appearance, and not truth. (1893: 33 [1897: 28])

The result of his examination not just of the concepts of quality and relation but of all the other concepts he deals with consists in the verdict that all attempts to capture the true nature of reality in terms of these categories are futile because all these concepts are unintelligible, inconsistent and in the end self-contradictory. This means that what is designated by means of them cannot be real, but can only reflect the way the world appears to us, not the way it really is. This diagnosis is based on Bradley’s fundamental conviction that “ultimate reality is such that it does not contradict itself” (1893: 136 [1897: 120]). He takes this to be “an absolute criterion” (ibid.). However, to be just appearance is not to be unreal in the sense of an illusion. On the contrary, although appearance is “inconsistent with itself”, one cannot deny its existence or “divorce it from reality” because “reality, set on one side and apart from all appearance, would assuredly be nothing” (1893: 132 [1897: 114]).

But does this ontological argument for idealism exclude epistemology altogether? That is, since appearance always proves to be an inadequate way in which reality is present to us, is it beyond our means ever to become acquainted with the true essence of ultimate reality or can we avoid skepticism and claim that it is indeed possible for us to have access to the constitutive nature of reality? Bradley emphatically endorses the latter possibility. According to him, the self-contradictoriness of what is appearance already implies that there is positive knowledge of reality: reality has to be One in the sense that it does not allow discord and it must be such that it can include diversity (cf. 1893: 140 [1897: 123]), i.e., “the Absolute is … an individual and a system” (1893: 144 [1897: 127]). This character of reality as an internally diversified individual system is revealed to us in sentient experience. “Sentient experience … is reality, and what is not this is not real” (ibid.). According to Bradley it is this sentient experience that “is commonly called psychical existence” (ibid.). The material basis of sentient experience is exhausted in feeling, thought, and volition. Thus reality consists in what has to be taken as the undifferentiated unity of these modes of sentient experience before these modes make their appearance as different aspects of experience. This leads Bradley to assume that what is ultimately real is just what gives rise to appearances where appearances have to be understood as specific forms under which the underlying undifferentiated unity appears in each of these different aspects of experience. In his words:

… there is no way of qualifying the Real except by appearances, and outside the Real there remains no space in which appearances could live. (1893: 551 [1897: 489])

Although he concedes “our complete inability to understand this concrete unity in detail” he insists that this inability “is no good ground for our declining to entertain it” (1894: 160 [1897: 141]). And although he claims at the end of his metaphysical essay that he does not know whether his “conclusions” are to be called Realism or Idealism (1893: 547 [1897: 485]), at the very end he nevertheless abruptly states: “We may fairly close this work then by insisting that Reality is spiritual” (1893: 552 [1897: 489). This might lead us to assume that, “in the end” (a favorite phrase of Bradley’s), it was primarily his search for a basis for spiritualism and not so much a defense of idealism understood as opposed to realism that motivated him to explore the true nature of reality; in other words, he was ultimately driven by an impulse toward idealism by ontological premises even though he had developed powerful arguments epistemological arguments for idealism.

The identification of idealism with spiritualism, thus again an ontological interpretation of idealism, is most explicit in the works of John McTaggart Ellis McTaggart (1866–1925). His earliest work, “The Further Determination of the Absolute” (first published as a pamphlet in 1893, then as Chapter IX of Studies in Hegelian Cosmology [1901] and in Philosophical Studies [1934]), starts with the following proclamation:

The progress of an idealistic philosophy may, from some points of view, be divided into three stages. The problem of the first is to prove that reality is not exclusively matter. The problem of the second is to prove that reality is exclusively spirit. The problem of the third is to determine what is the fundamental nature of spirit. (1901 [1934: 210 f.])

And the last of his writings published in his lifetime (“An Ontological Idealism”) starts with the confession, explicitly employing the same terminology that we have used here: “Ontologically I am an Idealist, since I believe that all that exists is spiritual” (1924 [1934: 273]). He takes spirit to be the sum total of individual spirits or selves connected by the relation of love and bases this conviction on the claim that only this conception of what ultimate reality consists in allows us to overcome unavoidable contradictions connected with all other attempts to reconcile unity and diversity as the distinguishing marks of reality. Harmony between unity and diversity can be established only on the basis of an all-encompassing relation of love between all the characteristic elements of reality, which in turn presupposes thinking of ultimate reality as a community of spirits or as Spirit. These—as McTaggart himself admits (1924 [1934: 271 f.])—rather mystical-sounding assertions, which he adhered to all his life, he tries to back up by a number of different considerations. In his earliest writing he relies heavily on views held by Bradley to the effect that we have to accept that contradictions are a criterion for non-reality. However, he does not employ this criterion as a logical maxim but transforms it into an ontological principle according to which everything that prevents harmony cannot be real. In his last work, his attempt to present an argument for his ontological idealism is based mainly on (1) mereological considerations concerning the structure of substances which aim to show that only spirits can claim the status of a substance, and on (2) his theory of time, the unreality of which he famously had proven in his magnum opus The Nature of Existence (1921/27). In the first volume of this work he attempts to prove by a priori reasoning ( NE §43) that all that really exists are substances. Substances according to McTaggart are infinitely divisible and therefore cannot have simple parts. Between substances and their individual features there obtains a relation of determining correspondence such that each feature determines and is determined by all the other. Given these a priori characteristics of what can exist the task McTaggart tackles in the second volume is to

consider various characteristics as to which our experience gives us … a prima facie suggestion that they are possessed either by all that exists, or by some existent things ( NE §295)

• “which of these characteristics can really be possessed by what is existent” and
• “of those which are found to be possible characteristics of the existent, whether any of them can be known to be actual characteristics of it” ( NE §295).

This double task cannot be settled by a priori means but has to be approached by starting from empirical assumptions based on experience. If one has to acknowledge that the ways we are bound to conceive of all these experiential or phenomenal characteristics lead to contradictions then these characteristics cannot be true of reality. McTaggart’s strategy here is strongly reminiscent of Bradley’s procedure to downgrade many phenomena to appearances and to deny them the status of constitutive elements of reality. The empirically given characteristics McTaggart discusses primarily are (a) time, (b) matter, (c) sensa, (d) spirit and (e) cogitation. As to (a) time he denies that “anything existent [can] possess the characteristic of being in time” ( NE §303) where time is understood as an ordering relation between events. He distinguishes between two ways of ordering in time. The first gives rise to what he calls the “A-series” according to which every state of affairs (event, thing) is either past or present or future. The second, the so-called “B-series”, relates transitively and asymmetrically states of affairs in terms of earlier and later (cf. NE §306). He claims that the A-series is more fundamental than the B-series because only the A-series can account for change ( NE §317) and goes on to demonstrate that (a) the A-series and the B-series contradict each other in the sense that they belong together though they are incompatible (cf. NE §333) and that (b) the (more fundamental) A-series leads to time determinations of a state of affairs that are contradictory. The result:

We conclude that the distinctions of past, present and future are essential to time, and that, if the distinctions are never true of reality, then no reality is in time. ( NE §324)

Though never true of reality these distinctions are not empty because according to McTaggart they have to be taken as appearances of a third series, the C-series, “a series which is not a time series, but under certain conditions appears to us to be one”. This C-series “does actually exist in every case in which there is the appearance of a time-series” ( NE §347). McTaggart thinks of the C-series (at least in The Nature of Existence ) as an “Inclusion Series” ( NE §575)

whose members are connected by the relations “inclusive of” and “inclusive in”, so that of any two terms one will be inclusive of the other, and the other will be included in it. ( NE §575)

Concerning (b) matter which he characterizes as “something which possesses the primary qualities” ( NE §355) he also wants to prove that it does not exist ( NE §364). This is so because all that exists are substances that have to be infinitely divisible. Matter, however,

cannot be divided into parts of parts to infinity either in respect of its spatial dimensions, or of that dimension which appears as temporal. And matter, as usually defines, and as we have defined it, has no other dimensions. … And therefore it cannot exist. ( NE §362)

The existence of matter can also not be inferred on the basis of the prima facie existence of what I perceive “by means of the sense organs of our bodies”, i.e., of what he calls “sensa” ( NE §373), because it is erroneous to believe that matter as the presumed outside cause of a sensum has the same qualities as a sensum and thus has to exist ( NE §365). He conjectures that if there are outside causes of sensa they must be substances which are “of a spiritual nature” ( NE §371). When it comes to (c) sensa McTaggart holds that one has to distinguish between two classes of percepta, those perceived by introspection (mental states, spiritual data) and those that are given by means of sense organs (sensa). The latter do not really exist, they just lead to the illusion that they exist. This is so because of a confusion between a perception that is part of the percipient and therefore spiritual or mental in character and what is perceived, i.e., the object of a perception or the perceptum ( NE §373). However, a perceptum as a sensum cannot, according to McTaggart, have parts within parts to infinity and thus cannot really exist because what exists has no simple parts (cf. 355). Having disposed of matter and sensa this way, he then discusses the ontological status of (d) spirit or spirituality. He declares that “the quality of spirituality … is the quality of having content, all of which is the content of one or more selves” ( NE §381) and states that “nothing can have this quality except substances, and so nothing but substances are spiritual” and exist or are real (ibid.). A self or an I he takes to be a simple quality of a substance which is known to me to be myself by direct perception, i.e., is known by acquaintance, not by description. The distinction between knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description he explicitly takes up from Russell ( NE §382). He then surmises that it is very likely that the I, i.e., the substance that possesses the quality of being a self, persists through time because “I perceive myself as persisting through time, or the real series which appears as a time-series” ( NE §395). He also holds that selves are conscious without having to be self-conscious ( NE §397) and that no experience is possible “which is not part of a self” ( NE §400) though it cannot belong to more than one self ( NE §401). He concludes:

As all the content of spirit falls within some self, and none of it falls within more than one self, it follows that all existent selves form a set of parts of that whole which consists of all existent spirits. ( NE §404)

Although written more than twenty years after G. E. Moore’s “The Refutation of Idealism” (see below) and without mentioning him at all, McTaggart thus arrives at the exact opposite to the conclusion that Moore defended. Regarding (e) cogitations which comprise perceptions, awarenesses of characteristics, judgments, assumptions, imaginings, only perceptions can form an infinite series required for existence ( NE §406). Perception he characterizes as awareness of a substance as having such and such qualities ( NE §407). The outcome he wants to have reached so far is this:

… spirit, unlike matter and sense, can really exist. But it can do so only if it contains no parts except perceptions and groups of perceptions. ( NE §426)

All these considerations as to the character or the nature of time, matter, sensa, spirit and cogitations are meant to establish two results. The first is “that nothing which is spiritual is also “material or sensal” ( sic ) [although this result] leaves it possible that what is really spiritual may appear as being material or sensal” ( NE §431). The second is McTaggart’s version of idealism:

No substance has material or sensal qualities, and all reality is spirit. This conclusion I propose … to call by the name of Idealism ( NE §432)

in an ontological sense though, as he remarks, the terms “Spiritualism” or “Psychism” might be “intrinsically better” to characterize his point of view ( NE §432). It is interesting to note that McTaggart does not believe that his metaphysical (ontological) spiritual idealism excludes a realistic stance in epistemology. This is so because he characterizes epistemological realism as a position that is based on a correspondence theory of truth according to which a belief is true if it corresponds to a fact. Because everything that is real is a fact and (according to McTaggart) nothing is unreal (although it may not exist), all beliefs about something are beliefs about facts and consequently about something that is epistemologically real. Although this concept of epistemological realism is vague, it suggests that McTaggart thought of idealism not primarily in opposition to realism but much more in terms of a doctrine that is opposed to materialism, that is, as an ontological rather than epistemological doctrine. However, since McTaggart makes clear that since matter and mind are the only candidates for genuine substantiality of which we know , and thus that while only mind or spirit satisfies the ontological conditions for substantiality, for all we know there might be some other alternative, so his argument for idealism is not conclusive. His argument is predominantly ontological, but does presuppose one crucial epistemological premise.

Idealism was also a prominent mode of philosophy in the United States during the late nineteenth century, alongside pragmatism, but while pragmatism remained prominent throughout the twentieth century, whether under that name or not, the reputation of idealism was permanently damaged by a movement toward “realism” early in the century (which also attacked pragmatism, although without the same effect). Earlier in the nineteenth century, the popular essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, the most philosophical of the New England “Transcendentalists”, had struck many idealist themes, and after the Civil War a school of “St. Louis Hegelians” emerged, whose efforts were primarily exegetical. But the leading American idealist was Josiah Royce (1855–1916). Deeply influenced by Charles Sanders Peirce, particularly the lectures that Peirce gave in Cambridge in 1898, Royce incorporated aspects of Peirce’s pragmatism into his version of idealism, giving an idealist spin to Peirce’s conception of truth as what would be known at the end of inquiry were that ever to be reached. But Royce’s argument always remained that epistemology must ultimately lead to what he himself called metaphysical idealism.

A prolific author who published fifteen books before his early death at sixty, Royce launched his defense of idealism in his first book, The Religious Aspect of Philosophy (1885). In this work he introduced his first novel argument, for idealism, what he called the argument from error. Royce’s claim is that skepticism begins with insistence upon the possibility of error, but that recognition of that possibility presupposes not just that there is “absolute truth” (1885: 385) but that in some sense we have to know that absolute truth, or at least some aspect of it, in order to have an object even for our erroneous claims, thus that we must have some access to a “higher inclusive thought” even to make an erroneous knowledge claim. In his words,

Either then there is no error, or else judgments are true and false only in reference to a higher inclusive thought, which they presuppose, and which must, in the last analysis, be assumed as Infinite and all-inclusive. (1885: 393)

Royce holds that we must have some sort of apprehension of the “higher inclusive thought” in order to be able even to make our errors, and then that the growth of human knowledge over time consists in increasing apprehension of this all-inclusive truth without any limit being prescribed by our subordinate status. This is the epistemological optimism that pervades all Royce’s work and his subsequent debate with Bradley.

This account does not yet make clear why Royce thought that epistemology must lead to ontological idealism; that becomes clearer in his subsequent works. Royce’s next major statement of his idealism came in The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892). The second part of the book more fully develops Royce’s own arguments for idealism. Here Royce gives a clear definition of his conception of idealism and adds to the previous argument from error a second argument, from meaning. The core of this argument is that the intended object of an expression or thought must itself be conceived or understood in some way, so that we always mean what are in some sense our own ideas, although of course at any particular moment we hardly know or understand everything about the object to which we refer; that is why the idea that is the ultimate object of reference may be much greater than the idea that refers. In Royce’s words,

The self that is doubting or asserting, or that is even feeling its private ignorance about an object, and that still, even in consequence of all this, is meaning , is aiming at such an object, is in essence identical with the self for which this object exists in its complete and consciously known truth. (1892: 370–1)

By means of this argument, any restriction of Royce’s position to a purely epistemological one is eliminated: the possibility of meaning requires an identity between what means and what is meant, and since anything might be meant, anything at all must in some way be identical with what means, subjects and their ideas and expressions, even though that identity can hardly be absolute, and the ordinary conscious subject may seem very different and more limited than the “ one Self” (1892: 373) that underlies the appearances of both ordinary subjects and ordinary objects.

Royce develops an even more systematic argument for an idealism that is both epistemological and ontological in his magnum opus , the two volumes of his 1899–1900 Gifford lectures published as The World and the Individual . As the title suggests, a major theme of this work is explicating in detail the relationship between underlying reality and ordinary individual, conscious human selves. In this book, Royce expounds his idealism as the last of the four possible “conceptions of being”. The first is the “realistic conception of Being”, which is defined by the conception of being as completely independent of thought, so that whatever is true of it is true quite independently of what may be thought about it. The second conception of being is the mystical conception. As the defining notion of the realist conception was independence, the defining notion of mysticism is the opposite, namely immediacy, the idea that thought and its object must be one. The third conception of being, which Royce sometimes calls the theory of “validity”, is that “To be real now means, primarily, to be valid, to be true, to be in essence the standard for ideas ” (I:202). This conception of being tries to retain realism’s recognition of independence through the thought that “some of my ideas are already, and apart from my private experience, valid, true, well-grounded” (I:204) and mysticism’s identification of subject and object through the thought that reality is itself possible experience, but adds structure to the now unified realms of thought and being instead of eliminating structure.

The fourth conception of being is a fuller development of the conception of meaning that Royce had introduced in The Spirit of Modern Philosophy (1892). He now links meaning to purpose, and his thought is that the meaning of a term is an intended purpose, a problem to be solved, for example a mathematical problem to be solved or object to be constructed, and that in using a term the user already has some approach to solving the problem in mind but the full solution remains to be developed, may never be fully developed in the life of a particular individual, but is in some sense already included in the larger thought that constitutes reality. Reaching back to both Hegel and Kant, Royce conceives of the progress of knowledge as making the meaning of our ideas more determinate. In this he is also influenced by Peirce, and his notion of meaning is clearly a version of Peirce’s approach to truth, on which a proposition is true if it would be affirmed at the final stage of human inquiry, with the difference that while for Peirce the final stage of human enquiry is essentially a regulative ideal without ontological commitment, for Royce, the comprehensive meaning in which all ideas would be fully determinate is actually thought, although by a sort of super-self, not by any particular finite human self or even by all the selves thinking at any one time. Royce makes the transition from thought to being by stating that

In its wholeness the world of Being is the world of individually expressed meanings, an individual life, consisting of the individual embodiments of the wills represented by all finite ideas. (1892: I:341–2)

Royce’s arguments for idealism collectively, which in many ways return to the basic form of modern idealism pioneered by Green, whose Prolegomena had been published just a couple of years before Royce’s own career began, illustrate the pressure that often forced a move from epistemology to an idealist ontology. The epistemological argument begins with the insight that our knowledge in some way or another always reflects the structure of our own consciousness and thought. But the difference between what any particular individual believes or even knows at any particular time and what may be true and be known as a whole, at a time or over time, is too great to ignore, and must be resolved. But once it has been assumed that thought or mind itself is the proper object of knowledge, the only way to do this is to make a contrast between individual thought and some sort of supra-individual thought. At the outset of modern idealism, in Berkeley, that takes the form of the infinite mind, God, contrasted to individual, human minds; in later forms, such as those of Green and Royce, the supra-individual mind is not always identified with God, but plays the same role. In the cases of both Green and Royce, the union of epistemology and ontology also provided the basis for a moral idealism based on an insistence upon the underlying commonality of individual human selves in the larger self that Royce called the Absolute. But we will not be able to trace that line of thought here, and will instead conclude with the suggestion that many subsequent philosophers drew back from the full-blooded idealism offered by Green, Bradley, McTaggart, and Royce in favor of what was supposed to be an ontological realism, but which nevertheless continued to harbor at least epistemological grounds for idealism. This might seem a surprising claim, since the immediate response both to the British idealists and to Royce in the U.S. came from philosophers who identified themselves as realists. A case in point would be Bertrand Russell.

