I don't think there is. The 'many' kind of stuff it up.

Ok, but the many may only be an extension of the one, so still one.

To think that few people are capable of understanding idealism is to partake of the hubris of those who congratulate themselves that they can see something that others cannot; who like to think so because they like to think they have discovered an arcane secret difficult to divine. This comes out of a desire to inflate the importance of idealism. — John

Exactly. But the hubris goes deeper. Idealism arises from a person's desire to make their consciousness primary. The thinking goes : If all of reality exists only through me, then I am God. I lose my special place if I am nothing more than a part of a larger reality.

Consider :

Idealism can make one feel immortal. "There is no existence without me, so I am alive for all of existence. I am mortal only if there is a world after I cease to exist, which is absurd."

Idealism can make one feel omniscient. "I know all there is to know. If I do not know a thing, it is because I have not experienced it, and it does not exist. Are there any things I do not know? Where are they?"

I can only imagine the indignant replies!
:D

The problem I see with that is that we don't know what it could mean. Now we might have a mystical vision wherein we see what it means; but we cannot say what it means, and what cannot be said should be, as Wittgenstein said, passed over in silence. Or it can be alluded to by poetry; but to do that would not be to assert anything.

It's not necessary, though; one could easily imagine one's soul continuing after death, only not in this world. In fact even if the world ceases when one dies then one could still cease with it. Idealism would properly deny the existence of any other realm beyond what is experienced personally. To admit there could be anything at all existing beyond my own experience is to admit that there could be anything beyond my own experience; external objects, other minds, other worlds or even God.

But if one's soul continues on after death, can one be said to be really dead? Thus, one is immortal in that scenario as well.

It is true that one's existence may be finite. But if the world is contingent on my observing it, then there is no existence without me, and I may be said to be immortal (i.e., alive for all of existence). That the world is then also finite is no concern of mine.

I can only agree, within the field of philosophy, from what I know. Otherwise I see no trouble in saying what it means, although discursive communication may be in the form exercised in religious and mystical traditions. There is a tradition of allegory, or analogy and oral traditions. So two people who see what it means can discuss it. I have been a member of a group on more than one ocassion in which such discussion was commonplace. Although the interlocutors would require the appropriate intellectual articulation for affective communication to occur, I expect.

It's consistent with taking science at face values which explains the universe's development from the Big Bang where there were no minds to star formation to Earth to simple life developing until finally we get to a point where you have complex nervous systems similar enough to our own to call it mind. — Marchesk

I do accept the facts on face value, i.e. as facts about the physical universe. However there are considerable gaps in the accounts - not only the obvious and now well-acknowledged gaps in cosmology and physics, but also any sense of why life developed at all. (Dawkins was asked that very question on a TV panel show, and didn't comprehend it - 'you're playing with the word "why" there', he responded.)

Hey, what does 'cosmos' mean? It means 'ordered whole'. And even that is now being called into question by scientists, who believe the the universe we can see is one of a vast ensemble of unseen universes; and also that the matter we do know about, is only a small percentage of what is out there somewhere.

So what is behind the order of the universe? I think scientific materialism quite unreasonably claims to have solved or eliminated this question.Science relies on 'the order of nature' to even get going; but 'the nature of the order', why the Universe just is such a way that matter forms and life exists, is not necessarily a scientific matter. (That doesn't imply open-mouthed gullibility towards religious mythology, either.)

The one way around all that is to interpret QM so that it is consciousness which collapses the possible universes into one with the history we observe. Humans or before us, animals, or aliens, or whatever mind collapsed it, it was just a giant probability wave, or something like that. — Marchesk

I am of the view that the discovery of uncertainty principle and the related concepts radically undermines materialism, unless you're prepared to say that 'matter' comprises fields or probability waves or even numerical values. Then you get into the wildly speculative, virtually sci-fi realms of Tegmark.

since we don't know what it could mean for objects to be ultimately materially constituted; I don't think it means much. — John

Whereas I think it is hugely influential.

Idealism can make one feel omniscient. "I know all there is to know. If I do not know a thing, it is because I have not experienced it, and it does not exist. Are there any things I do not know? Where are they?" — Real Gone Cat

I have encountered numerous forum posters over the years who say something that. They're nearly always solipsists, and nearly always young - so, basically, very self-centred, they think the universe revolves around them.

But don't forget the original 'subjective idealist' was Berkeley, and Berkeley was a convinced empiricist. His whole argument was based on a very close analysis of the nature of experience. I won't try and summarise or abstract it here, but when Berkeley says esse est percipe - translated as 'to be, is to be perceived' - he does so on the basis of very detailed arguments. Many of these are presented as dialogues, with one voice presenting all of the sceptical rebuttals that his opponents were likely to voice, and if you read those dialogues, they are very clever indeed. (Well-edited copies available here. Nevertheless, it should be added that Kant found it necessary to add a section to the second edition of CPR on the way in which his philosophy differed from Berkeley's.)

