Seeking More/New Semantic Clarity and Evolutionary Development in The Area of Epistemological Idealism -- The Pursuit of Truth (Part 2)

This essay is aimed at moving a few steps beyond Part 1 on this same subject matter -- epistemological idealism.

Firstly, to re-summarize from the last essay, the term 'idealism' has two quite different meanings that need to be clarified in order to prevent serious confusion. Idealism in its first sense -- which is its more standard every day meaning -- means something in the ballpark of 'perfection', 'utopoa', etc. Eg. We might say something like: 'That is an ideal house as far as I am concerned.' (Notice the subjectivity involved in that what is ideal for me may not be ideal for you -- and visa versa.) Now we come to the meaning of idealism as it tends to be used in academic philosophical circles. Wikipedia may be able to help us here although it points the way to new potential confusions as well as clarities:


Idealism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the philosophical notion of idealism. For other uses, see Idealism (disambiguation).
Idealism is the doctrine that ideas, or thought, make up either the whole or an indispensable aspect of any full reality, so that a world of material objects containing no thought either could not exist as it is experienced, or would not be fully "real." Idealism is often contrasted with materialism, both belonging to the class of monist as opposed to dualist or pluralist ontologies. (Note that this contrast between idealism and materialism has to do with the question of the nature of reality as such — it has nothing to do with advocating high moral standards, or the like.) Subjective Idealists and Phenomenalists (such as George Berkeley) hold that minds and their experiences constitute existence. Transcendental Idealists (such as Immanuel Kant) argue from the nature of knowledge to the nature of the objects of knowledge--without suggesting that those objects are composed of ideas or located in the knower's mind. Objective Idealists hold either that there is ultimately only one perceiver, who is identical with what is perceived (this is the doctrine of Josiah Royce), or that thought makes possible the highest degree of self-determination and thus the highest degree of reality (this is G.W.F. Hegel's Absolute Idealism). Panpsychists (such as Leibniz) hold that all objects of experience are also subjects. That is, plants and minerals have subjective experiences--though very different from the consciousness of humans.

Idealism in general is the metaphysical doctrine sketched in the previous paragraph. A separate doctrine, epistemological idealism (also known as the "way of ideas"), asserts that minds are aware of or perceive only their own ideas, and not external objects. The basic assumption of epistemological Idealism is that we only know our own ideas (representations or mental images). We can't directly know things in themselves or things as they are other than as a mental appearance. Any data regarding external physical objects must be received through an observer's physiological neural system. The external object is thus presented in accordance with the particular constitution of the observer's brain and nerves. This was held by (for example) John Locke, who was certainly not a metaphysical idealist. Berkeley's argument for his metaphysical idealism was indeed built around the difficulties in Locke's epistemological position. But other influential metaphysical idealisms, such as those of Plotinus, Leibniz, and Hegel, are not based primarily on epistemological considerations. So "idealism" in general--that is, metaphysical idealism--should not be defined in a way that makes it depend on epistemological considerations.

The approach to idealism by Western philosophers has been different from that of Eastern thinkers. In much of Western thought (though not in such major Western thinkers as Plato and Hegel) the ideal relates to direct knowledge of subjective mental ideas, or images. It is then usually juxtaposed with realism in which the real is said to have absolute existence prior to and independent of our knowledge. Epistemological idealists (such as Kant) might insist that the only things which can be directly known for certain are ideas. In Eastern thought, as reflected in Hindu idealism, the concept of idealism takes on the meaning of higher consciousness, essentially the living consciousness of an all-pervading God, as the basis of all phenomena. A type of Asian idealism is Buddhist idealism.