Before we turn to Russell, however, we will pause for a look at Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914), who, as already suggested, was a considerable influence on the later work of Royce. Whereas Royce was convinced that epistemology must ultimately lead to metaphysical idealism, Peirce was led in his philosophical development from metaphysical realism to metaphysical idealism while supporting all the way what has here been characterized as an epistemological ground for idealism. Peirce, definitely the most original American philosopher of his era, was the son of a famous Harvard mathematician. He was a fired from a teaching post at Johns Hopkins because he had the temerity to begin residence with the woman who would become his second wife before his divorce from his first wife had been finalized, and was never able to get another academic position. He thus had to spend much of his career as an employee of United States Coast and Geodetic Survey, and then lived his final years in independent but dire circumstances, supported in part by subscription lecture series that William James arranged for him to give in Cambridge. Although he was highly recognized and even supported by many of his academically much more successful philosophical contemporaries, among them Royce and James, and although he produced an impressive amount of writing (the Peirce Edition Project that is in charge of publishing his writings will, if ever finished, contain more than twenty volumes) he never succeeded in elaborating his ideas in book form. Instead he published most of his work in intellectual and learned journals ( Proceedings der American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Journal of Speculative Philosophy, The Nation, Popular Science, The Monist, The Open Court ) and encyclopedias (Baldwin’s The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia ). There are also quite a number of manuscripts he wrote for different lecture series but never published. They comprise the early Harvard lectures on The Logic of Science (1865) and the early Lowell Lectures on the same topic (1866) as well as the Cambridge Lectures on Reasoning and the Logic of Things (1898) and the later Harvard lectures on Pragmatism (1903).

Peirce’s metaphysical view are intimately connected with his claim “that logic is the science of representations in general, whether mental or material” ( Chronological Edition = CE 1.169) and with his stipulations concerning the structure and status of what he calls “representation”. In his early writings, while trying to answer the question as to the grounds of the objective validity of synthetic inferences (a question which he takes to be at the center of Kant’s theoretical philosophy), he develops a notion of representation according to which

[A] representation is anything which is supposed to stand for another and which might express that other to a mind which truly could understand it. ( CE 1.257)

This characterization of a representation is supposed to make the representation “mind-independent”, so to speak:

instead of being restricted to something within the mind, [the representation] is extended to things which do not even address the mind. ( CE 1.323)

Peirce might have come to this conception of a representation by relying on a phenomenological analysis of what he takes to be constitutive of every experience. For him

experience has three determinations—three different references to a substratum or substrata, lying behind it and determining it. ( CE 1.168)

This is so because every experience is determined (1) by an external object, (2) by our soul and (3) by “the idea of a universal mind” (an “archetypal idea”). Within representations he distinguishes in the early writings between a copy (“a representation whose agreement with its object depends merely upon sameness of predicates”, CE 1.257), a sign (“a representation whose reference to its object is fixed by convention”, CE 1.257) and a symbol (“a representation whose correspondence with its object is of the same immaterial kind as a sign but is founded nevertheless in its very nature” CE 1.323). Later he changed the terminology and used instead of “copy” and “sign” the terms “Icon” and “Index”, which led to his better known distinction between Icon, Index and Symbol as different kinds of representations. Each of these different kinds is determined by a difference in its way of denoting and/or connoting its object while all of them share the characteristics of having to have (1) a relation to an object (2) under a specific form (e.g., similarity, by convention) and (3) a relation to an interpretant, i.e., to a “consciousness” (cf. CE 1.272 f.). From his analysis of the nature of a representation Peirce draws the metaphysical conclusion that “[w]hatever is is a representation” ( CE 1.324) or “all is representation” ( CE 1.326). He arrives at this conclusion in a somewhat obscure way that seems to be based on the conviction that everything there is represents itself or is a representation of itself under an interpretation . Peirce does not immediately recognize his position as a form of idealism. Rather, because representations are neutral with respect to their status of being material or mental he can think of material objects as representations whose interpretant is either the representation itself or some (non-human) consciousness for which the representation can function as a symbol, and he can think of mental items like general terms or concepts as universals that exist “out there” in a world that comprises next to copies and conventional signs what he calls ideas (cf. CE 1.168). However, it is obvious that this view commits Peirce to a position that implies the (metaphysical) reality of universals, a position he explicitly and happily endorses (cf. CE 1.358 ff.). And the very fact that every representation has both a denotative and a connotative function makes the basic epistemological premise for idealism, namely the necessary isomorphism between knowledge and the known, an element of his view.

Whereas in his earlier writings Peirce is very explicit about the metaphysical/ontological implications of his representational position, he is reluctant to go into metaphysical discussions in his later writings, where he is primarily concerned with formulating and defending his conception of Pragmatism. Instead he urges that his Pragmatism is not a metaphysical doctrine and is in fact metaphysically neutral. In a draft of a popular article on Pragmatism (1907), never published in his lifetime, he writes

that pragmatism is, in itself, no doctrine of metaphysics, no attempt to determine any truth of things. It is merely a method of ascertaining the meanings of hard words and of abstract concepts. ( The Essential Peirce = EP 2.400)

He proclaims, most unambiguously in his Harvard lectures on Pragmatism (1903), that one can establish Pragmatism as a methodological maxim on the basis of epistemological (in later years: semiotic) considerations that have to start from a phenomenological analysis of experience. To provide this analysis is the task of what he calls Phenomenology (used explicitly in allusion to Hegel, cf. EP 2.143 f.) which is in Peirce’s taxonomy the first of the main branches of philosophy because on it rest what he takes to be the other branches of philosophy, i.e., normative science and metaphysics (cf. EP 2.146 f.). Phenomenology is the discipline

whose task is to make out what are the elements of appearance that present themselves to us every hour and every minute whether we are pursuing earnest investigations, or are undergoing the strangest vicissitudes of experience, or are dreamily listening to the tales of Scheherazade. ( EP 2.147)

According to Peirce, phenomenological considerations, i.e., considerations spelled out in the Phenomenology, show that in whatever can be experienced there are at least two distinct series of categories involved that make this experience possible. Some of them are universal, i.e., are constitutive of every phenomenon, others particular, i.e., belong to a phenomenon if looked at under a specific aspect (cf. EP 2.148) like its quantitative, qualitative, relational etc. determinations. As universal categories he identifies three which he names Firstness/Category the First/First, Secondness/Category the Second/Second, and Thirdness/Category the Third/Third respectively. He defines them thus:

Category the First is the Idea of that which is such as it is regardless of anything else. That is to say, it is a Quality of Feeling. Category the Second is the Idea of that which is such as it is as being Second to some First, regardless of anything else and in particular regardless of any law , although it may conform to a law. That is to say, it is Reaction as an element of the Phenomenon. Category the Third is the Idea of that which is such as it is as being a Third, or Medium, between a Second and its First. That is to say, it is Representation as an element of the Phenomenon. ( EP 2.160)

These definitions are meant to capture what is essential to every phenomenon. They are interpreted in more familiar terms by Peirce as attributing to every phenomenon the characteristics of presentness or immediacy (Firstness), struggle or resistance (Secondness) and what may be described as general openness to conceptual interpretation (Thirdness) as fundamental and irreducible features. Peirce is ready to credit Hegel with a similar view (“I consider Hegel’s three stages as being, roughly speaking, the correct list of Universal Categories”, EP 2.148). However, he criticizes Hegel for mistakenly not allowing these categories to be independent of each other. He believes that the reason for this failure on Hegel’s part lies in his being

possessed with the idea that the Absolute is One. … Consequently, he wishes to make out that the three categories have not their several independent and irrefutable standings in thought. Firstness and Secondness must somehow be aufgehoben . ( EP 2.177)

Although this criticism might be justified from a Peircean phenomenological point of view it poses at the same time a problem for him because he now has to give an account of how the professed independence of his universal categories can be integrated into his general representational picture of reality, a picture according to which everything that is real has to have the character of Thirdness and therefore is somehow related to everything else in virtue of its interpretative or representational character, i.e., in virtue of its status as an interpretant.

It looks as if Peirce in his later years (after ca. 1905) tried to solve this problem by giving his phenomenological claims a metaphysical underpinning. For him metaphysics is that part of philosophy that gives an account of the results of what philosophy in the form of Phenomenology and as a normative science has accomplished. Here Peirce exploits the fundamental idealist premise that there is a necessary isomorphism between thought and being: according to him,

[m]etaphysics consists in the results of the absolute acceptance of logical principles not merely as regulatively valid, but as truths of being. Accordingly, it is to be assumed that the universe has an explanation, the function of which, like that of every logical explanation, is to unify its observed variety. It follows that the root of all being is One; and so far as different subjects have a common character they partake of an identical being. This, or something like this, is the monadic clause of the law. Second, drawing a general induction from all observed facts, we find all realization of existence lies in opposition, such as attractions, repulsions, visibilities, and centres of potentiality generally…. This is, or is a part of, a dyadic clause of the law. Under the third clause, we have, as a deduction from the principle that thought is the mirror of being, the law that the end of being and highest reality is the living impersonation of the idea that evolution generates. ( CP 1.487)

The term “law” in this characterization is equivalent to what he terms “regularity” “in the universe of representations ” (cf. CP 1.480). The specific version of metaphysics he is advocating shows up in his writings in the shape of what he calls his doctrine of Synechism . He defines Synechism as

that tendency of philosophical thought which insists upon the idea of continuity as of prime importance in philosophy and, in particular, upon the necessity of hypotheses involving true continuity. (Collected Papers = CP 6.169)

This synechistic doctrine, he declares,

gives room for explanations of many facts which without it are absolutely and hopelessly inexplicable; and further that it carries along with it the following doctrines: first, a logical realism of the most pronounced type; second, objective idealism; third, tychism, with its consequent thorough-going evolutionism. We also notice that the doctrine presents no hindrances to spiritual influences, such as some philosophies are felt to do. ( CP 6.163)

Tychism “or the doctrine that absolute chance is a factor of the universe” ( CP 6.201) he takes to be an essential element of synechistic philosophy because it

must give birth to an evolutionary cosmology, in which all the regularities of nature and of mind are regarded as products of growth, and to a Schelling-fashioned idealism which holds matter to be mere specialized and partially deadened mind. ( CP 5.102)

He is committed to objective idealism as well as to logical realism because of his view that (to use a phrase favored very much by Bradley) “in the end” everything there is is a representation. It is within this synechistic framework based on tychism that, according to Peirce, the independence of Firstness and Secondness can be shown to be a necessary condition for Thirdness. This is so because continuity (which he identifies with Thirdness) and chance (as the organizing principle of evolution) could not be accounted for if there were no independence of the three universal categories. He is very explicit about this connection between his metaphysical and his representational views when he writes:

Permit me further to say that I object to having my metaphysical system as a whole called Tychism. For although tychism does enter into it, it only enters as subsidiary to that which is really, as I regard it, the characteristic of my doctrine, namely, that I chiefly insist upon continuity, or Thirdness, and, in order to secure to Thirdness its really commanding function, I find it indispensable fully [to] recognize that it is a third, and that Firstness, or chance, and Secondness, or Brute reaction, are other elements, without the independence of which Thirdness would not have anything upon which to operate. Accordingly, I like to call my theory Synechism, because it rests on the study of continuity. ( CP 6.202)

In virtue of the robust idealistic elements contained in his synechism it is safe to say that Peirce’s final philosophy exhibits all the traits that are characteristic of metaphysical idealism prevalent in Anglo-American philosophy at the turn of the twentieth century.

Both epistemological and ontological idealism came under massive attack in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century by George Edward Moore (1873–1958) and Bertrand Russell (1872–1970), while in the United States Royce’s position was attacked by a school of younger “New Realists”, to some extent inspired by his life-long interlocutor William James, who included E.B. Holt and his younger Harvard colleague Ralph Barton Perry, and later Roy Wood Sellars (the father of Wilfrid Sellars, who later moved back to a form of Kantianism), and Arthur Lovejoy. Both Moore and Russell had more of an enduring influence on the course of analytic philosophy than did the American New Realists, but also reveal the continuing impulse to idealism in spite of their own efforts, so we will focus on them. Both of them take idealism to be spiritualism in the spirit of Berkeley and Bradley (neither of them mentions their own Cambridge tutor McTaggart!), i.e., they think of idealism as a position characterized by the claim that the universe (Moore) or whatever exists or whatever can be known to exist (Russell) is spiritual (Moore) or in some sense mental (Russell). Although their attack was so influential that even more than a hundred years later, any acknowledgment of idealistic tendencies is viewed in the English-speaking world with reservation, it is by no means obvious that they actually thought they had disproved idealism. On the contrary, neither Moore nor Russell claimed to have demonstrated that the universe or what exists or can be known to exist is not spiritual or mental. All that they take themselves to have shown is that there are no good philosophical (in contradistinction to, e.g., theological or psychological) arguments available to support such a claim. Moore especially is very explicit about this point. He devotes the first five pages of his famous piece from 1903, “The Refutation of Idealism”, to assuring the reader over and over that

I do not suppose that anything I shall say has the smallest tendency to prove that reality is not spiritual. … Reality may be spiritual, for all I know; and I devoutly hope it is. … It is, therefore, only with idealistic arguments that I am concerned; … I shall have proved that Idealists have no reason whatever for their conclusion. ( Philosophical Studies , pp. 2 f.)

And Russell in his The Problems of Philosophy (1912), in a similar vein, warns the reader, after emphasizing the strangeness of an idealistic position from a common sense point of view:

[I]f there were good reasons to regard them [viz. physical objects] as mental, we could not legitimately reject this opinion merely because it strikes us as strange. (1912 [1974: 38])

Moore and Russell found two main arguments for idealism to be fallacious. The first concerns Berkeley’s idealistic principle that being consists in being perceived, the second the converse claim, attributed to Bradley, that thought entails being. Their criticism of the first as well as their rebuttal of the second argument stems from certain convictions they share as to the nature of knowledge. The assault on Berkeley is staged by Moore most extensively in “The Refutation of Idealism” (1903). Here he holds that if there is an argument to prove the idealistic claim that the universe is spiritual (1903: 433) then this reasoning must rely either at the beginning or at some point later in the argument on the premise esse est percipi :

I believe that every argument ever used to show that reality is spiritual has inferred this (validly or invalidly) from “ esse is percipere ” as one of its premisses; and that this again has never been pretended to be proved except by use of the premiss that esse is percipi . (1903: 437)

According to Moore the proposition esse is percipi “ does at least assert that whatever is, is experienced ” (1903: 437) which is meant in turn to assert

that wherever you have x [esse] you also have percipi ; that whatever has the property x also has the property that it is experienced . (1903: 440)

After a lengthy analysis of this proposition he points out that the conception of the connection between an experience and what is experienced that the idealist is entertaining has tenuous consequences that give rise to the question:

if we never experience anything but what is not an inseparable aspect of that experience, how can we infer that anything whatever, let alone everything is an inseparable aspect of any experience? (1903: 451)

An inference to such a conclusion cannot be justified. He concludes that in order to avoid an idealistic position one is better off to endorse a view according to which

I am as directly aware of the existence of material things in space as of my own sensations, and what I am aware of with regard to each is exactly the same—namely that in one case the material thing, and in the other case my sensation does really exist (1903: 453)

This line of reasoning, remarkably similar to what Kant had argued in the Fourth Antinomy in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason but rejected as an inadequate refutation of idealism in the second edition, was picked up in an abbreviated form by Russell ten years later in the chapter on idealism in his The Problems of Philosophy , while the attack on Bradley, although foreshadowed in Russell’s Problems , is spelled out rather lengthily (and a bit nastily) by Moore in “The Conception of Reality” from 1917–18. Their main objection against the two idealistic arguments seems to be that they rely on unjustly presupposing that the mental act of relating to an object (perceiving, thinking, knowing, experiencing) is a necessary condition for the existence of this object. The fallacy involved here consists in failing to make “the distinction between act and object in our apprehending of things”, as Russell (1912 [1974: 42]) puts it, or, in Moore’s terminology of The Refutation , in wrongfully identifying the content of “consciousness” with its object (1912 [1974: 19 ff.]). As soon as this identification is given up and that distinction is made it is at least an open question whether things exist independently of the mind, and idealism insofar it neglects this distinction and holds fast to that identification is refuted because based on an invalid argument.