No one cannot be said to be dead if one continues to exist after death of the body, although it depends on what is meant by "one", but I'm not sure what point you are trying to make.
:s

Whereas I think it is hugely influential — Wayfarer

Influential to those who take it seriously I suppose. But then does that matter to you? Isn't it a matter just for them?

So what is behind the order of the universe? — Wayfarer

An interesting question, in a meta- sort of way : Is order a property of things (like universes), or is order a tag humans apply to particular things? Perhaps we see the universe as "ordered" precisely because we are of the universe and are incapable of seeing it any other way. Should the universe be otherwise, would we not still view it as ordered? (Of course, "order" might mean something different then, but we wouldn't know it.)

That we inhabit a universe favorable to life is not a miracle. Should we inhabit a universe hostile to life, now that would be a miracle!

Fish need water to breathe. And where do you find fish? In water! A miracle!

The point is that idealism appears to lead to absurdities : If existence is contingent on my experiencing it, then there is no existence if I do not experience it (regardless of my corporeal state). Should I cease to exist (as ghost or man), then the universe ceases as well. So the universe's existence is tied to my existence - they are in fact equivalent. I need not be infinite to inhabit all of existence. But if I inhabit all of existence, am I not then immortal?

I think many people hold materialist views without thinking through what they really mean.

The point is that idealism appears to lead to absurdities

But it's also possible that it is often misunderstood.

. I need not be infinite to inhabit all of existence. But if I inhabit all of existence, am I not then immortal? — Real Gone Cat

If all existence is infinite then you would need to be infinite to inhabit it, or so it would seem.

If you inhabit all of existence, and existence is immortal, then you would have to be immortal and if not, then not; or so it would seem.

I think many people hold materialist views without thinking through what they really mean. — Wayfarer

Agreed, but I think the same could be said about idealist views. Personally, I don't believe one or the other, per se, is more or less conducive to, or associated with, spirituality; which I am guessing may be your concern.

Personally, I don't believe one or the other, per se, is more or less conducive to, or associated with, spirituality; — John

Philosophical idealism is the tendency in Western philosophy most associated with spirituality. The way I understand idealism, it is not a matter of having views, but a matter of having insight into the mind.

The problem I see for what you are claiming is that philosophical idealism was not formulated as such until Berkeley; so it will always be controversial as to whether philosophers prior to that were idealists.

Even Berkeley's idealism did not propose that the world and its objects depend on the human mind. Things exist for Berkeley insofar as they are perceived by God. For God, to perceive something is to create it, so this kind of idealism is perfectly consonant with naive realism. Objects really exist because God creates/ perceives them.

Also the "insight into the mind" you refer to I suspect is largely dependent on the science of perception; which is a realist analysis. If you are instead just referring to introspection, I would say that no amount of that could ever give you insight into whether or not objects exists independently of their being perceived.

What idealist philosophers do you have in mind when you say idealism is more strongly associated with spirituality than realism?

Yes, I agree that people who share the same insights or presuppositions can certainly discuss such things. My position is just that nothing determinate or outwardly demonstrable can be established in such discussions, in the kinds of ways that things can be when it comes to empirical matters.

The problem I see for what you are claiming is that philosophical idealism was not formulated as such until Berkeley; so it will always be controversial as to whether philosophers prior to that were idealists. — John

Plato was indubitably idealist, as were many Platonists. Of course idealism is - what is the word? - a polysemic term, it has many meanings and no easy definition.

But the 'theory of forms', the reality of universals and other abstracta, and the 'degrees of knowledge' that characterises Platonic epistemology, are generally associated with idealism.

Also the "insight into the mind" you refer to I suspect is largely dependent on the science of perception; which is a realist analysis — John

That's cognitive science, and not what I mean. I have in mind something much nearer to self-knowledge, through meditation.

What idealist philosophers do you have in mind when you say idealism is more strongly associated with spirituality than realism? — John

Plato, Plotinus (and other neo-platonic philosophers); Berkeley, Kant, Schopenhuaer and Hegel (and the other European idealists); C S Pierce, Josiah Royce, Timothy Sprigge (obituary); the New England transcendentalists (e.g. Emerson and Thoreau); to name a few.

And in terms of Eastern philosophy, Yogācāra Buddhism is translated as 'mind-only' and has many points of convergence with idealist philosophy (as well as differences).

None of the philosophers you have mentioned were notably spiritual, except perhaps Berkeley and Royce. Hegel is arguably not really and idealist, nor is Kant and Peirce certainly is not an idealist. I think even Schopenhauer is arguably not an idealist since he considered will, a kind of blind force of striving to be ontologically primary.
Plato was certainly no idealist, as he thought the world of the forms was the real world and he certainly did not think it was dependent on the mind, human or otherwise. Rather the reverse in fact. Plotinus maybe although he did not speak in terms of mind, but in terms of "the One"., from which all reality emanates.

Even the notion of 'mind only" in Yogacara is subject to interpretation. Buddhists generally think in terms of co dependent origination.Some, but not all of the nidanas are rightly thought of as mental phenomena, and none of them are thought as primary. The world arises with the mind. It cannot pre-suppositionlessly be said that one is primary.

