john@bcsaic.UUCP (john boose) (10/07/86)
3.0 Idealism
Reality essentially mental; matter not ultimately real.
A. Solpisism
My mind is the only _reality_; all else exists in it as its idea. Things,
other persons, are mere _representations_ within my own self. No
philosopher adopts this position in the merely individual sense of self.
(1) Schopenhauer. The World is my Idea = Ideas of Mind.
(2) Fichte. Doctrine of Absolute Ego = Absolute Solipsism. Sole true
reality is the _Absolute Ego_, or God, of which our individual selves are
modifications and which produces a phenomenal nature as its own opposite
(or non-ego) to provide a challenge of overcoming it in achieving
self-consciousness, freedom.
B. Berkeley's Idealism. The only realities are immaterial minds, their
ideas and volitions. Material substance cannot exist, is a contradiction
in terms. Being of non-thinking things lies in their being _perceived_ by
thinking things; their principle is _Esse est percipi_ (to be is to be
perceived): A table really exists, but only as collection and sequence of
ideas in minds of its perceivers. Since we do not always perceive all
things, to save thier existence we must infer a Supreme Mind who always
perceives them.
--
"K.E.Q."
John Boose uw-beaver!uw-june!bcsaic!john