Whether this line of criticism of idealistic positions is indeed successful might be controversial, and even if it strikes home against Berkeley the charge that they simply conflate knowledge and object hardly seems to do justice to the elaborate arguments of the late nineteenth-century idealists. However, if one is convinced of the correctness of this criticism (as no doubt Moore and Russell were) then it makes way for interesting new perspectives in epistemology and metaphysics. This is so because if this criticism is taken to be successful it permits us to explore the possibility of a theory of knowledge that starts from the assumptions (a) that objects exist independently of us and (b) that to know an object means to be immediately related to the object as it is in itself (i.e., as it is undistorted by and independent from any mental activity). Both Moore and Russell can be understood to have embarked on this exploration in the course of which they came to conceive a position which is aptly called by Peter Hylton “Platonic Atomism” (2013: 329).

The basic idea of this Platonic atomism seems to be the following: Knowledge consists in standing in an immediate relation to an independent individual object (assumption b). This immediate relation to individual objects is best known under Russell’s term “acquaintance”. If, by stipulation, knowledge is ultimately knowledge “by acquaintance”, then knowledge is restricted to knowledge of individual objects. Knowledge basically is knowledge of something or non-propositional knowledge. However, although this rather frugal conception of knowledge might be sufficient to give an account of the possibility of non-propositional knowledge, it is not that easy to see how such a conception can give a sensible explanation of propositional knowledge, i.e., of knowledge that something is so-and-so. Moore and Russell seem to have been acutely aware of this difficulty as is documented in their very explicit efforts to avoid it. It might have been their different reactions to this difficulty which in the years to come led them to proceed on diverging routes in philosophy. As is easy to imagine, there are two obvious reactions to the problem of propositional knowledge provided that assumption (b) is agreed upon. The first is to claim that propositions (Moore prefers the term “judgment” in this context) are individual objects with which the subject is acquainted (if he or she claims to know that something is so-and-so). The second is to broaden the concept of knowledge by not restricting knowledge to knowledge by acquaintance but to allow for other forms of knowledge as well. The first reaction apparently was the reaction of Moore and is formulated most prominently in his early piece “The Nature of Judgment” (1899), while the second can be attributed to Russell and is documented most vividly in his The Problems of Philosophy .

According to Moore a proposition is composed out of concepts. If we are to be acquainted with propositions we have to take their elements, i.e., concepts, to have independent existence (because of assumption a). Moore points out:

… we have approached the nature of a proposition or judgment. A proposition is composed not of words, nor yet of thoughts, but of concepts. Concepts are possible objects of thought; but that is no definition of them. It merely states that they may come into relation with a thinker; and in order that they may do anything, they must already be something. It is indifferent to their nature whether anyone thinks them or not. They are incapable of change; and the relation into which they enter with the knowing subject implies no action or reaction. It is a unique relation which can begin to cease with a change in the subject; but the concept is neither cause nor effect of such a change. The occurrence of the relation has, no doubt, its causes and effects, but these are to be found only in the subject. (1899: para. 9)

Moore is well aware that this analysis of the nature of a proposition leads to some version of what could be called “conceptual realism”, according to which that what is “really” real are concepts because they are the ultimate objects of acquaintance. He explicitly states:

It would seem, in fact, …that a proposition is nothing other than a complex concept. The difference between a concept and a proposition, in virtue of which the latter alone can be called true or false, would seem to lie merely in the simplicity of the former. A proposition is a synthesis of concepts; and, just as concepts are themselves immutably what they are, so they stand in infinite relations to one another equally immutable. A proposition is constituted by any number of concepts, together with a specific relation between them; and according to the nature of this relation the proposition may be either true or false. What kind of relation makes a proposition true, what false, cannot be further defined, but must be immediately recognized (1899: para. 12)

Moore also is very well aware that his view of the nature of concepts commits him to the claim that the world insofar as it is an object of propositional knowledge consists of concepts because these are the only things one can be acquainted with if acquaintance is a condition of knowledge. Thus he writes:

It seems necessary, then, to regard the world as formed of concepts. These are the only objects of knowledge. They cannot be regarded fundamentally as abstractions either from things or from ideas; since both alike can, if anything is to be true of them, composed of nothing but concepts. A thing becomes intelligible first when it is analyzed into its constituent concepts. The material diversity of things, which is generally taken as starting-point, is only derived; and the identity of the concept, in several different things, which appears on that assumption as the problem of philosophy, will now, if it instead be taken as the starting-point, render the derivation easy. Two things are then seen to be differentiated by the different relations in which their common concepts stand to other concepts. The opposition of concepts to existents disappears, since an existent is seen to be nothing but a concept or complex of concepts standing in a unique relation to the concept of existence. (1899: para. 16).

Moore confesses that “I am fully aware of how paradoxical this theory must appear, and even how contemptible” (1899: para. 14). And indeed one wonders whether such an account does not raise more problems than it answers. Fortunately we do not have to be concerned with this question here. However, if we ask whether Moore’s theory really manages to avoid idealism, it is hard not to conclude that its metaphysical commitments are precisely a form of idealism, even if he has been led to his theory by an attempt to maintain epistemological realism! After all, to claim that only concepts are real, that they have a mode of being outside of space and time, that they are non-physical and completely unaffected by any activity of a thinking subject, does not sound very different from statements that can rightly be attributed to, e.g., Hegel, or even ultimately Plato, and that are meant to assert idealism. The main difference in this case is that Moore’s conception of what a concept is has virtually nothing to do with what Hegel means by “concept”, but this does not suffice to establish ontological anti-idealism. Although Moore might avoid identifying concepts with the mental states of subjects by his insistence upon the metaphysical independence of concepts, he comes dangerously close to the point where the difference between ontological idealism and ontological realism vanishes and this distinction becomes a question of terminology.

Russell chooses a different path in the attempt to somehow reconcile the idea that knowledge has to be understood as a relation of acquaintance with objects with the phenomenon of propositional knowledge. He is more flexible both with respect to kinds of knowledge and with respect to kinds of objects with which we can be acquainted than Moore is. First of all, he distinguishes between knowledge of things and knowledge of truths. He recognizes two kinds of knowledge of things: knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description. Knowledge by acquaintance obtains whenever

we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference or any knowledge of truths. (1912 [1974: 46])

Knowledge by (definite) description obtains

when we know that it [i.e., the object] is “the so-and-so”, i.e., when we know that there is one object, and no more, having a certain property. (1912 [1974: 53])

The relation between these two kinds of knowledge is the following:

[K]nowledge concerning what is known by description is ultimately reducible to knowledge concerning what is known by acquaintance. (1912 [1974: 58])

Knowledge of truths is distinguished from these two kinds of knowledge of things . Knowledge of truths consists in pieces of knowledge that although they cannot be proven by experience are such that we nevertheless “see” their truth (1912 [1974: 74]). Examples of truths that can be known this way are logical principles, the principle of induction, and everything we know a priori . This taxonomy of kinds of knowledge, Russell believes, can account both for the possibility of non-propositional and propositional knowledge and at the same time retain the claim as to the primacy of the acquaintance-relation for knowledge.

The obvious question now is: if all knowledge is ultimately based on acquaintance, what is it we can be acquainted with, i.e., what are the legitimate objects of acquaintance? Because, according to Russell, the acquaintance relation is a relation to individual things this question translates into “what are the individual things we can be acquainted with?” Russell’s answer to this question is that there are exactly two kinds of things we can be acquainted with, namely particulars, i.e., things that exist, and universals, i.e., things that subsist (cf. 1912 [1974: 100]). Particulars comprise sense-data, thoughts, feelings, desires and memories of “things which have been data either of the outer senses or of the inner sense” (1912 [1974: 51]). Universals are

opposed to the particular things that are given in sensation. We speak of whatever is given in sensation, or is of the same nature as things given in sensation, as a particular ; by opposition to this, a universal will be anything which may be shared by many particulars. (1912 [1974: 93])

Universals are conceptual entities: “These entities are such as can be named by parts of speech which are not substantives; they are such entities as qualities or relations” (1912 [1974: 90]). Because universals and particulars alike are possible objects of acquaintance both have to be real. However, according to Russell they are real in a different sense. Particulars have existence in time whereas universals have timeless being. The first ones exist, the other subsist. They form two different worlds in that the world of particulars consists of items that are “fleeting, vague, without sharp boundaries” whereas the world of universals “is unchangeable, rigid, exact” (1912 [1974: 100]).

This rough outline of Russell’s epistemic universe is meant to emphasize only those aspects of his position that are of relevance for an assessment of idealistic tendencies in his approach to knowledge. As in the case of Moore it is tempting to interpret his commitment to a timeless world of universals as pointing if not to an endorsement at least to a toleration of a position that is difficult to distinguish from some version of an ontological idealism. But again one has to acknowledge that such a verdict is not very significant because one could as well describe this position as a version of ontological realism. It just depends on what is claimed to be the distinctive feature of idealism. If idealism is a position characterized by taking for granted the reality of conceptual entities that are not mind-dependent then both Moore and Russell endorse it. If idealism is meant to be a position which takes conceptual items to be mind-dependent, that is, dependent on particular minds, then both are realists with respect to concepts. However, it is hard to see how Russell can avoid the epistemological path to idealism given his views about physical objects. This is so because of his sense-datum theory, according to which what is immediately present to us, i.e., what we are acquainted with when we are acquainted with particulars, are just sense-data and not objects in the sense of individual things with qualities standing in relations to each other. For him “among the objects with which we are acquainted are not included physical objects (as opposed to sense-data)” (1912 [1974: 52]). Physical objects are constructions we form out of sense-data together with some descriptive devices, and only with respect to these constructions can we have knowledge by description, i.e., propositional knowledge. If idealism is understood (as has been done here) as involving the claim that what we take to be objects of knowledge are heavily dependent on some activity of the knowing subject, then the very idea of an object as a construction guarantees the endorsement of idealism. Thus, in contrast to their self-proclaimed revolt against the idealism of Berkeley and Bradley, the positions of both Moore and Russell are by no means free of traits that connect them rather closely to well known currents in modern idealism; and these features, above all the supposition that knowers may be immediately presented with some sorts of informational atoms, whether properties, sense-data, or whatever, but that all further knowledge, or all knowledge beyond immediate acquaintance, involves constructive activities of the mind, are common throughout a great deal of recent philosophy.

To trace the subterranean presence of at least epistemological idealism throughout the remainder of twentieth-century philosophy would exceed the brief for this entry. There is room here for just a few hints of how such an account would go. At Oxford, some influence of idealism continued until World War II in the person of Robin George Collingwood, who was influenced by Hegel and the Italian philosopher Benedetto Croce but was a very original thinker. Collingwood’s most characteristic position might be his claim that metaphysics is the study of the presuppositions of human knowledge, at various historical periods, rather than of independently existing entities; thus he might be considered as adopting a fundamental epistemological premise for idealism, although he does not seem to have drawn an ontological conclusion from it—perhaps as a practicing archaeologist as well as a philosopher, the physical world was just too real to him for that. In Germany, Neo-Kantianism, especially of the Marburg school, from Hermann Cohen to Ernst Cassirer, thus from the 1870s to the 1940s, stressed human conceptualization, in Cassirer’s case in the guise of “symbolic forms”, while trying to steer clear of traditional metaphysical questions; their position might thus also be considered a form of epistemological rather than ontological premise for but not outright acceptance of metaphysical idealism. Neo-Kantianism in turn influenced the broader stream of analytic philosophy through the person of Rudolf Carnap, whose Logical Construction of the World (1928) analyzes knowledge in terms of relations constructed on perceived similarities in qualities of objects, thus taking a subjectivist starting-point and then adding constructive activities of the mind to it—a form of epistemological idealism. Nelson Goodman’s Structure of Appearance (1951) undertook a similar project. Subsequent to the Logical Construction , Carnap distinguished between questions “internal” to a conceptual framework or system and “external” questions about which conceptual framework to adopt, which can be decided only on pragmatic or even aesthetic grounds, and this too might be considered a form of epistemological idealism. Thomas Kuhn’s famous conception of “paradigms” of science which are not automatically rejected because of refractory evidence but are given up only when an alternative paradigm comes to seem preferable can be seen as being in the Carnapian tradition, as can Hilary Putnam’s “internal realism” of the 1980s, and both these positions thus reflect some of the motives for epistemological idealism. Even W.V. Quine, who was a committed physicalist in the sense of believing that other sciences are in principle reducible to physics, nevertheless shared an aspect of idealist epistemology in his conception of the “web of belief”, that is, the idea that knowledge consists in a body of beliefs, from particular observation statements down to logical principles, which faces experience only as a whole and which can be modified at any point within it in order to accommodate refractory experience, as seems best. A similar idea was already to be found in Cassirer’s early work Substance and Function (1912), which points to the underlying impulse to epistemological idealism. Wilfrid Sellars’s conception of the “space of reasons”, taken up in Robert Brandom’s inferentialism, also reflects this impulse, although Sellars always considered himself, like his father, a scientific realist, and his most explicitly Kantian work, Science and Metaphysics (1968), gives what might be regarded as a pragmatist rather than idealist spin to Kant’s phenomena/noumena distinction, interpreting the noumenal as what would be known if science were complete, an idea clearly inspired by Charles Sanders Peirce rather than by Kant—although not completely different in spirit from Royce’s idea that the error of our particular beliefs can be understood only by comparison to a body of complete and completely true beliefs, not to some independent, non-belief reality. These are just a few examples of how some of the most prominent paradigms, to borrow Kuhn’s term, of analytic philosophy still reflect the impulse to epistemological idealism even though the name “idealism” was anathematized by Moore, Russell, and the New Realists.

However, one mid-twentieth century philosopher who had no qualms about identifying himself as an idealist was Brand Blanshard (1892–1987). The difference between Blanshard and many of the mid-twentieth century analytic philosophers is precisely that Blanshard accepted the assumption that there must be a necessary isomorphism between knowledge and its object, and so was not content to posit something real outside of the web of belief or space of reasons, but brought reality into the realm of thought.

Blanshard was an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, then won a Rhodes scholarship to Merton College, Oxford, where his tutor was H.W.B. Joseph and he also met Bradley, a lifelong research fellow at Merton. After earning an MA at Columbia, where he participated in a research project under John Dewey, and then World War I service in France, he completed his Oxford BA and then a PhD at Harvard under the supervision of C.I. Lewis—so he had a very diverse philosophical education. He taught at Swarthmore College from 1925 to 1944 and at Yale from 1944 until 1961. Remarkably, Blanshard was at different points in this career in the same department as each of the Sellarses—he was an undergraduate at Michigan when Roy Wood Sellars was a young teacher there, and was then Wilfrid Sellars’s colleague during the latter’s tenure at Yale from 1958 to 1963. There are affinities between his views and theirs, especially with Wilfrid Sellars’s conception of conceptually-informed perception; but they differ decidedly on the issue of idealism vs. material realism. Blanshard’s idealism was at full-strength in the two volumes of The Nature of Thought (1939), which was dedicated to the Oxford idealists H.H. Joachim and E.F. Carritt; many arguments remained the same but the inference to idealism was somewhat toned-down in his later trilogy, Reason and Goodness (1961), Reason and Analysis (1962), and Reason and Belief (1974).

The affinity with Wilfrid Sellars lies in Book I of The Nature of Thought , “Thought in Perception”, in which Blanshard argues that we always perceive something “as this rather than that”, thus that “the recognition of the universal and the placing it in relation to other universals” are always inseparable from perception (1939: volume I, p. 65). This recognition of the conceptually-infused character of perception, the position adopted by such Sellarsians as John McDowell (McDowell 1994) and currently known as “conceptualism”, does not by itself entail idealism. Rather, Blanshard’s idealism is on display in Volume II, Book III of his work, “The Movement of Reflection”, where he offers his theory of truth. Here he argues that coherence rather than correspondence is not only the “test” but also the “nature” of truth:

It is hard to see … how anyone could consistently take coherence as the test of truth unless he also took it as a character of reality. (1939: vol. II, p. 267)

Here Blanshard evinces the premise that knowledge must be isomorphic with the known that underlies many arguments for idealism. His next move, the characterization of coherence as a character of reality in terms of systematicity, seems sufficiently abstract to remain neutral about the ontology of reality. But he also argues that knowledge or thought must be part of a single system with its object, the world, (1939: vol. II, p. 292), which, since knowledge is incontrovertibly mental, pushes the whole system in that direction. His idealism becomes even clearer in his defense of the Bradleian doctrine that all relations are internal relations, and as such necessary relations, so that

These old sharp lines of mutual exclusion between essence, property, and accident are like the lines of a surveyor, of great convenience, no doubt, to ourselves, but misleading when taken as divisions marked out by nature. (1939: vol. II, p. 480)

and when he further asserts

(i) that all things are causally related, directly or indirectly; (ii) that being causally related involves being logically related. (1939: vol. II, p. 492)

This makes sense if the character of reality is ultimately either conceptual or mental in nature, subject to logical relations, and not purely physical, subject merely to causal relations. Blanshard’s statement that the “old sharp lines” between essence and accident are not so sharp after all might sound like W.V.O. Quine’s thesis that there is no sharp distinction between the analytic and the synthetic (Quine 1951), but while this leads Quine to treat all our beliefs as if they are synthetic, ultimately dependent upon our total response (the web of belief) to observation of external reality, Blanshard’s position is more that all our beliefs are ultimately analytic, that is, analyses of the conceptual structure of reality, or of reality as a conceptual structure. Blanshard concludes his lengthy argument with claims reminiscent of Hegel:

The aim of thought from its very beginning … was at understanding. The ideal of complete understanding would be achieved only when this system that rendered it necessary was not a system that itself was fragmentary and contingent, but one that was all-inclusive and so organized internally that every part was linked to every other by intelligible necessity… . If our account of the end is accepted, it will be found to throw light backward alone the whole course of the inquiry. For it presents the goal which thought, from its first stirrings in perception, has more or less unknowingly been seeking, the end potential in every idea, the whole implicitly at work at every stage in the movement of reflection, exercising its steady pressure against irrelevant excursions and toward the completion of fragmental knowledge into stable system. (1939: vol. II, p. 518)

Knowledge must be knowledge of necessary connections, and reality itself must be an intrinsically intelligible system of connections or internal relations. Blanshard’s combination of the premise of the necessary isomorphism of knowledge and the known with the doctrine of internal relations exemplifies both an epistemological and an ontological argument for idealism.

