What is objective and subjective idealism, what are the differences?

2024 Author: Henry Conors | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-12 02:46

Philosophy provides rich ground for reflection. One way or another, we are all philosophers. After all, each of us at least once thought about the meaning of life and about other issues of life. This science is an effective tool for mental activity. As you know, any kind of human activity is directly related to the activity of thought and spirit. The whole history of philosophy is a kind of confrontation between idealistic and materialistic views. Different philosophers have different views on the relationship between consciousness and being. The article considers idealism and its manifestations in the subjective and objective sense.

General concepts of idealism

Emphasizing the active creative role in the world of an exclusively spiritual principle, idealism does not deny the material, but speaks of it as a lower level of being, a secondary principle without a creative component. The theory of this philosophy brings a person to the idea of the ability toself-development.

In the philosophy of idealism, directions have been formed: objective and subjective idealism, rationalism and irrationalism.

Idealism is a philosophical theory that assigns an active role to the ideal beginning, endowed with a creative component. The material is dependent on the ideal. Idealism and materialism do not have homogeneous concrete manifestations.

Such directions as objective and subjective idealism also have their manifestations, which can also be distinguished into separate directions. For example, the extreme form in subjective idealism is solipsism, according to which one can reliably speak only about the existence of a personal "I" and one's own sensations.

Realism and irrationalism

Idealistic rationalism says that the basis of all things and knowledge is the mind. Its branch - panlogism, claims that everything real is embodied by reason, and the laws of being are subject to the laws of logic.

Irrationalism, which means unconscious, is the denial of logic and reason as a tool for knowing reality. This philosophical theory claims that the main way of knowing is instinct, revelation, faith and similar manifestations of human existence. Being itself is also considered from the point of view of irrationality.

The two main forms of idealism: their essence and how they differ

Objective and subjective idealism have common features in the idea of the beginning of everythingbeing. However, they differ significantly from each other.

Subjective - it means belonging to a person (subject) and dependent on his consciousness.

Objective - indicates the independence of any phenomenon from human consciousness and the person himself.

Unlike bourgeois philosophy, which has many separate forms of idealism, socialist Marxism-Leninism divided it into only two groups: subjective and objective idealism. The differences between them in his interpretation are as follows:

• objective takes as the basis of reality the universal spirit (personal or impersonal), as a kind of supra-individual consciousness;
• subjective idealism reduces knowledge about the world and being to individual consciousness.

It is worth emphasizing that the difference between these forms of idealism is not absolute.

In a class society, idealism has become a scientific continuation of mythological, religious and fantastic ideas. According to materialists, idealism absolutely hampers the development of human knowledge and scientific progress. At the same time, some representatives of idealistic philosophy think about new epistemological issues and explore the forms of the process of cognition, which seriously stimulates the emergence of a number of important problems of philosophy.

How did objective and subjective idealism develop in philosophy?

Idealism was formed as a philosophical trend over many centuries. Its history is complex andmultifaceted. At different stages, it was expressed in various types and forms of the evolution of social consciousness. He was influenced by the nature of the changing formations of society, scientific discoveries.

Already in ancient Greece, idealism was denounced in its main forms. Both objective and subjective idealism gradually gained their adherents. The classical form of objective idealism is the Platonic philosophy, which is characterized by a close connection with religion and mythology. Plato believed that they are unchanging and eternal, unlike material objects that are subject to change and destruction.

In the era of the ancient crisis, this connection is strengthened. Neoplatonism begins to develop, in which mythology and mysticism are harmoniously intertwined.

In the Middle Ages, the features of objective idealism become even more pronounced. At this time, philosophy is completely subordinated to theology. Thomas Aquinas played a big role in the restructuring of objective idealism. He relied on distorted Aristotelianism. After Thomas, the main concept of the objective-idealistic scholastic philosophy was the non-material form, interpreted as the target principle of the will of God, who wisely planned the world finite in space and time.

What is the expression of materialism?

Idealism, subjective and objective, is the exact opposite of materialism, which claims:

• the material world is independent of anyone's consciousness and exists objectively;
• consciousness is secondary, matter is primary,therefore consciousness is a property of matter;
• objective reality is the subject of knowledge.

The founder of materialism in philosophy is Democritus. The essence of his teaching is that the basis of any matter is an atom (material particle).

Sensations and the question of being

Any teaching, including both objective and subjective idealism in philosophy, is the result of reasoning and the search for the meaning of human life.

Of course, each new form of philosophical knowledge arises after an attempt to solve some vital issue of human existence and knowledge. Only through our sensations we receive information about the world around us. The formed image depends on the structure of our sense organs. It is possible that with a different dispensation, the outside world would also appear before us differently.