Idealism
Idealism is the philosophy that believes the ultimate nature of reality is ideal, or based upon ideas, values, or essences. The external, or real world cannot be separated from consciousness, perception, mind, intellect and reason in the sense of science. The word comes from the Greek word ἰδέα.
In some doctrines of idealistic thought the ideal relates to direct and immediate knowledge of subjective mental ideas, or images.
Idealism Media
- Plato by Raphael.png
Detail of Plato in The School of Athens, by Raphael
The Upanishadic sage Yājñavalkya (c. possibly 8th century BCE) is one of the earliest exponents of idealism, and is a major figure in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad.
Śaṅkara, by Raja Ravi Varma
- Great philosopher Wang Shouren.jpg
Wang Yangming, a leading Neo-Confucian scholar during the Ming and a founder of the "school of mind"
- John Smibert - Bishop George Berkeley - Google Art Project.jpg
A painting of Bishop George Berkeley by John Smibert
- Phänomenologie des Geistes.jpg
Hegel's The Phenomenology of Spirit was a pivotal work of German absolute idealism.
- Charles Sanders Peirce.jpg
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914)
- James Hopwood Jeans.jpg
The 20th-century British scientist Sir James Jeans wrote that "the Universe begins to look more like a great thought than like a great machine."