Since the work of Blanshard in the 1930s, very few Anglophone philosophers have attempted an explicit defense of idealism. Both John Foster, in The Case for Idealism (1982) and Timothy Sprigge in The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (1983) constructed defenses of what Foster defined by the three theses

(1) Ultimate contingent reality is wholly mental. (2) Ultimate contingent reality is wholly non-physical. (3) The physical world is the logical product of facts about human sense-experience (Foster 1982: 3)

and what Sprigge called “panpsychism”. In both cases their defenses were based on the epistemological premise that the object of perception is fully present in the act of perception; Sprigge added the argument that we must presuppose some noumenal ground for our phenomenal objects; but unlike Kant, who after he stripped things in themselves of their spatiality and/or temporality, insisted that we remain otherwise agnostic about their nature, Sprigge argued that

the noumenal backing or “in itself” of the physical by saying that it consists in innumerable mutually interacting centres of experience, or, what comes to the same, of pulses and flows of experience. (Sprigge 1983: 85)

In other words, the noumenal “backing” of the phenomenal is nothing but the sum total of actual and possible human experience, which Sprigge considers, in terms going back to Bradley, a “concrete universal”. One could argue that this confused the sum total of experience or thought about reality with reality itself, but Sprigge rejects that kind of distinction from the beginning of his argument; basically, he holds all knowledge to be knowledge by acquaintance, and what we have when we subsume any experience under a concept or universal is an immediate relation to part of a concrete universal—so all of reality is itself mental in nature.

These arguments have remained outliers, for analytical philosophy has been overwhelmingly influenced by the paradigm of the natural sciences, and often committed to some form of naturalism. Or so it would seem; however, as the examples of Green and Royce as well as earlier idealists such as Schelling make clear, there is no necessary incompatibility between idealism and some forms of naturalism. In particular, naturalism, especially broadly understood as a methodology rather than ontology, is not automatically committed to the kinds of realism, especially the naïve realism of assuming that our representations reproduce the physical constitution of external objects, that were initially opposed to idealism. One might even get the impression that in contemporary scientifically-oriented philosophy idealism is no longer considered a threat. The way in which in current discussions in the philosophy of mind some idealistic conceptions under the general name of “Panpsychism”, already used by Sprigge, are taken seriously (Thomas Nagel, David Chalmers) seems to be a good indicator of this tendency.

In so-called “continental” philosophy, we might suggest, the main alternative to the idealism of the nineteenth century and lingering tendencies to idealism in both Neo-Kantianism and Husserlian phenomenology has not been any straightforward form of realism, but rather the “life philosophy” ( Lebensphilosophie ) pioneered by Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1916), then extensively developed by Martin Heidegger (1889–1976), and, without Heidegger’s political baggage, by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908–1961). The central idea of this approach to philosophy is that the starting-point of thought and knowledge is neither anything “subjective” like sense-data or ideas nor anything simply objective like the objects of science, but the lived experience of “being-in-the-world”, from which both the “subjective” such as sense-data and the “objective” such as objects theorized by science are abstractions or constructions made for specific purposes, but which should not be reified in any way that creates a problem of getting from one side to the other, let alone any possibility of reducing one side to the other and thus ending up with a choice between idealism and realism. Apart from all issues of style, and whether this has been clear to the two parties or not, perhaps the deepest reason for the on-going divide between “analytical” and “continental” philosophy is the on-going tension between the impulse to epistemological idealism and the attraction of the idea that “being-in-the-world” precedes the very distinction between subjective and objective. But then again, this underlying idea of the Heideggerian approach to philosophy may already be suggested in the work of Schelling, so perhaps the fundamental debate within twentieth-century philosophy has taken place within a framework itself inspired by a form of idealism, namely phenomenology. But this would be a long story, for another day.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, however, idealism, understood as a philosophical program, may be sharing the fate of many other projects in the history of modern philosophy. Originally conceived in the middle of the eighteenth century as a real alternative to materialistic and naturalistic perspectives, it may now become sublated and integrated into views about the nature of reality that ignore metaphysical oppositions or epistemological questions connected with the assumption of the priority of mind over matter or the other way round. Instead the focus may be shifting to establishing a “neutral” view according to which “anything goes” (Feyerabend) as long as it does not contradict or at least is not incompatible with our favored metaphysical, epistemological and scientific (both natural and social) methods and practices.

All translations are by the authors unless otherwise noted.

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• Idealism , edited bibliography at PhilPapers
• German Idealism , Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Idealism , The Basics of Philosophy

Bayle, Pierre | Berkeley, George | Bradley, Francis Herbert | Cambridge Platonists | Carnap, Rudolf | Cassirer, Ernst | Cohen, Hermann | Collingwood, Robin George | Descartes, René | Dilthey, Wilhelm | dualism | egoism | Epicurus | epistemology | Feyerabend, Paul | Fichte, Johann Gottlieb | Green, Thomas Hill | Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich | Heidegger, Martin | Hobbes, Thomas | Hume, David | Jacobi, Friedrich Heinrich | James, William | Kant, Immanuel | Kuhn, Thomas | Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm | Locke, John | Malebranche, Nicolas | McTaggart, John M. E. | Merleau-Ponty, Maurice | monism | Moore, George Edward | naturalism | Nietzsche, Friedrich | occasionalism | -->ontology --> | Peirce, Charles Sanders | physicalism | Plato | rationalism vs. empiricism | realism | Reinhold, Karl Leonhard | Royce, Josiah | Russell, Bertrand | Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von | Schopenhauer, Arthur | self-consciousness | Sellars, Wilfrid | skepticism | Spinoza, Baruch | Wolff, Christian

Acknowledgments

The authors owe thanks to a group that met in Berlin in July, 2014, to discuss a draft of the original version of this entry, including Dina Emundts, Eckart Förster, Gunnar Hindrichs, Charles Larmore, Paul Redding, Robert Stern, and Tobias Rosefeldt; we owe special thanks to Larmore for his numerous and detailed comments on that draft and to Stern for his generous assistance with the bibliography. We also owe thanks to Justin Broackes for his participation in the seminar we gave at Brown University in Spring and Fall 2013 where we also discussed much of this material. This revised version owes thanks to the participants of another seminar we gave at Brown in Spring 2020 and to helpful comments by Allen Wood.

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Essays About Utopia: Top 6 Examples and 9 Prompts

Struggling to write essays about utopia? Our essay examples about utopia plus prompts will be useful in your writing journey. 

Utopia refers to an imaginary world where perfect societies are created. Translated as “no place” in Greek, the term was coined by English Statesman Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book “Utopia.” In More’s Utopia, a political satire, people share the same ways of life and live in harmony.

Utopia in various contexts has been used to define a perfect society that has served as the foundation of several ideologies. However, it has also been slammed for propelling people to strive for the impossible and dismiss realities on the ground. Various schools of thought have risen to improve on the utopian concept.

6 Helpful Essay Examples

1. utopian thinking: the easy way to eradicate poverty by rutger bregman, 2. the schools of utopia by john dewey, 3. metaverse: utopia for virtual business opportunities right now by noah rue, 4. saudi’s neom is dystopia portrayed as utopia by edwin heathcote, 5. streaming utopia: imagining digital music’s perfect world by marc hogan, 6. what’s the difference between utopia, eutopia, and protopia by hanzi freinacht, 1. describe your utopia, 2. my utopian vacation, 3. what is utopian literature, 4. utopia vs. dystopia in movies, 5. plato on utopia, 6. utopia of feminists, 7. dangers of utopian thinking, 8. utopia in capitalism, 9. your utopia for education.

“The time for small thoughts and little nudges is past. The time has come for new, radical ideas. If this sounds utopian to you, then remember that every milestone of civilisation – the end of slavery, democracy, equal rights for men and women – was once a utopian fantasy too.”

The article brings to light a utopian vision for eradicating poverty. This vision involves providing annual income to the poor. While such a scheme has drawn criticism over the possibility of dampening beneficiaries’ inclination to work. The essay cites the success of a Canadian field experiment that provided the entire town of Dauphin a monthly income for four years and helped ease poor living conditions. You might also be interested in these essays about Beowulf .

“The most Utopian thing in Utopia is that there are no schools at all. Education is carried on without anything of the nature of schools, or, if this idea is so extreme that we cannot conceive of it as educational at all, then we may say nothing of the sort at present we know as schools.”

John Dewey , an American philosopher, and education reformist, contested the old ways of schooling where rows of students recite and memorize lessons. In this speech, he illuminates the need for education to be a lived experience rather than confined within the four corners of a classroom. Check out these essays about freedom .

“The metaverse looks like a good business opportunity right now, but emerging markets are always volatile, and changing laws or regulations could turn the metaverse from a profitable utopia into a cash-guzzling dystopia for business.”

Businesses of all sizes are beginning to enter the metaverse. As with all pursuits, early movers are gaining the biggest advantage in carving out their niche in the utopian digital world. But despite the blazing popularity of the metaverse, a degree of caution must still be exercised as the virtual space is uncharted territory for sustainable business profitability. 

“The inside is, of course, rendered as a bucolic techno-utopia, a valley of trees and foliage, the new Babylon. This is the great contemporary cliché. No matter how huge the building, how hideous the ethics, everything can be concealed by a bit of greenery.”

Saudi and humanity’s biggest ambition for a future eco-city is a trillion-dollar city in the middle of a desert. But the ways to attain this utopian city might not live up to the rhetoric it has been selling, as its gigantic promises of free-flowing energy and technology haven’t accounted for their resulting environmental costs. 

“Many were happy with their current digital tools… and just wished for slight improvements, though they frequently expressed concern that artists should be getting a bigger cut of the profits.”

The essay interviews a handful of music nerds and junkies and asks them to describe their utopia in the music streaming world. Some were as ambitious as seeing an integration of music libraries and having all their music collections for free fit into their phones. 

“The Utopian believes in progress. The Eutopian believes in critique and a rediscovery of simpler wisdoms and relationships. The Protopian believes that progress can be enacted by understanding how the many critiques and rediscoveries of wisdom are interconnected into a larger whole.”

A political philosopher, Freinacht dissects the differences between utopia, eutopia, and protopia in modern and post-modern contexts. He concludes that protopia is the best way to go as it centers on the reality of daily progress and the beauty of listening to the diversity of human experiences.

9 Interesting Prompts To Begin Your Essays About Utopia

Describe your idea of a perfect world. You could start your essay with the common question of what you think would make the world a better place. Then, provide an ambitious answer, such as a world without poverty or violence. Next, explain why this is the one evil you would like to weed out from the world. Finally, provide background showing the gravity of the situation and why it needs urgent resolution.

For this essay, try to describe your ideal vacation as detailed and colorful as possible to the point that your readers feel they are pulled into your utopia. Pump out your creative juices by adding as many elements that can effectively and strikingly describe your ultimate paradise.

More’s Utopia was a great success among the elites of its time. The groundbreaking book gave way to a new genre: utopian literature. For this writing prompt, describe utopian literature and analyze what new perspectives such genre could offer. Cite famous examples such as More’s Utopia and describe the lessons which could be mused from these utopian novels. 

Dystopia is the opposite of utopia. In your essay, explain the differences od dystopia and utopia, then provide a brief historical summary of how each came about. Cite film examples for each genre and try to answer which of the two is the more popular today. Finally, investigate to understand why there is greater leaning toward this genre and how this genre feeds into the fantasies of today’s audience.

While Plato never used the word “utopia” since he lived long before its conception, Plato is credited for creating the first utopian literary work, The Republic . Summarize the utopia as described by Plato and analyze how his ideals figure in the modern world.  

Interview at least three feminists and ask them to describe what a utopia for feminists would look like and why this is their ideal world. How is society expected to behave in their ideal world? Then, consolidate their answers to build the backbone of your essay. You may also search for feminist utopia novels and compare the concepts of these novels to the answers of the feminists you interviewed.

Genocides made to forward extreme ideologies have been linked to utopian thinking. Identify the dangers of aiming for the perfect society and cite past incidents where groups committed heinous crimes to achieve their utopia. To conclude, offer viable solutions, including the proper mindset, realistic setting of boundaries, and actions that groups should carry out when striving to create change.

Greedy capitalism is blamed for a slew of problems facing today: environmental abuse, labor exploitation, and a gaping divide in income equality that is stoking dissatisfaction among many workers and compelling calls to tax the rich. For your essay, enumerate the problems of capitalism and the remedies being sought to direct the capitalist endeavors to more sustainable projects.

Beyond Dewey’s utopia for the educational system, write your wishlist for how learning should be built at schools. Your utopian school could implement any policy, from having minimal assignments to more educational field trips and challenging activities every day. Finally, explain how this could elevate the educational experience among students, back up your utopian goals with research that also recommends this setup for schools. When editing for grammar, we also recommend improving the readability score of a piece of writing before publishing or submitting. For more guidance, read our explainer on grammar and syntax .

Yna Lim is a communications specialist currently focused on policy advocacy. In her eight years of writing, she has been exposed to a variety of topics, including cryptocurrency, web hosting, agriculture, marketing, intellectual property, data privacy and international trade. A former journalist in one of the top business papers in the Philippines, Yna is currently pursuing her master's degree in economics and business.

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Vision Of An Ideal World

Mackenzie Phillips Intro to philosophy T&T 9:30 class 10-09-17 What is an ideal world An ideal world is a widely discussed topic among religions and other people in general. Some believe that there really is an ideal world waiting for us. And others just think that those kinds of thoughts about an ideal world are just out right crazy. The whole point of an ideal world is to achieve peace and perfection on earth or after death. This world is a good happy place for everyone to live. Just showing it would be a wonderful place to live in, which is why many religions and people believe in it. Perfection is very hard to achieve this is why some people are sceptical about an ideal world actually existing. Now whatever side you are on I am going to discuss what an ideal world really is and the beliefs about it. By clearing this up I hope to help others decided whether there really is an ideal world or if it’s just a myth. When describing an ideal world everyone has their own thoughts on what is going on and what it looks like. Your ideal world depends on your thoughts and what you believe is perfect or right. According to the website CareerRide.com in the article “What is your vision of an ideal world?” an ideal world is a mix of multiple things that come together as one to work in harmony. They said “these things are equality, rebuild, education, no religion , no terrorism, harm free, and stress free”. To sum it up they say are fighting against the worst in life (What is your

A Utopia Sounds Like A Wonderful Thing

Every person has their own personal vision of utopia. My utopia may be filled with libraries and cats, while yours would probably look very different. In Frankenstein, Shelley gives us Victor Frankenstein, a man who envisions a world where he will never feel the pain of losing someone he loves again. He devises a way to cheat

Utopia As An Ideal Society

Utopia is a term used to describe a perfect imaginary world where law and order and all other elements that constitute a society harmoniously existing in an ideal condition. The meaning behind this term is more than enough to justify why Thomas More used it in his book ‘Utopia’ to describe an island which was free from any kind of discrimination and was inhabited by God-fearing individuals. More used Utopia as an archetype to give his readers an illustration of what an ideal society is like or what it should look like.

Can A Utopia Ever Be Possible Essay

A utopia is impossible. Perfection is something that will not happen when every single person is different. People like different stuff, have different interests, and will not always get along with other people. But in a utopia, people always get along. It’s almost as if your life is uncontrollable and being controlled by the society. So it’s basically a constant pattern everyday. Something that’s really important as well is that yes, people are different like I said, but also have different features. What I’m talking about is disordered people, and other stuff that deflects these type of people from being “normal” in the modern society, and I don’t

My Utopia Research Paper

In my Utopia there would be no war between any country. No country would have hatred for one another. Everyone would be allies. Everyone would see each other as human beings and would be willing to cooperate with each. There would be no such thing as fighting because everyone would get along. This would keep the world peaceful and everyone happy.

What Would Your Utopia Be Like

What would your utopia be like? Would it be happy, summer days everyday? An Alaskan dream? Perhaps your utopia is simply a would where no one will no longer have to die from illness and fear death. Depending on who you ask, each and every individual will have a different idea on what the ideal society or world is. My utopia would consist of healthy economics, rules and laws made by the people in a region, and a great education system.

My Utopia In America

What is a Utopia? Utopia is an imagined place or state of things in which everything is perfect. Everyone has their own Utopia in mind, each person’s different from the next. My Utopia is peaceful, healthy, and everybody works for what they want. Nobody is awarded anything they don’t deserve, regardless of who they are. Everyone is treated just and fairly in my ideal society.

Comparing Modern Society In The Giver And Modern Day Society

What do you think a "perfect" world is ? Picture yourself in a perfect world where everyone was the same . In this world theres no one to judge because everyone is the same . This type of world could remind us of our own in many aspects . Consequently , there are many ways to see comparisons and contrasts to the utopian society in the novel and in our modern day society.

Why Do Utopias Fail

Most utopias that were made, usually don’t succeed.  Utopias are to be known as a perfect society where everyone is equal. Utopias are a perfect world, but they don’t usually exist.

