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Metaphysical Idealism: All reality is comprised of minds and ideas

Metaphysical Idealism: All reality is comprised of minds and ideas. Western Idealism: Physical objects are real only insofar as they are intelligible as the kind of thing they are. What makes a thing be that kind of thing is its unchanging essence, “form,” or “idea” (Plato)

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Metaphysical Idealism: All reality is comprised of minds and ideas

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  1. Metaphysical Idealism: All reality is comprised of minds and ideas Western Idealism: • Physical objects are real only insofar as they are intelligible as the kind of thing they are. What makes a thing be that kind of thing is its unchanging essence, “form,” or “idea” (Plato) • For something to be real means that it is experienced (or “perceived”) by some mind (including God): its existence consists in its being perceived (George Berkeley)

  2. Idealism (continued) • Eastern Idealism: things we perceive are only sensations in the mind (as in a dream), not real objects outside our minds. Meditation and an ethical life wake us from the dream (Vasubandhu) Objections to Idealism: • Anthropomorphism: just because we think of reality in terms of mind does not mean that it is a product of mind: my perceptions are not the same as the objects of perception • Minds and ideas occur only in material systems

  3. Pragmatism: metaphysics is meaningful only if it has practical consequences What we mean by reality is the product of our ideas and ideals, all of which are creative solutions to practical problems John Dewey (1859-1952) William James (1842-1910)

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