What Is Objective Idealism?

Subjective idealism, a philosophy based on the assumption that nothing exists but mind and spirit and their perceptions or thoughts. Objective idealism is an idealistic metaphysics that assumes that ultimately there is only one perceiver, and this perceiver is the perceived.

Objective idealism interprets spirit as a reality that exists outside and independent of human consciousness. According to objective idealism, space and time can exist outside absolute or total reality.


The only reasonable theory of the universe is the theory of objective idealism, according to which matter is an exhausted mind, ingrained habits that have become physical laws. Objective idealism is the idea that there is no external reality consisting of matter and energy. Absolute idealism is an idea originally formulated by G.W.F. Hegel, that in order for the human mind to be able to cognize the world of nature, there must be, in a certain sense, the identity of thought and being; otherwise we would never have any means of access to the world and would have no confidence in any of our knowledge.

Idealism is a philosophy that holds that the ultimate nature of reality is ideal or based on ideas, values ​​or entities. Idealism is a metaphysical and epistemological doctrine that holds that thoughts or ideas constitute basic reality. From a metaphysical point of view, idealism is the philosophical view that the mind or spirit constitutes the underlying reality.

The two main forms of idealism are metaphysical idealism, which asserts the ideality of reality, and epistemological idealism, which asserts that in the process of cognition the mind can comprehend only the mental or that its objects are conditioned by their perceptibility. Subjective idealism is “subjective” not because it denies the existence of objective reality, but because it asserts that this reality depends entirely on the consciousness of the subjects who perceive it.

Objective idealism asserts that, in isolation, it is unreal in itself and that reality, the individual exists, however it is thought to be composed of the polarity between the subjectivity of the individual mind and its perceived objective world. Objective idealism accepts commonsense realism (that is, the idea of ​​material existence) but rejects naturalism (the belief that rational and spiritual values ​​are derived from matter), while subjective idealism denies that matter exists independently of human perception, and thus both opposes realism , also against realism, and naturalism. Transcendental idealism does not deny the existence of an objective world outside of us at all, but asserts the existence of a supersensory reality beyond the realm of the human mind, which he calls ontology, which roughly translates as “thing-in-itself.”

To this end, Kant proposed that although the world we see is actually subjective, in a sense, what we perceive is entirely our perception (phenomenon) of the world, the world itself, the objective world, the world itself It’s still there, but we can’t perceive it at all (it’s the “thing-in-itself”, noumenon). So Kant kept both ends of the line, preserving both the reasoning of subjective idealism and the reality of the objective world. Many people mistakenly believe that objective idealism is similar to realism, but the only necessary connection between them is the recognition of the objectivity of reality; fundamentally, the two disagree on the basic elements that make up the world.

The general position of subjective idealism is that there are two types of idealism: one is Platonic idealism, in which ideas are regarded as having some separate and independent existence, while subjective idealism considers ideas as a subjective process in the human individual, but nevertheless , in the development of this philosophy, presents them as more real than the objective world. A popular assertion of subjective idealism (Berkeley, “Esse est Percipi”, “To be is to be perceived”) is that everything depends on what we perceive, that is, everything that exists is what we perceive. The objective idealism of Friedrich Schelling agrees with Bishop George Berkeley that matter does not exist in the materialistic sense and that spirit is essence and all reality. More attached to the Christian view of things, the more traditional personalist view rejects atheism as well as absolute objective idealism.

Friedrich Hegel’s objective idealism, also called absolute idealism, has been criticized for replacing God with the Absolute. The answer, most often associated with early Hegel, is that the world is ultimately One, the only being it encompasses (whether the One is a real, spiritual, or conceptual being is a contentious issue among absolute idealists). This is because while Plato’s teachings described Forms or universals (which are certainly “ideals”, intangible in a broad sense), Plato argued that these Forms have their own independent existence, which is not an idealistic but a realistic position. This is the inner being of the world, what it essentially is and what it is in itself; it takes an objective, deterministic form and enters into a relationship with itself: it is externality (otherness) and exists for itself; however, in this determination and in its otherness, it is nonetheless one with itself—it is autonomous and complete, in itself and in itself at the same time.

From a philosophical point of view, idealism helps to realize that ideas, emotions and morality are more significant than material objects, and also emphasizes that human development should be in accordance with moral, ethical and spiritual values, since this helps a person to acquire different knowledge of unity.

Leave a Comment