My Utopi My Vision Of A Perfect Society

In conclusion my utopia would be a place were people could live their lives in peace and tranquility. They would not be shamed in any way for appearance. This would be my utopia or perfect society. This society would have a democracy that all citizens can choose who they want to represent them. No one would be hungry or get sick from lack of medicine. The sun would shine and the weather would be cool. Everyone would greet each other with a

Utopian Ideals

​A plethora of ideals are present within utopian society and thought. The same is true for America and what it stands for. America was founded on certain principles in order to maintain order and provide structure to humanity. Ideals such as freedom of religion, capital punishment, and an economic system centered around trade are directly linked to Thomas More’s utopia. These ideals are integral to a civilization when people begin to break rules, so that leaders have a way out by using the rule book as a higher power. Because Utopia is viewed as perfect and have all complications with humanity unraveled, newfangled cultures attempt to emulate utopia. Not all aspects are mirrored because in order to be new, and an amendment is required. Likewise,

I Believe In Sociology

ideal question is an ongoing heated debate; my personal solution to that has always been to keep the small steps practical but work towards the ideal as much as you can – the ideal should act as a general guide of direction. Week’s discussion on Bloch’s proposal of a “concrete utopia” of the “real-possible” links utopian thinking to practical solutions. By doing so, he challenges the meaning that people usually attach to the world “utopia.” I am aware of the fact that I am using the words “ideal” and “utopian” interchangeably, which is what Week specifically advises us against in the article. In this case, I would argue that the specific word choice is perhaps not as clear-cut as he suggests. Even Bloch himself sometimes uses the terms interchangeably in his discussion of the “Not-Yet-Conscious” that fuels

Pros And Cons Of A Dystopian Society

In conclusion to a Utopian society It is entirely a fiction idea. No matter what others might try to create and dictate, evil will always exist in the world. Overcoming these obstacles would be impossible. Setting up a perfect world would take lots of over seeing and time to make sure the utopian society would not fail. This would include precise organization and dictating. Rulers offering a perfection from the outside world and help in the need of uncertain times. You would have to change the whole mind set of the body where it would almost be a brainwashing event to change human

A Utopian world is impossible to create because nature would not allow it. Shakespeare’s play shows

A Utopian world is impossible to create because nature would not allow it. Shakespeare’s play shows that no matter how much language players and technology changes human nature overall is misinterpreted. In order to have a perfect world, we need conflicts to occur because imperfection is key to perfection. A Utopian society only revolves in a person's mind. A person might think of a Utopian Society to escape their situation but they do not look at the disadvantages, let us take killing, for example in a Utopian world, killing someone is illegal. If we do not kill anyone, how are we going to find food to keep ourselves alive? We have to kill. Negative aspects of humanity’s basic nature are jealousy, greed and revenge that would always

Examples Of A Utopia In The Giver

One person’s perfect world is another’s nightmare. Is it possible to create one world where everyone is happy? Some may want a world with more focus on STEM programs but little on on art and literature, or the other way around. We can look back on history and see others attempting to create their utopia. The main mission of Kings, Queens, Dictators, and even terrorists is to create their version of the perfect world. Whether it be through war, attack, or laws, their main mission remains the same.

Perfect World Research Paper

A perfect world is defined as a state of being, place, or utopia in which all problems have been overcome. This theory has become a topic of conversation quite frequently due to lack of ideal knowledge of what the future holds. My perception of a perfect world includes an equal government system, diverse human rights or behavior, and immaculate health. Major aspects such as these will develop a sublime society to therefore be used as an authentic representation of the “good life”.

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What would make the best society, the following answers to this central philosophical question each win a random book..

The closest to perfection would be an interdependent Confederation of societies, each containing between one and two hundred citizens, depending upon factors such as location and climate. These villages would be more or less evenly distributed across the globe, having access to roughly equivalent amounts of arable land. Thirty per cent of all land would be designated wilderness, and no societies would be allowed to colonise these areas, but antisocial individuals would be free to inhabit the wilderness following a life-style of total lonesomeness.

Each society would be run according to a consensus of members, on a Rousseauian model of full participation of all members over 14 and council decree. Dissenting members will be invited to move to alternative societies, set up their own on land proportionate to the size of the dissenting group, or to take to the wilderness. Councils may legislate on shared interests, but there will be no laws restricting private activities provided these do not infringe upon the same freedoms of others.

Whilst each society would decide its own rules, the Confederation would respect a universal constitution according to which no-one can own anything they have not made. Communal products could be exchanged freely amongst individuals or between societies. There would be no money, and no hoarding of mutually-owned resources, on pain of banishment to the wilderness. Every year there would be a Global Festival of Gratitude and Giving, during which gifts would be freely exchanged and art, music, dances and games would celebrate and renew the freedom of the Earth from human domination.

According to the constitution, animals culled from the wild may be eaten during the winter in cold climates and during illness. But there would be no domestication or other infringement upon the freedom of animals. Killing would be allowed only if human life is in danger, or to stabilize populations and environmental harmony. All waste would be recycled, and energy derived only from renewable sources such as wind and tide.

If one society threatens aggression against another, the Global Confederation would boycott it for 50 years. Members would be invited to join alternative societies, but may emigrate only to one that has received no other members of the rogue society. All political relationships will be entirely internal to each society and there would be no alliances formed between societies. Societies attempting to form political allegiances or extend their power beyond their own members will be boycotted. Individuals would be free to travel to and form relationships with individuals of other societies, but any group growing too large for its arable resources would have to redistribute.

Helen Williams, Coley Sirgar, Swansea

The perfect society would be one in which everybody got whatever they wanted. Obviously, this is impossible to achieve. So we can only strive for the best possible society. This logically would be the one in which everyone got as much of what they want as it is possible to equitably achieve. Achieving this would be the equivalent of finding the lines of best fit through a series of points for various graphs. For example, if we all have different opinions about the ideal length of a working day, then in the best society the length of the working day would be the mean of all our ideals. Generally, in the best possible society, all parameters would be set at the average of our individual ideals about that thing. It won’t be the perfect society for anyone, but on the whole, it’ll be the least bad for everyone.

Clearly, there are some huge practical difficulties to achieving this society – so huge as to render the full achievement of it an impossibility. Nevertheless, it is an ideal we can work towards. Indeed, it would seem that society is slowly moving in this direction. The biggest step we have taken in many countries towards this society of the average is the democratic election of leaders – and as our administrations become more transparent and accountable, populations are able to exert greater pressure on their governments to act more in line with the collective will. We can imagine in the not too distant future being able to register our views online and by phone; and thus we will be able to easily and rapidly vote on many more issues than we do currently. Just as we now vote on X-Factor , we might soon be voting on important political issues: where reality TV is currently leading the way, genuine reality will follow on behind. So the best society would involve a whole lot more reality TV.

Kevin Andrew, Tadcaster, North Yorkshire

There will be no government as we currently know it. Government is overkill. We’ve tried it, and for the most part it has failed. Mostly, government is about manipulating political and economic power. It does not produce a good society. To quote Henry David Thoreau in On Civil Disobedience : “I heartily accept the motto, ‘That government is best which governs least’; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically… [further] ‘That government is best which governs not at all’.” There may be courts to mediate disputes. These disputes will be limited to the basics: the only laws needed are laws concerning basic decency and respect, following this formula: No killing or hurting another person or damaging their property. This would included ecological destruction, which damages everyone.

Each local community will cooperate with as many or few other communities as it chooses: nothing will ever be forced. Each communities will produce what it needs. Factories will be owned by the workers, and excess profits will go to support the needed services and the well-being of the community, further excess going to greater projects benefiting the wider world. No community should number more than a few thousand. Any system over a million people will always fail; a community kept under 10,000 will likely succeed. No community will be able to possess the manpower or wealth to threaten other communities.

Kraig Mottar, by Email

The best society would not penalise people, working or not, for disabilities or mental illness. This is not their fault. It would transform its idea of beauty from the Platonically idealistic, discarding ‘ideal forms’ for forms that are both realistic and which embrace humanity’s highest aspirations. Life chances would be evenly distributed rather than a concentrated in the 20-65 age range. No longer would people be thrown on the scrap-heap for being ill, disabled, too old etc: rather, there would be a just way of distributing resources to all. This could be implemented in various ways to adjust to society’s changing needs.

This society would be rights-based but not ignore the need for cultural deviation from norms. Democracy would be a norm; but global society would be wide enough to embrace it in different forms. There may need to be an anarchic element; but educational systems should also help people through life at every step. Big Business would be required to act with equity with regard to product quality and customer service. It would not be so easy to inflict disabilities on people via various ‘suffering pipelines’ such as the army, drug damage, etc: but neither would unjust blame be put on people/companies/societies. Unfortunately, suffering would still exist because the physical world is in a fundamental state of increasing entropy, ie disorganisation.

The general principle is that there would be a massive healing of society in terms of its function and functionality . However, social function would be tempered with endless creativity and lots of fun. Society would not be cut on ‘utilitarian’ lines, in the sense of people being shoehorned into the most financially profitable but emotionally profitless careers; instead everybody would be able to develop their capabilities and talents. Thus in this society people would be able to fulfil roles at their level of abilities without ruling out their potential to completely jump out of the box!

Kate Hillier, Colchester, Essex

The best society would be run by nurses. Nurses are the caring profession; theirs is an ethics of caring that will see you from the cradle to the other place.

Just think – all of them with PhDs in caring, taking collegiate responsibility for everything. Thus all waste products wiped up efficiently and carefully disposed of. Similarly, firstly there will be potty training of the finest calibre (warm but directive) even for the potential obsessives in adult life, who will have the best in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, possibly even by the same nurses – like learning, caring is a lifelong thing, a vocation! And for the psychological dissonances, there will be an empathic ear, an emotional ‘hand’ held tightly, unconditional positive regard!

Nurses, of course, need not be paid handsomely. Having long allowed their consciences to go beyond things like money or self-advancement, they would be the mainstay of a low-cost society. All care would be delivered in the local community, but given sufficient numbers of nurses, bicycles should be all that’s necessary. This would also have the beneficial effect of inducing contentment by provoking images of ‘the good old days’.

It might of course be crossing your mind to ask, What about the non-nurses? Well, in a post-capitalist, Nursist world it only remains for people to be cared for – indeed, to have an entitlement to it: most will carry a ‘cared for’ ration book to be filled in with dates, types, and depths of caring, when last cared for, and so on. The awkward question of what people care about has not yet been resolved, but is being fully discussed by the Nursing Administrative Board.

Due to the huge increase in the techniques of caring, plus, it must be said, a smidgeon of threat – ie, “there’s more than one way in which we can ‘care’ for you” – non-compliance in the new society would mostly be a thing of the past. For the small few who insist on self-assertion, there will be well-developed virtual reality alternatives. Here recalcitrants can be placed in a virtual helmet, where they will remain sweet. Consistent with virtual ethics, they must not be abandoned to their ‘other world’, and specially-trained carers will always be at hand to coax them back to reality. Nobody goes without in nursing world.

Liam Clarke, Brighton University

What would make the best society? An aggregate of people living together in a harmonious community with common values and customs . But although this appears an acceptable definition, harmony is a difficult if not impossible state to achieve in society, and the maintenance of harmony invariably impedes the achievement of individual ideals. So this definition is nothing more than an unachievable ideal.

Philosophy has long been a defender of this impossible ideal, yet it seems that many are still confused by the nature of the notion: an ideal may be desirable but wholly unobtainable, especially if it concerns social matters. Plato reported such an unreachable ideal in the Republic , as did More and Bacon; and it is disparaging to their works if one thinks they were so na ïve as to believe that what they wrote could be actualised. Yet people still criticise their work on just this basis.

Maybe a poet could better portray the way things are. D.H. Lawrence says of love: “We have pushed a process into a goal.” Love is an ideal we all wish to acquire; but as Lawrence says, it’s a process not a goal, and to believe it is something to acquire is actually a fallacy. We do not fall in love to reach something and then stop: love is ongoing. So too must we understand social improvement as a process, for if we begin to view the ideal society as a thing we can create, then we’re accepting that we’ll reach a point at which we can go no further, no longer improve. Instead then, we must formulate an ideal and work towards it, knowing that its perfect implementation is unattainable. At least we will be moving in the right direction.

With all this in mind, I offer up the suggestion that we work towards a society where due to advances in technology no one works any more – allowing us to sit around discussing philosophy, eating fine food and drinking fine wine!

Christopher Burr, Southbourne, Dorset

There are two broad categories of society: narcissistic and outward-looking . The first typically involves a search for peace, harmony and pleasure. Fine as these are, the prospect of nothing else until the Heat Death of the universe lacks something. I prefer the more outward-looking search for meaning . This has been approached through religion, which is unfortunately stuck in the Middle Ages. Philosophy has made some technical advances here, but on the big questions we have not advanced beyond the ancient Greeks, who were also the inventors of every modern political system. Advances in art follow technology: a Stone Age Beethoven would not have produced symphonies, as he lacked the orchestra, whose instruments are the products of technological knowledge.

In fact, the only direction in which any substantial advances have been made is through science: so the best society would be one conscientiously advancing through science. This not a new departure, as we are already doing this to some extent – we have already split the atom and put men on the moon.

Science advances through individuals: the Newtons, Darwins and Einsteins formulating new ways of looking at the world; followed by periods of consolidation, which form the basis for the next genius to emerge. There is no formula for producing geniuses, who seem to appear at random, but history does give us a lead. They do not often come from the governing classes, who are busy politicking to maintain status. They do not often come from the bottom of society either, as these are too busy struggling for survival and usually lack the education. Innovation is a middle class affair, and to a great extent so is the consolidation process. The Western mode of society has a proven track record in providing a middle class environment, so its world-wide introduction would therefore be recommended. Unfortunately, ecologists tell us that we’d need the resources of three Earths to bring our present six billion up to a Western lifestyle – so to speed the plough of progress we need to remember Malthus and put quality of life before our present witless chase of quantity.

G.E. Haines, Woodbridge, Suffolk

The best society would exist when a common concern for the collective became intrinsic to individual priorities and choices. It would also be in harmony with the environment. Poverty, disease, warfare and crime would be things of the past.

Such a society would be the result of a collective freedom of thought that had disentangled itself from doom religions, dead philosophies and greedy politicians. The conscious and subconscious fallacies embedded in the primitive mind by the assertions of those taken to be superior would be finally put to rest, especially in the discovery that man’s natural state is not one of war, and neither is Armageddon inevitable. Principles would transcend the national, cultural, religious and political. However, the chief characteristic which would make it better than all the societies we may compare it with, is that it could only exist because it has defeated the possibility of just getting worse .

What makes the best society is also determined by number. A society of one can be the absolute best. A society of two could also be the best. It may be that the best society is determined by the number of good relationships which can exist within it. So before we can say anything about what would make the best society, we must first determine the number of people in it.

Nick Kelly, Eastbourne

In thinking about the best society, I thought of the many noble attempts at creating utopian societies. They range across left- and right-wing, scientific and counter-cultural, and religious concepts. Whether it’s a Brook Farm, a phalanstere or a kibbutz, they all share a common trait: failure.

What of the great attempts by intellectuals to offer models of the best society: Plato’s Calliopolis; More’s Utopia and Marx’s communism, or Bellamy, Morris, St. Simon, Heinlein and Buckminster Fuller? Whatever their merits, they all seem radically and deeply flawed, most significantly, by lacking any truly practical way of instituting the necessary changes to bring those dreams into reality. Even the dystopian cautionary voices and visions of Huxley, Wells, Orwell, Atwood or Lowry seem to be practically far removed from actuality (thankfully).

And then it happened. Something strange occurred to me after watching Pixar’s Wall-E : perhaps humans are the central problem in our inability to realize a utopia. We are the whole reason for utopia – yet we also seem to be the reason why no such attempt is ever realized.

I am uncomfortable with this conclusion because it smacks of misanthropy; but the common element to all the above failed utopian (and dystopian) communities is that they are human-centered. Perhaps, then, the best society isn’t even human. Take this aggressive, self-centered and most destructive species out of the mix, and what’s left? Peace? Utopia? A technoutopia of machines could exemplify the very best of universal moral qualities such as courage, honesty, and, above all else, love. All this from robots. We humans have been building our utopian visions out of the wrong stuff.

Perhaps we need to rephrase the question from “What is the best society?” – a utopia – to “What is a good society?” – an eutopia . What would a good society look like? I submit it would be something like the one Socrates outlined in Book 3 of Plato’s Republic – its members living in harmony with nature and one another. But, as beautiful as that bucolic vision may sound, remember Glaucon’s retort: “Socrates,” he said, “you’ve fashioned a city fit for pigs.” Well, perhaps not pigs, but maybe machines.

Patrick Standen, Burlington, VT

Some suggestions:

1. Population propagation will need to be controlled.

2. There will be workable old and new ways to provide necessary and desirable goods and services.

3. There will be leaders and doers who try to arrange a just distribution of these resources and goods.

4. There will be leaders and doers who try to minimize wars and other conflicts, and also crime.

5. People will sometimes ill-treat others (unfortunately).

6. People will sometimes treat others well.

7. People will sometimes try to develop desirable intellectual and emotional abilities.

8. Wise people will accept stoically what they cannot change, change what they should and can, and strive for wisdom to know the difference.

9. Wise people will tackle conflicts between religious, political, philosophical and scientific beliefs with good will and tolerance, and be stoical when such conflicts seem ineliminable.

I set out to describe a better society (not the best one, if there is such a thing). However, I seem to have described societies we already have. So maybe this is the best of all possible worlds that could exist, here, now and forevermore?

Gordon Fisher, South Salem, NY

One of our readers ‘2bsirius’ asked the same question on her YouTube channel, provoking a range of video answers. To watch them, go to youtube.com/user/2bsirius , click on ‘videos’ and go to ‘What would make the best society?’

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• How to structure an essay: Templates and tips

How to Structure an Essay | Tips & Templates

Published on September 18, 2020 by Jack Caulfield . Revised on July 23, 2023.

The basic structure of an essay always consists of an introduction , a body , and a conclusion . But for many students, the most difficult part of structuring an essay is deciding how to organize information within the body.

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Table of contents

The basics of essay structure, chronological structure, compare-and-contrast structure, problems-methods-solutions structure, signposting to clarify your structure, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about essay structure.

There are two main things to keep in mind when working on your essay structure: making sure to include the right information in each part, and deciding how you’ll organize the information within the body.

Parts of an essay

The three parts that make up all essays are described in the table below.

Order of information

You’ll also have to consider how to present information within the body. There are a few general principles that can guide you here.

The first is that your argument should move from the simplest claim to the most complex . The body of a good argumentative essay often begins with simple and widely accepted claims, and then moves towards more complex and contentious ones.

For example, you might begin by describing a generally accepted philosophical concept, and then apply it to a new topic. The grounding in the general concept will allow the reader to understand your unique application of it.

The second principle is that background information should appear towards the beginning of your essay . General background is presented in the introduction. If you have additional background to present, this information will usually come at the start of the body.

The third principle is that everything in your essay should be relevant to the thesis . Ask yourself whether each piece of information advances your argument or provides necessary background. And make sure that the text clearly expresses each piece of information’s relevance.

The sections below present several organizational templates for essays: the chronological approach, the compare-and-contrast approach, and the problems-methods-solutions approach.

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The chronological approach (sometimes called the cause-and-effect approach) is probably the simplest way to structure an essay. It just means discussing events in the order in which they occurred, discussing how they are related (i.e. the cause and effect involved) as you go.

A chronological approach can be useful when your essay is about a series of events. Don’t rule out other approaches, though—even when the chronological approach is the obvious one, you might be able to bring out more with a different structure.

Explore the tabs below to see a general template and a specific example outline from an essay on the invention of the printing press.

• Thesis statement
• Discussion of event/period
• Consequences
• Importance of topic
• Strong closing statement
• Claim that the printing press marks the end of the Middle Ages
• Background on the low levels of literacy before the printing press
• Thesis statement: The invention of the printing press increased circulation of information in Europe, paving the way for the Reformation
• High levels of illiteracy in medieval Europe
• Literacy and thus knowledge and education were mainly the domain of religious and political elites
• Consequence: this discouraged political and religious change
• Invention of the printing press in 1440 by Johannes Gutenberg
• Implications of the new technology for book production
• Consequence: Rapid spread of the technology and the printing of the Gutenberg Bible
• Trend for translating the Bible into vernacular languages during the years following the printing press’s invention
• Luther’s own translation of the Bible during the Reformation
• Consequence: The large-scale effects the Reformation would have on religion and politics
• Summarize the history described
• Stress the significance of the printing press to the events of this period

Essays with two or more main subjects are often structured around comparing and contrasting . For example, a literary analysis essay might compare two different texts, and an argumentative essay might compare the strengths of different arguments.

There are two main ways of structuring a compare-and-contrast essay: the alternating method, and the block method.

Alternating

In the alternating method, each paragraph compares your subjects in terms of a specific point of comparison. These points of comparison are therefore what defines each paragraph.

The tabs below show a general template for this structure, and a specific example for an essay comparing and contrasting distance learning with traditional classroom learning.

• Synthesis of arguments
• Topical relevance of distance learning in lockdown
• Increasing prevalence of distance learning over the last decade
• Thesis statement: While distance learning has certain advantages, it introduces multiple new accessibility issues that must be addressed for it to be as effective as classroom learning
• Classroom learning: Ease of identifying difficulties and privately discussing them
• Distance learning: Difficulty of noticing and unobtrusively helping
• Classroom learning: Difficulties accessing the classroom (disability, distance travelled from home)
• Distance learning: Difficulties with online work (lack of tech literacy, unreliable connection, distractions)
• Classroom learning: Tends to encourage personal engagement among students and with teacher, more relaxed social environment
• Distance learning: Greater ability to reach out to teacher privately
• Sum up, emphasize that distance learning introduces more difficulties than it solves
• Stress the importance of addressing issues with distance learning as it becomes increasingly common
• Distance learning may prove to be the future, but it still has a long way to go

In the block method, each subject is covered all in one go, potentially across multiple paragraphs. For example, you might write two paragraphs about your first subject and then two about your second subject, making comparisons back to the first.

The tabs again show a general template, followed by another essay on distance learning, this time with the body structured in blocks.

• Point 1 (compare)
• Point 2 (compare)
• Point 3 (compare)
• Point 4 (compare)
• Advantages: Flexibility, accessibility
• Disadvantages: Discomfort, challenges for those with poor internet or tech literacy
• Advantages: Potential for teacher to discuss issues with a student in a separate private call
• Disadvantages: Difficulty of identifying struggling students and aiding them unobtrusively, lack of personal interaction among students
• Advantages: More accessible to those with low tech literacy, equality of all sharing one learning environment
• Disadvantages: Students must live close enough to attend, commutes may vary, classrooms not always accessible for disabled students
• Advantages: Ease of picking up on signs a student is struggling, more personal interaction among students
• Disadvantages: May be harder for students to approach teacher privately in person to raise issues

An essay that concerns a specific problem (practical or theoretical) may be structured according to the problems-methods-solutions approach.

This is just what it sounds like: You define the problem, characterize a method or theory that may solve it, and finally analyze the problem, using this method or theory to arrive at a solution. If the problem is theoretical, the solution might be the analysis you present in the essay itself; otherwise, you might just present a proposed solution.

The tabs below show a template for this structure and an example outline for an essay about the problem of fake news.

• Introduce the problem
• Provide background
• Describe your approach to solving it
• Define the problem precisely
• Describe why it’s important
• Indicate previous approaches to the problem
• Present your new approach, and why it’s better
• Apply the new method or theory to the problem
• Indicate the solution you arrive at by doing so
• Assess (potential or actual) effectiveness of solution
• Describe the implications
• Problem: The growth of “fake news” online
• Prevalence of polarized/conspiracy-focused news sources online
• Thesis statement: Rather than attempting to stamp out online fake news through social media moderation, an effective approach to combating it must work with educational institutions to improve media literacy
• Definition: Deliberate disinformation designed to spread virally online
• Popularization of the term, growth of the phenomenon
• Previous approaches: Labeling and moderation on social media platforms
• Critique: This approach feeds conspiracies; the real solution is to improve media literacy so users can better identify fake news
• Greater emphasis should be placed on media literacy education in schools
• This allows people to assess news sources independently, rather than just being told which ones to trust
• This is a long-term solution but could be highly effective
• It would require significant organization and investment, but would equip people to judge news sources more effectively
• Rather than trying to contain the spread of fake news, we must teach the next generation not to fall for it

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Signposting means guiding the reader through your essay with language that describes or hints at the structure of what follows.  It can help you clarify your structure for yourself as well as helping your reader follow your ideas.

The essay overview

In longer essays whose body is split into multiple named sections, the introduction often ends with an overview of the rest of the essay. This gives a brief description of the main idea or argument of each section.

The overview allows the reader to immediately understand what will be covered in the essay and in what order. Though it describes what  comes later in the text, it is generally written in the present tense . The following example is from a literary analysis essay on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein .

Transitions

Transition words and phrases are used throughout all good essays to link together different ideas. They help guide the reader through your text, and an essay that uses them effectively will be much easier to follow.

Various different relationships can be expressed by transition words, as shown in this example.

Because Hitler failed to respond to the British ultimatum, France and the UK declared war on Germany. Although it was an outcome the Allies had hoped to avoid, they were prepared to back up their ultimatum in order to combat the existential threat posed by the Third Reich.

Transition sentences may be included to transition between different paragraphs or sections of an essay. A good transition sentence moves the reader on to the next topic while indicating how it relates to the previous one.

… Distance learning, then, seems to improve accessibility in some ways while representing a step backwards in others.

However , considering the issue of personal interaction among students presents a different picture.

If you want to know more about AI tools , college essays , or fallacies make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples or go directly to our tools!

• Ad hominem fallacy
• Post hoc fallacy
• Appeal to authority fallacy
• False cause fallacy
• Sunk cost fallacy

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The structure of an essay is divided into an introduction that presents your topic and thesis statement , a body containing your in-depth analysis and arguments, and a conclusion wrapping up your ideas.

The structure of the body is flexible, but you should always spend some time thinking about how you can organize your essay to best serve your ideas.

An essay isn’t just a loose collection of facts and ideas. Instead, it should be centered on an overarching argument (summarized in your thesis statement ) that every part of the essay relates to.

The way you structure your essay is crucial to presenting your argument coherently. A well-structured essay helps your reader follow the logic of your ideas and understand your overall point.

Comparisons in essays are generally structured in one of two ways:

• The alternating method, where you compare your subjects side by side according to one specific aspect at a time.
• The block method, where you cover each subject separately in its entirety.

It’s also possible to combine both methods, for example by writing a full paragraph on each of your topics and then a final paragraph contrasting the two according to a specific metric.

You should try to follow your outline as you write your essay . However, if your ideas change or it becomes clear that your structure could be better, it’s okay to depart from your essay outline . Just make sure you know why you’re doing so.

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My Vision of an Ideal World

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Suppose we were to ask ourselves the question: what would an ideal world order look like,What kind of world do I want to live in? If I had the power to create a society in my own vision, what would that look like? What kinds of activities would be at the forefront of culture? How would people treat each other? In what manner would business be conducted (if at all)? In what areas would the most energy be focused (i.e. education, health, etc.), write a list in order of importance? What kind of role models would be best for your ideal world? How does the society treat it’s children i.e. what does it teach them about the world, what are they encouraged to partake in?In physics questions, we generally have to assume the ideal situation.

This is because the reality is very difficult to explain on paper in form of mathematical equations. But, if one look in the real world the situation is widely different. Its quite easier to explain the real world as it is and its almost impossible to see the world in ideal state. But what is ideal world? This question has different answer for everyone. Moreover, ideal world will change as the circumstances for someone changes.

A person will see the ideal world as mainly the solution of the major problem he/she has. Ideal world is a personal for someone as it exists only in dreams not reality.In my dreams, world is not Ram Rajya, as it is not possible today. In my ideal world I see the world completely differently as what it is. I think that all the nations in the world should commune to answer future questions. There should be a governing body at the global level which should see all international problems.

There will not be any wars as two states never fight with their police, they move to court for their solution. Similarly, this global body should control all the nations in the world. Souvenerity of nations is maintained and also all kind of authority regarding internal affairs of a nation is with its only. Government of such a global body will be chosen by the people only hence elections will be global. But the question rises, why such a body is required? Answer will be nations will not need any infrastructure to support any kind of army and all such headaches will belong to global body.

And all budget that goes to defense can be put for the improvement of science and technology.The next step of such a global body will be to promote education proportionally in different countries such that all countries get equal opportunities for higher education. This global body will also hold responsibility for promoting culture of a nation among its students. Any Student has right to take education from any university in the world and all competition and admissions will be global only. There shall be very little division by countries and people should know others by their culture and presentation style.

A very sophisticated research will be carried out by this global body. But next question is from where will this body will get the funds? Answer is all governments of the world are responsible for the funds, in this way this body will have huge funds which it can use for research. This research will help us to rebuild our ozone layer, will help us to reduce the green house proposition in our atmosphere and will help us to implore new planets! Yes the last point is of severe importance. We are left with very few resource on our planet thus we need to establish our industries on the foreign planets.

This will give us endless supply of fuel and resources. And these can be used for more sophisticated research and to help in completing every one’s needs.Next issue in the ideal world will be world economy. This thing will still be covered by individual nations. But no nation will produce obstacles for other nations.

There will not be any concept of MNCs, any company can compete in any nation. Provision of resources will make the world economy better and this will make all nations to move forward. The loss of individual identity of a human from its nation will dilute and this will make every body to think beyond there nation and include everyone. Every nation will be responsible for the situation and good feel in every other nation. Each nation has duty to provide with possible solutions if any major issues suddenly rose in a nation.

Next issue is crime. To handle crime is most difficult part of any government. Judgment and order in society is something for people need governments. In ideal world as every country will be given equal opportunity of studies and jobs crime rate will reduce automatically. There will not be any politically important LICs in the world and all cultures will be given importance and nourishment; there will not be any more demands of new nations. But there will still be crime, however, advanced technology will curb them down.

But the major difference will at the point that criminals will be given chance to improve themselves, they will be given proper education to change them. If any person will become criminal under circumstances than he/she will try to provide with required resources and more people with such scenarios have to be taken care of by providing them some resources and some hopes.Religion, the most important issue with any society or nation. Even in my ideal world this is impossible to imagine that there will be only one religion accepted by everyone, this is because religions takes centuries to establish themselves. It takes a long time for any culture to shape itself uniquely and identically from other cultures.

It takes all child hood of a person to understand his God and requirements of his religion. To change such a mindset required many centuries. Thus we will start from education.Every body will be given chance to take education in schools, run or controlled by government. The education curriculum is to improve the humanity across borders and the principles of ideal world. But in last, in ideal world there will only be one religion, one God and only one caste.

No more riots on the name of religion or caste. Diversity in the world will be from different environments and different places. World will not become monotonous. Every culture has its color.

And all the colors in the world will unite for the color of humanity, peace and development.In this way I see ideal world. It may not be ideal for some one else, as I said in beginning that ideal world is personal for everyone and also to the circumstances one is in. But some of these things is actually what we require in very near future.

We are in pressure of nature degradation, economical recession et al. We all have to fight, we all are responsible to bring peace and to provide resources to our grand children. All this can be done in this real world also, only thing required is contribution from every individual from planet.

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

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The Equal Society: Essays in Theory and Practice

George Hull (ed.), The Equal Society: Essays in Theory and Practice , Rowman and Littlefield, 2015, 354pp., $100.00 (hbk), ISBN 9781498515719.

Reviewed by Valentin Beck, Freie Universität Berlin

What would be the central characteristics of a society in which its citizens are truly treated as equals? While egalitarian thinkers are united in their affirmation of the value of equality, they notoriously have -- for centuries -- disagreed about its interpretation. Egalitarianism now is a dominant current within Western moral and political philosophy, but it is also very broad and multifaceted. There is a wide range of mutually inconsistent egalitarian conceptions, ranging from libertarian and meritocratic positions to social liberal, communitarian and socialist ones. Therefore, the decisive question is not whether one should be an egalitarian, but what kind of egalitarian one should be, and how to interpret the central tenet of equal treatment more concretely in political theory and practice.

The anthology under review sheds light on this question. It offers a fascinatingly rich collection of original essays from a diverse group of scholars, some of whom have been shaping egalitarian discourse for decades. An introduction by George Hull and a helpful index complete a collection that will surely be indispensable for those wishing to take stock of recent developments in egalitarian thought. The book's more theoretical first part is dedicated to expansions and revisions of the concept of equality. It focuses on theoretical innovations concerning, among other topics, the interpretation of "social" or "relational" equality, and methodological issues such as the relation of non-ideal to ideal theory. The second part contains contributions on more applied issues, namely equality in higher education (Ann E. Cudd), the challenges to equality posed by the gendered division of labour (Gina Schouten), workplace democracy (Pierre-Yves Néron), modern constitutionalism (David Bilchitz) and historical redress claims (Daryl Glaser). The division of the book into two parts should not be misinterpreted, however. All of the contributions in one way or the other address the theoretical challenge of fleshing out the tenet of equal treatment. And while the articles in the second part have a more specific focus, those in the first also contain more concrete references to what the tenet of equal treatment implies in practice.

The volume does not take stock of the entire range of egalitarian theories, but rather assembles a variety of innovative positions and perspectives. At least six such areas receive in-depth treatment in the volume: first, the idea of "social" or "relational equality", as opposed to "distributional equality" (Jonathan Wolff, Miranda Fricker, Tom P. S. Angier, Lucy Allais, Néron and Daniel Putnam); second, the focus on race as a neglected category in egalitarian thinking (Charles W. Mills and Glaser); third, reflection on capabilities as metric of justice and wellbeing (Fricker, Bekka Williams and Hull); fourth, the importance of rectificatory justice for establishing more equal societies (Mills and Glaser); fifth, African-communitarianism as a distinct egalitarian current (Thaddeus Metz); and sixth, a negativist methodology, according to which specific inequalities or injustices should be the starting point of egalitarian theorizing, rather than the affirmation of an abstract ideal (particularly Wolff, Mills and Fricker). The treatment of this array of topics is generally very stimulating and deserves to be studied in detail. Without wishing to neglect any of these areas or essays in particular, I will limit my more extensive comments to the essays of Mills, Fricker and Wolff, in which several of the above-mentioned innovative concepts are concerned. At the end of this review, I will briefly reflect on why the present volume, which is up-to-date on an impressive number of issues, excludes any treatment of international and global economic inequalities as well as intergenerational environmental inequalities.

In "Racial Equality" Mills addresses race as a neglected category as well as the issues of methodological negativism (see Hull's introduction, p. 3, for this term) and corrective justice, which are interlinked. Mills has gained prominence by arguing that contemporary political philosophy, and particularly its contractualist strand, does not adequately address racial inequalities in liberal societies. In this essay, he argues that race is an essential category and shows the extent to which it has been neglected in what he calls "mainstream social justice theory, particularly Rawlsianism" (p. 44). Beyond this deconstructive concern, however, Mills also demonstrates how egalitarian theorizing can better incorporate issues of racial inequalities. He points to different positions on the metaphysics of race, ranging from simple eliminativism, according to which race does not exist in any sense, to variants of anti-eliminativism, including the constructivist variant to which Mills himself subscribes. Anti-eliminativist constructivism holds that races do not exist biologically, but as "socio-political constructs brought into existence through discriminatory socio-political processes" (p. 44).

From this angle, Mills analyses different forms of racism in "racist societies", which are distinguished from "overtly racist regimes" such as the U.S. under Jim Crow, Nazi Germany or South Africa under apartheid, because they lack features such as an "overtly racist ideology" or de jure discriminations (see p. 49). What matters is that racist societies still structurally advantage whites to a very significant extent, even in the absence of formal discrimination. Mills sets aside racism of the interpersonal kind, embodied in individual actions, since it is deemed "not relevant for racial inequality as a broad social phenomenon" (p. 45). Alternatively, one might argue that individual racist behaviour is relevant and could be integrated into the structural analysis that Mills is championing, since structural injustices likely influence the forms that interpersonal racism takes. Be that as it may, Mills focuses on "socio-institutional" racism (see p. 45) as the more fundamental phenomenon and which can exist even in the absence of interpersonal racism. He holds that racially unequal societies possess a "racialized basic structure" (p. 54), which discriminates against black people even while they possess formal equality with white people. These distinctions allow for the observation that ideal theory of the Rawlsian kind, which justifies principles for societies that are at least approximately just, cannot address racial discriminations of the kind that are typical for Western societies, since they simply do not exist in this framework.

This is where methodological negativism comes into play. Mills states that, instead of focusing on scenarios of roughly full compliance, theorists should start by designing principles of non-ideal theory with the aim of establishing transitional justice. This will lead to substantially different principles and priority rules, compared for example to the well-known principles that are discussed by Rawls under the notion of justice as fairness. Ideal theory does not become altogether obsolete in this variant of methodological negativism, however. Its proper function is to illustrate the ideal of a just society, which could one day be realized if principles of non-ideal theory are implemented. So despite his harsh criticism of Rawlsian ideal theory, Mills acknowledges a need for ideal theory next to non-ideal theorizing. Within his framework of "modified Rawlsianism" (p. 66), his use of the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory is also broadly in line with Rawls' usage.

Fricker, too, is renowned for addressing a category that has hitherto been neglected in egalitarian thought, namely that of epistemic injustice (2007). In "Epistemic Contribution as a Central Human Capability", Fricker builds on central themes of her groundbreaking monograph. Her goal is to show that any society dedicated to furthering human well-being has to take seriously the ways in which it enables or constrains the capacities of its members to contribute to commonly shared knowledge. In order to enhance the well-being of their members, societies must realize their capability of epistemic contribution, understood as a "combined capability" in the sense coined by Martha Nussbaum (that is, as both an internally developed and an externally enabled capability). Fricker affirms and significantly extends the capabilities metric developed by Sen and Nussbaum. Her work is more closely aligned with Nussbaum than with Sen, since she emphasizes her sympathies for the project of formulating a "list of capabilities that might at least roughly capture workable universal characterisation of human well-being" (p. 77). However, Nussbaum's list is incomplete according to Fricker, because it displays a bias towards capabilities of practical as opposed to theoretical reason (see p. 75). In going back to Wolff and Avner de-Shalit (2007, p. 45), Fricker defends a "two-directional conception of human well-being" (p. 76), reminding us that "while it is good to receive it is also good to give " (p. 75). Fricker posits that the capability of epistemic contribution consists in being able to "contribute to the pool of shared epistemic materials -- materials for knowledge, understanding, and very often for practical deliberation" (p. 76).

It is not Fricker's aim to show that we can sometimes be morally obliged not to withhold knowledge from others, which would be a relatively easy and straightforward task depending on the concrete type and context of concealment in question. She instead aims to show that it is good and even essential for their wellbeing for individuals to contribute knowledge to society. Individuals' capabilities of epistemic contribution can be constrained or enabled by certain types of interpersonal behaviour as well as by societal structures. To justify why the protection of this capability of theoretical reason is important, Fricker draws on the value of non-domination in the sense of liberty from arbitrary interference made famous by Philip Pettit. Pettit argues that freedom from arbitrary interference can only be secured through public institutions which allow members of society to publicly contest such interferences. For such contestation, however, the capability of epistemic contribution must in turn be realized (see p. 86).

Beyond introducing a concept that deserves the concern of egalitarians in theory and practice, Fricker sheds light on a number of other hotly debated issues, such as the critique of recipient-oriented approaches to equality and the conceptualization of relational equality. Fricker also has interesting things to say on what she calls a "failure-first methodology" (p. 74), which informs her account of epistemic injustice and her concept of epistemic contribution. Her methodology is similar to Mills', in that it places an emphasis on starting with the negative. But it diverges at least in one respect: for Fricker, starting with the negative is not necessarily tied to non-ideal theorizing, since the concepts of "justice" and "equality" need to be comprehensively interpreted by taking into account the "endemic pressures for collapse into injustice and inequality" (p. 73). Fricker therefore emphasizes that a failure-first-methodology is conceptually distinct from the dichotomy of ideal and non-ideal theorizing and can yield fruitful results within either framework.

In "Social Equality, Relative Poverty and Marginalised Groups", Wolff answers these methodological questions differently. Wolff's aim is to analyze how absolute and relative poverty prevent the achievement of a (truly) equal society, which he defines as one that is free from asymmetrical relations and from relations of estrangement and alienation. His methodology for this enterprise is set out at the start of the essay. Like Mills and Fricker, Wolff emphasizes the importance of "starting from problems with the actual world rather than a depiction of an ideal world" (p. 24). But unlike Mills and Fricker, who each acknowledge the significance of ideal theory when appropriately combined with non-ideal theory, Wolff completely rejects ideal theory. He holds that "an ideal theory of social equality is hard to sustain, because it is very difficult to give precise and unique content to an ideal of social equality" (p. 22). Instead, there are "many different ways in which a society could count as a 'society of equals' . . . . Quaker Society, a Kibbutz, and a 1960s Californian Hippy community may all, if things go well, count as small-scale societies of equals" (p. 23). In place of the term of non-ideal theory Wolff suggests that of "real-world political philosophy" (p. 22), because it avoids any connotation of dependence on ideal theorizing.

Looking at the work of Mills, Fricker, and Wolff, we can distinguish three variants of methodological negativism. Mills' variant is placed within the classical Rawlsian understanding of ideal and non-ideal theory, but displays a much greater emphasis on the latter as opposed to the former. Fricker's approach underlines the distinctness and complementarity of the negativist methodology by stating that it can be applied to either non-ideal or ideal theorizing. Wolff's methodological negativism transcends the classic distinction of ideal and non-ideal theory by rejecting the focus on ideals for political theory altogether. Mills' and Fricker's approaches to methodological negativism are in principle compatible, but Wolff's approach cannot be reconciled with them, due to his complete rejection of ideal theory.

Methodological concerns are not the only focus in Wolff's article. His two main themes are providing an account of different forms of poverty, and reflecting on how to tackle them from a perspective that values the idea of "social equality" (widely treated as synonymous with "relational equality"). This idea has gained steam in recent years since being affirmed in the writings of thinkers such as Elizabeth Anderson, Samuel Scheffler and Tim Scanlon, and it is also treated in a number of other contributions to the volume (compare the third paragraph above; see also Fourie/Schuppert/Wallimann-Helmer 2015). Wolff dedicates particular attention to the notion of relative poverty and how it is connected with that of social (in)equality. Poverty is dependent on what is customary in a given society, Adam Smith noted when he wrote that "in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt" (Smith 1776, book 5, ch. 2). According to Wolff, "one is in relative poverty if one lacks the consumption and household goods customary in one's society, or lacks resources sufficient to allow a social life, or is unable to purchase what is needed to avoid shame" (p. 26). While this tripartite notion of relative poverty has material implications, it is preferable to purely monetary definitions (e.g. defining poverty as receiving an income below 60 percent of the median income). Numerical definitions of poverty scratch only at the surface of what it means to be poor, and fail to distinguish between material inequalities, as problematic as they may otherwise be, and poverty. Wolff's definition shows how relative poverty and social inequality are connected yet distinct phenomena. They are not identical because there can be other forms of inequality that are not reflected in a lack of resources to participate in customary social practices -- such as asymmetric race or gender relations. Wolff analyses different constellations of deprivation that result from the desire to "fit in", such as when people spend resources on status goods such as mobile phones despite lacking the resources for basic necessities (see p. 29). Fighting poverty effectively might also be complicated by the fact that "fitting in" to a local community might require different resources or efforts than fitting in to society more broadly.

Wolff's account of poverty is illuminating. It shows how relative poverty may be interpreted from a social egalitarian perspective, according to which equal distributions of specific goods are not of ultimate, but only derivative egalitarian concern. His essay should be of interest not only for normative and empirical theorists, but also for policy-makers and others who deal with the goal of poverty-alleviation in practice.

The articles by Mills, Fricker and Wolff are representative of a collection that embodies the state of the art of contemporary egalitarian theory in many respects. Two important subjects, however, are missing from the otherwise multifaceted picture. There is no engagement with economic inequalities beyond the nation state. Neither does this work treat intergenerational environmental inequalities resulting from environmental degradation and man-made climate change. These two concerns give egalitarians reason to question the fairness and legitimacy of the international order. To start with, the distribution of income and capital across nation states remains highly unequal, which increases incentives for those who find themselves in less fortunate circumstances to seek better living conditions abroad. Furthermore, while trade with resources, goods and services has never been more global and interdependent than today, it may be argued that the current system has primarily benefitted the world's wealthy and powerful, and that it rests on practices that are highly environmentally destructive and which violate the basic human rights of labourers and affected populations. Finally, past and present generations have contributed to environmental degradation and fossil fuel consumption to a much larger degree than future generations will, assuming they act in such a way as to avoid the most catastrophic outcomes.

What should we make of the absence of these topics in an anthology that seeks to shed light on contemporary egalitarian theorizing? An uncharitable reading may trace it back to an unexpressed particularism. It would be hard to argue that demands of equal treatment stop at national or communal borders or generational confines -- at least not in a highly interdependent world like ours. Neither could the widely shared social (or relational) egalitarian perspective plausibly attach any such categorical constraints to egalitarian demands. New technologies now allow an increasing number of the world's least well-off individuals to compare themselves to more privileged individuals across national boundaries, which in turn affects what they seek to achieve in life and what they will regard as justified or unjustified inequalities. A more charitable interpretation is that a single anthology simply cannot cover all of the issues that are currently at the forefront of egalitarian theory. However, it should be clear that while it remains important and rewarding to reflect on the conditions of "The Equal Society", an egalitarian should certainly not stop there. Instead, she should also ask what it would mean to transform transnational and transgenerational relations in a way so that all humans are (truly) treated as equals.

Carina Fourie, Fabian Schuppert, Ivo Wallimann-Helmer (eds.), Social Equality: On What It Means to Be Equals , Oxford University Press 2015.

Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing , Oxford University Press 2007.

Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations [1776], edited by R. H. Campbell and A. S. Skinner, Clarendon Press/Oxford University Press 1976.

Jonathan Wolff/Avner De-Shalit, Disadvantage , Oxford University Press 2007.

My Vision of an Ideal World Essay Example

• Pages: 5 (1213 words)
• Published: January 7, 2017
• Type: Essay

Suppose we were to ask ourselves the question: what would an ideal world order look like,What kind of world do I want to live in? If I had the power to create a society in my own vision, what would that look like? What kinds of activities would be at the forefront of culture? How would people treat each other? In what manner would business be conducted (if at all)? In what areas would the most energy be focused (i.e. education, health, etc.), write a list in order of importance? What kind of role models would be best for your ideal world? How does the society treat it’s children i.e. what does it teach them about the world, what are they encouraged to partake in?

In physics questions, we generally have to assume th

e ideal situation. This is because the reality is very difficult to explain on paper in form of mathematical equations. But, if one look in the real world the situation is widely different. Its quite easier to explain the real world as it is and its almost impossible to see the world in ideal state. But what is ideal world? This question has different answer for everyone. Moreover, ideal world will change as the circumstances for someone changes. A person will see the ideal world as mainly the solution of the major problem he/she has. Ideal world is a personal for someone as it exists only in dreams not reality.

In my dreams, world is not Ram Rajya, as it is not possible today. In my ideal world I see the world completely differently as what it is

I think that all the nations in the world should commune to answer future questions. There should be a governing body at the global level which should see all international problems. There will not be any wars as two states never fight with their police, they move to court for their solution. Similarly, this global body should control all the nations in the world. Souvenerity of nations is maintained and also all kind of authority regarding internal affairs of a nation is with its only. Government of such a global body will be chosen by the people only hence elections will be global. But the question rises, why such a body is required? Answer will be nations will not need any infrastructure to support any kind of army and all such headaches will belong to global body. And all budget that goes to defense can be put for the improvement of science and technology.

The next step of such a global body will be to promote education proportionally in different countries such that all countries get equal opportunities for higher education. This global body will also hold responsibility for promoting culture of a nation among its students. Any Student has right to take education from any university in the world and all competition and admissions will be global only. There shall be very little division by countries and people should know others by their culture and presentation style.

A very sophisticated research will be carried out by this global body. But next question is from where will this body will get the funds? Answer is all governments of the world are responsible for

the funds, in this way this body will have huge funds which it can use for research. This research will help us to rebuild our ozone layer, will help us to reduce the green house proposition in our atmosphere and will help us to implore new planets! Yes the last point is of severe importance. We are left with very few resource on our planet thus we need to establish our industries on the foreign planets. This will give us endless supply of fuel and resources. And these can be used for more sophisticated research and to help in completing every one’s needs.

Next issue in the ideal world will be world economy. This thing will still be covered by individual nations. But no nation will produce obstacles for other nations. There will not be any concept of MNCs, any company can compete in any nation. Provision of resources will make the world economy better and this will make all nations to move forward. The loss of individual identity of a human from its nation will dilute and this will make every body to think beyond there nation and include everyone. Every nation will be responsible for the situation and good feel in every other nation. Each nation has duty to provide with possible solutions if any major issues suddenly rose in a nation.

Next issue is crime. To handle crime is most difficult part of any government. Judgment and order in society is something for people need governments. In ideal world as every country will be given equal opportunity of studies and jobs crime rate will reduce automatically. There will not be

any politically important LICs in the world and all cultures will be given importance and nourishment; there will not be any more demands of new nations. But there will still be crime, however, advanced technology will curb them down. But the major difference will at the point that criminals will be given chance to improve themselves, they will be given proper education to change them. If any person will become criminal under circumstances than he/she will try to provide with required resources and more people with such scenarios have to be taken care of by providing them some resources and some hopes.

Religion, the most important issue with any society or nation. Even in my ideal world this is impossible to imagine that there will be only one religion accepted by everyone, this is because religions takes centuries to establish themselves. It takes a long time for any culture to shape itself uniquely and identically from other cultures. It takes all child hood of a person to understand his God and requirements of his religion. To change such a mindset required many centuries. Thus we will start from education.

Every body will be given chance to take education in schools, run or controlled by government. The education curriculum is to improve the humanity across borders and the principles of ideal world. But in last, in ideal world there will only be one religion, one God and only one caste. No more riots on the name of religion or caste. Diversity in the world will be from different environments and different places. World will not become monotonous. Every culture has its color. And all

the colors in the world will unite for the color of humanity, peace and development.

In this way I see ideal world. It may not be ideal for some one else, as I said in beginning that ideal world is personal for everyone and also to the circumstances one is in. But some of these things is actually what we require in very near future. We are in pressure of nature degradation, economical recession et al. We all have to fight, we all are responsible to bring peace and to provide resources to our grand children. All this can be done in this real world also, only thing required is contribution from every individual from planet.

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Envisioning Perfection: the Concept of Utopia

This essay about the concept of utopia explores its origins, meanings, and implications. Tracing back to Sir Thomas More’s “Utopia,” it highlights how utopian visions have historically served as critiques of societal flaws and blueprints for ideal communities. The essay discusses the characteristics common to utopias, such as social harmony and technological advancement, while acknowledging the diversity in utopian thought influenced by cultural and personal contexts. It also addresses the paradoxes inherent in striving for a perfect society, noting criticisms that utopias could lead to oppression due to a lack of consideration for human diversity and conflict. Furthermore, the essay examines utopia’s role in inspiring social and political movements, emphasizing the practical challenges of realizing such ideals. Concluding with the notion that utopian thinking fosters critical reflection and progress, the essay underscores the enduring value of envisioning better worlds as a catalyst for societal improvement, despite the unattainable nature of absolute perfection.

How it works

The quest for a perfect society has intrigued philosophers, writers, and dreamers for centuries, giving birth to the concept of utopia. Derived from the Greek words ‘ou,’ meaning ‘not,’ and ‘topos,’ meaning ‘place,’ utopia translates to ‘no place,’ signifying an ideal world that exists only in the imagination. This essay delves into the multifaceted nature of utopia, exploring its origins, implications, and the varying interpretations that have evolved over time.

The genesis of the modern utopian concept is often attributed to Sir Thomas More’s 1516 work, “Utopia,” which describes a fictional island society and its social, religious, and political customs.

More’s vision of utopia was a critique of his own society’s flaws, disguised as a narrative about a perfect, harmonious community. This seminal work laid the foundation for utopian thought, inviting readers to question and reimagine the structure and values of their own societies.

Utopian visions are characterized by their emphasis on social harmony, equitable distribution of resources, and the absence of conflict and suffering. They often feature advanced technology, ecological balance, and a profound sense of community and mutual respect among inhabitants. However, the ideal features of a utopia can vary significantly depending on the cultural, historical, and personal contexts of those envisioning them. For some, utopia might be a technologically advanced society free of labor and suffering; for others, it could be a return to agrarian simplicity and a closer connection to nature.

Despite its inherently positive connotations, the concept of utopia is fraught with paradoxes and challenges. The pursuit of a perfect society raises questions about the nature of perfection and whether it is achievable or even desirable. Utopian thinking often overlooks the diversity of human desires and the inevitability of conflict, leading to criticisms that utopian societies, if realized, could become oppressive and totalitarian. Dystopian literature and thought have emerged as a counterpoint to utopian ideals, highlighting the potential dangers of striving for a perfect world at the expense of freedom and individuality.

Moreover, the pursuit of utopia has practical implications for social and political movements. Utopian thinking has inspired revolutions, social reforms, and the establishment of experimental communities throughout history. These endeavors demonstrate the power of utopian visions to motivate change, yet they also underscore the challenges of translating idealized concepts into reality. The failures and successes of these attempts provide valuable lessons about the complexities of human society and the balance between idealism and pragmatism.

In conclusion, the concept of utopia represents humanity’s enduring hope for a better world, serving as a powerful tool for critique and imagination. While true utopias may be unattainable, the process of envisioning them encourages critical reflection on societal norms and aspirations. Utopian thought challenges us to consider the kind of world we wish to live in and the values we want to uphold. Despite its contradictions and potential pitfalls, the pursuit of utopian ideals continues to inspire progress and foster a sense of possibility, reminding us that the journey towards a better society is as important as the destination itself.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Role Models — My Ideal Person: What it Means to Me

My Ideal Person: What It Means to Me

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Ideal Society IELTS Essay: Sample Opinions & Solutions for Practice

• Updated On December 14, 2023
• Published In IELTS Preparation 💻

International English Language Testing System is a widely accepted English proficiency test taken by students intending to pursue foreign education or employment abroad. The test assesses the candidate’s ability to communicate in English and is based on four parameters: reading, writing, speaking and listening. 

Table of Contents

The Writing Task consists of two tasks- 1 and 2. In Task 2, candidates should respond to a given statement and justify their opinion with examples. One of the most common topics is the ideal society IELTS essay. Here we have compiled a detailed guide on the vocabulary to be used, sample questions and answers that can be followed, and the kind of approach for Writing Task 2. Candidates must utilise this for their preparation. 

Vocabulary for Writing Task 2 

Linking words is an essential grammatical tool that helps construct a sentence and connects part of a text. Moreover, linkers can also help candidates put forth their opinion. In addition, they are beneficial for other reasons. They are underlined below for easier understanding:

• The paragraph has a smooth transition 
• Ideas are flowing in a logical manner 
• Help in expressing opinion or purpose
• They help in constructing a suitable conclusion
• Linkers help explain a point in-depth. Furthermore, they can be used to describe examples. 

However, candidates must know that linking words cannot be used everywhere. They must come naturally in a sentence, or the composition of the sentence might sound awkward. Moreover, examiners evaluate the ideal society IELTS essay of students by assessing the accuracy, range, and usage of linkers. However, linkers belong to different categories, and it is vital to understand when and where they can be used. This can help score well in the Writing Task 2: 

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• To add information
• To provide examples
• Highlighting key points 
• Consequences and results
• Reasons and causes 
• Contrasts 

To add information  Candidates must support their main points in the essay. While writing an ideal society IELTS essay, it is essential to let the examiner know that additional information is coming up. They can do so with the help of linkers such as:

• Furthermore
• Additionally
• In addition
• Not only…but also

Listing Lists are often used to present pointers in a paragraph sequentially. They can help the essay look more appealing. Here are a few connectors that one can use to list their paragraph:

• Finally, lastly, or last but not the least

To provide examples Examples are often used to substantiate ideas. Candidates must make sure to use a range of linking words to support their examples:

• For instance
• For example
• To cite an example
• To illustrate
• In other words

Highlighting key points  Candidates must stress their main pointers in an ideal society IELTS essay. They can do so with the help of these connectors:

• Specifically
• In particular
• Particularly

Consequences and results When one needs to explain the consequence of something, one can use these connectors:

• As a result
• Consequently
• For this reason

Causes and reasons It is essential always to provide reasons for a statement that is put forward. One can do so with these linking words:

Contrasts  Often in Writing Task 2, one may need to provide opposing ideas. However, it is most pertinent in the discussion essays, where one needs to provide in-depth details. The below-mentioned linking words will help candidates show the examiner when they are going to introduce an opposing pointer:

• Nevertheless
• On the other hand
• Even though

Conclusion An ideal society IELTS essay must have a concluding sentence. These connectors can be the most useful then:

• To conclude
• In conclusion

Providing opinion Candidates must put forward their opinion comprehensively. Using the following linkers can help one address their opinion in a better way:

• In my opinion
• I agree/concur

How to Approach Writing Task 2? 

Candidates can score well in Writing Task 2 if they plan out their essay and structure it. However, this requires practice. Furthermore, they should follow the below-mentioned pointers while approaching

Writing Task 2:  Understand the question  First and foremost, it is crucial to understand what type of question it is and what it is asking. Moreover, candidates must distinguish whether the essay is an opinion, discussion, double questions or advantages and disadvantages.  

Structure the essay One must structure the essay by dividing it into the introduction, main body paragraphs 1 and 2, and conclusion. 

• Introduction
• Main body paragraph 1 

In the opening paragraph, candidates should just paraphrase the question in order to start interacting with it. Candidates must begin with a topic sentence and then elaborate on it. However, one must substantiate it with examples. This should have the main idea discussed in the introduction. 

• Main body paragraph 2 

In this paragraph, candidates must substantiate the points raised in the previous paragraph. They can also use this section to give examples or add new points that will strengthen their core argument.

• Conclusion 

In conclusion, they must summarise their main points and finish their essay on a clear, concise note. 

Write in your own words  It is one of the essential skills that candidates must hone as it is applicable for reading and writing. This will help boost one’s band score. In addition, they must use various synonyms while paraphrasing. Besides, candidates must also paraphrase the question in the introduction and write the ideal society IELTS essay in their own words. They are advised to not resort to writing memorised essays. 

Begin with an opening statement  Candidates must begin their essay with an opening statement that describes what they might talk about in a few words. Of course, it needs to be specific. 

State your opinion  One must clearly state their opinion while answering different parts of the task. However, one must highlight their position in their introduction. 

Sample Question with Answers for Ideal Society Topic

Candidates must practise sample questions and answers for ideal society IELTS essay as this will give them a stronghold over the writing and vocabulary. Moreover, this will help them attempt the essay with ease and improve their overall band score. They are underlined below for easier understanding: 

T hroughout history, people have dreamt of living in a perfect society. However, there is still no agreement about what a perfect society would be like. Why do people want to build a perfect society in the modern world? What can people do to help create an ideal society? Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.  Write at least 250 words.

In the contemporary era, everyone wants to live a comfortable and holistically fulfilling life. People have wanted to create a fairer, egalitarian society from time immemorial. There is, however, no unanimity on what an ideal society might look like. The major reasons behind this yearning for a utopia are improved standards of living and socioeconomic equality. In an ideal civilization where the inhabitants help each other, accept and respect different values and cultures, prosperity follows, thus, automatically leading to a better quality of life. For instance, most developed countries like Europe and USA have laws that guarantee and safeguard the safety and equality of all their citizens regardless of colour, caste or gender. Additionally, in such a community where everyone is allowed to work and contribute, followed by an equal distribution of wealth, the class difference is eliminated leading to an improvement in everyone’s standard of living.  Democracy, education and nonviolence are fundamental tenets of a perfect society and people can play a crucial role in shaping up such a society by teaching the value of these to the youth. Since today’s children are tomorrow’s future, they must learn to accept that different people can follow a different religion or culture and respect that. It is not possible to change each individual that exists; however, parents can play their part in providing exemplary education by inculcating the values of acceptance and respect. Moreover, people must uphold and support the principles of democracy. The elected government must ensure that everyone has fundamental human rights and the citizens in return must respect their duties such as paying taxes. While most people do this, numerous locals practice tax evasion which can hinder the possibility of having a better place to live by having free education, health care services, etc.  In conclusion, people have always longed to reside in a reliable society that provides safety and treats each person equally. The government and people must work together by implementing and following rules and regulations to attain the same.

Points to Remember:

While writing an ideal society IELTS essay, candidates must ask themselves questions such as: 

• What was the society like in the past? 
• What developments have taken place? 
• What is a community? 
• Can society be improved? 

For instance, the question may ask, “People often think of establishing an ideal society, but most of the time, this does not happen. What is your opinion of an ideal society, and how can it be created?”.  Here, candidates must put forth their opinion of: 

• What an ideal society is and reiterated in the introduction 
• Candidates’ opinion of a perfect society and what it is like 
• What makes an ideal society? 
• Ways to create it 
• In conclusion, stating if this can be achieved in reality 

Tips to Score Well in Writing Task 2 

To ace in Writing Task 2, we have underlined a list of tips that candidates can implement to attain a good score. Nevertheless, the vocabulary usage mentioned above is essential, but that is not all.  They must follow these tips ardently: 

• Proper time management 
• Be conversant with the marking criterion. 
• Remember to paraphrase the questions. 
• Plan out the essay  
• Explain the points in-depth
• Read, listen and converse in English 
• Learn new words
• Revise and check for spelling errors or grammatical mistakes 

To crack IELTS, candidates must follow a systematic approach towards Writing Task 2. They must be conversant in vocabulary as well. Moreover, as writing is one of the most challenging sections in IELTS, candidates require regular and rigorous practice to achieve a firm grip over it. Apart from that, following the tips mentioned ardently will help tackle this section. Furthermore, aspiring students planning their study abroad program may require additional funding, as immigration to a foreign country is often costly. To fund your studies in a hassle-free way, you can approach Leap Scholars. Our financial products are crafted for ambitious students who chase the best international education. 

Frequently Asked Questions

1. how can i improve my score in writing task 2 .

Ans: Students who aspire to achieve a higher band score in ideal society IELTS essay must use a wide range of vocabulary for the topic, have proper time management as well as should be aware of the language and tonality of their essays

2. What are the common topics in IELTS Writing Task 2?

Ans: Some of the most common topics in IELTS writing task 2 are: Technology, food, family, economics, crime & punishment and business & money. 

3. How can I prepare well for Writing Task 2? 

Ans: The most common problem candidates face while attempting the writing task 2 is a lack of clear strategy. To avoid that, they should practise sample and previous year questions to boost their confidence. They can also use other resources available both online and offline to ensure they get their desired band score.

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An Ideal Student Essay

500+ words essay on ideal student.

Being a student is one of the most important facets of an individual’s life. It is a golden period when students are filled with joy and happiness. As a student, they are free from all the worries of grown-up life. At this stage, their mind is very sharp; they have the ability to grasp things very quickly. They observe and learn a lot of things from the people around them and their surroundings. For this very reason, it is vital that every student is properly guided in the right direction. The knowledge they acquire and the qualities they possess will lead them to become ideal students. 

The following essay on ‘being an ideal student’ will help students understand who is considered an ideal student and the qualities one should possess to mould themselves into being an ideal student. They can also access the list of CBSE essays to practise more essays on different topics for their English exam.

Ideal Student

An ideal student is one who is obedient, punctual, determined, well-disciplined, hardworking and sincere. They are the hope of the family, the future of the nation, and the pride and glory of the school. They respect their teachers, parents, elders and peers and help friends when in need. They motivate others around them with their actions and words. They are always ready to learn; they keep the curiosity to learn more alive. They try out new things and experiment with different ways to educate themselves and become better individuals. They analyse their activities, realise their mistakes and work on improving themselves. Moreover, they keep themselves physically and mentally healthy. 

In addition to these, there are a few other qualities also that categorise an individual as an ideal student. An ideal student will be organised; they will have extraordinary time management skills. They will have a timetable based on which they will plan their daily activities and their study schedule. They will stick to their plan and make sure that they make the best use of their time. This does not mean that they are people who have no fun at all. You should be familiar with the saying, ‘All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy’. The mind needs to relax as much as it is used in learning and other activities.

The ancient Indian Sanskrit text (Shloka) lays out the five qualities that an ideal student should possess. It states some particular qualities of a few animals and birds to explain how a student should work on these qualities to become an ideal student. 

Qualities of an Ideal Student

काकचेष्टा बकोध्यानं श्वाननिद्रा तथैव च |

अल्पाहारी ब्रह्मचारी विद्यार्थी पञ्चलक्षणम् ||

The translation of the quoted text is:

These are the 5 qualities of an ideal student –

(1) The agility of a crow

(2) The concentration of a crane

(3) Light sleep like a dog

(4) Light eater

(5) Readiness to stay away from home for learning

These five qualities make a student an ideal student. Even in today’s world, students can follow these qualities. It will help them a lot in their school life and help them to become an ideal student.

Students must have found this Essay on Ideal Student helpful for improving their writing section. They can also access more study material related to CBSE/ICSE/State Board/Competitive exams by visiting the BYJU’S website.

Frequently Asked Questions on an Ideal Student Essay

What should the main focus of a student be.

A student must be keen on learning new things, grasp everything and concentrate purely on academic/ extracurricular activities taught.

What are the qualities of an ideal student?

Respect, self-discipline, faith, concentration, conviction, and modesty are some of the important traits of a student.

How is an ideal student different from a normal student?

An ideal student always has high ambitions and always works towards them continuously and sincerely.

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Essay on Ideal Family

Students are often asked to write an essay on Ideal Family in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Ideal Family

Understanding the ideal family.

An ideal family is a happy, secure, and loving environment. It’s where parents and children respect and support each other. Everyone’s voice is heard, and their feelings are considered.

Values in an Ideal Family

In an ideal family, values like honesty, kindness, and responsibility are taught. These values guide behavior and decision-making, promoting a sense of integrity and morality.

The Role of Communication

Open and honest communication is vital. It allows family members to express their thoughts and feelings, fostering a strong bond and mutual respect.

An ideal family isn’t perfect but is a nurturing space that fosters growth, love, and respect.

250 Words Essay on Ideal Family

The concept of an ideal family.

The notion of an ideal family is subjective and varies across different cultures, societies, and individuals. However, there are certain universal values that are often associated with the concept of an ideal family. These include mutual respect, love, communication, and support.

Elements of an Ideal Family

One crucial element of an ideal family is mutual respect. Each member, regardless of age or role, should value and respect the others’ thoughts, feelings, and individuality. This fosters a sense of self-worth and equality within the family.

Love is another vital component. It’s the emotional glue that holds the family together. Love in a family is about more than just affection; it encompasses understanding, forgiveness, and acceptance of others’ flaws and differences.

Communication is the third element. Open and honest communication is the foundation of any strong relationship, and it’s no different in a family setting. It enables family members to express their feelings, resolve conflicts, and make collective decisions.

Lastly, an ideal family provides support. Family members should be able to rely on each other for emotional, psychological, and, at times, financial support. This sense of security and belonging is what makes a family a safe haven.

In conclusion, the ideal family is not about perfection but about creating an environment where respect, love, communication, and support thrive. It’s about accepting and celebrating differences, fostering individual growth while nurturing collective harmony. As such, the ideal family is less about the structure and more about the quality of relationships within that structure.

500 Words Essay on Ideal Family

The notion of an ideal family is a complex and multifaceted one, shaped by cultural, societal, and personal perspectives. The definition of an ideal family is subjective and can vary greatly from person to person. However, certain universal values and principles often serve as a common ground in defining the ideal family.

Unity and Harmony

At the core of an ideal family is unity. This unity is not merely about living under the same roof, but about sharing and supporting each other’s dreams, goals, and life paths. Harmony, a state of peaceful coexistence, is another essential characteristic. It implies the ability to manage disagreements and conflicts in a constructive way, fostering understanding and empathy rather than animosity.

Respect and Communication

Respect is a cornerstone in an ideal family. Every member, regardless of age or status, deserves respect for their individuality, opinions, and personal space. Coupled with respect, effective communication forms the backbone of strong family relationships. Open, honest, and regular communication can help foster trust, resolve conflicts, and strengthen bonds.

Shared Values and Principles

Shared values and principles, whether moral, ethical, or cultural, bind a family together. These shared beliefs provide a sense of identity and belonging, and also guide the family’s actions and decisions. However, an ideal family also respects and accommodates individual beliefs and values, acknowledging the importance of personal growth and individuality.

Love and Support

An ideal family is a safe haven, providing unconditional love and support. Love is the glue that holds a family together, while support is the safety net that allows each member to explore, grow, and face life’s challenges.

Nurturing and Growth

An ideal family provides a nurturing environment that promotes the growth and development of each member. This nurturing extends beyond physical needs to emotional, intellectual, and spiritual growth. It includes providing opportunities for learning, encouraging curiosity, and fostering a love for knowledge.

Flexibility and Adaptability

In the face of changing times and circumstances, an ideal family exhibits flexibility and adaptability. It evolves and adapts to changes, whether they are societal, technological, or personal. This adaptability helps the family stay relevant, resilient, and cohesive in a rapidly changing world.

In conclusion, an ideal family is not defined by its size, structure, or socio-economic status, but by the quality of its relationships and the values it upholds. It is a place of unconditional love, mutual respect, open communication, shared values, nurturing, and adaptability. It is a safe haven that provides a strong foundation for each member to grow and thrive, and a source of strength and support in the face of life’s challenges. It is, in essence, a microcosm of a compassionate, understanding, and harmonious society.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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Happy studying!

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