The meditative self-knowledge you refer to is not knowledge of the mind alone but of the body/mind. Knowledge is of the body/mind and is also a function of the body/mind. You can't have one without the other; mind without body or body without mind makes no sense.

When I first started posting on these forums, I was surprised to encounter this school of thought called idealism. I was expecting that my spiritual perspective was going to be viewed as outlandishly immaterial and that the accepted ontology would be some kind of materialism or physicalism. When suddenly I was confronted with these notions like solipsism and radical forms of idealism. I thought such ideas would have been discarded long ago, as I had done myself. Although I did understand the rationale and had gone through the intellectual ramifications etc myself and seen it for what it is.

Suddenly I found myself thrust more on the side of the materialists in this dialectic. This is not to say that I don't consider the reality of idealism playing some fundamental role in the processes of our existence. Or that I don't consider transcendental idealism to be fundamental. But rather that it is pointless exercise in itself, other than as a contemplative tool to be used on ocassion, like solipsim.

None of the philosophers you have mentioned were notably spiritual, — John

I think you're defining 'idealist' differently to me. Plato is widely understood to be the seminal figure of Western idealism; 'eidos', is translated as 'idea', 'image' or 'form' and is one of the seminal ideas of Western philosophy. The 'Theory of Forms' is regarded as the foundational theory of idealism, generally. Platonic number theorists believe that number is real and not material, i.e. a real idea.

Schopenhauer's 'Vorstellung' (world as representation) is supported by hundreds of pages of argument explicitly advocating idealism.

Hegel 'epitomized idealism' according to the SEP entry on him. He is categorised as 'absolute idealist' in any anthology of philosophy.

Pierce wrote 'matter is effete mind' - 'Peirce increasingly became a philosopher with broad and deep sympathies for both transcendental idealism and absolute idealism.' (SEP)

Platonic idealism is called 'realism' in old texts - because 'realists' were those who held to the 'reality of universals'. This is a very confusing point, due to the change in the meaning of the word 'real' (and that ought to tell you something!):

Plato is one of the first philosophers to discuss what might be termed Idealism, although his Platonic Idealism is, confusingly, usually referred to as Platonic Realism. This is because, although his doctrine described Forms or universals (which are certainly non-material "ideals" in a broad sense), Plato maintained that these Forms had their own independent existence, which is not an idealist stance, but a realist one. However, it has been argued that Plato believed that "full reality" (as distinct from mere existence) is achieved only through thought, and so he could be described as a non-subjective, "transcendental" idealist, somewhat like Kant.

I would say that what is meant by 'full reality' is actually 'being' as distinct from 'existence', although the current philosophical lexicon doesn't allow for this, as in our lexicon, 'existence' has only one value, which is binary (a very significant point.) However, the distinction between 'being' and 'existence' is found in pre-modern philosophy and theology. But that snippet says, in a roundabout way, that Plato was an 'objective idealist', i.e. he believed that there are real ideas, (and not just as the product of our meat brain.)

Even the notion of 'mind only" in Yogacara is subject to interpretation. — John

One of the names for that school is 'cittamatra'. Cittamatra is Sanskrit for 'mind only'. It is not ambiguous.

Knowledge is of the body/mind and is also a function of the body/mind. You can't have one without the other; mind without body or body without mind makes no sense. — John

That is true, but here we are on a Western philosophy forum. Here, the division between materialism and idealism, mind and matter, religion and science and the many other dichotomies, are very important to the cultural situation. We have inherited this dichotomy.

I understand why you say there is no 'mind as substance', and that idealism as a 'theory of mind as substance' is just as empty as 'materialism'. From one perspective - actually the superior perspective - that is true.

But in the context of the Western philosophical tradition, there is indeed a primary distinction between materialists philosophies and idealist philosophies. Materialist philosophies include neo-darwinian materialism (which is the de facto worldview of the secular intelligentsia), Marxist dialectical materialism, and all the other forms of scientific materialism and post-modernism, all of which espouse versions of physicalism or materialism.

Who are 'idealist philosophers' in the current cultural landscape? Who is opposing materialist philosophies, on philosophical grounds, in current culture? And the opponents of philosophical materialism, if they're not idealist, then what are they? What are some examples?

Platonic number theorists believe that number is real and not material, i.e. a real idea. — Wayfarer

It's a bit confusing, because Platonists are considered realists about math. The anti-realists in the debate would be conceptualists or nominalists, so they would say that numbers and their relations are ideas in the mind, or social constructs, not independent ideas in some Platonic realm.

It's also interesting because many materialists who are also realists are highly suspicious of Platonism. And Platonists may or may not be realists about the physical world. They may even think the material world is actually mathematical. I would guess Plato was realist about matter being something. It was the various particulars, which were imperfect imitations of the forms, right?

Plato was certainly no idealist, as he thought the world of the forms was the real world and he certainly did not think it was dependent on the mind, human or otherwise. Rather the reverse in fact. Plotinus maybe although he did not speak in terms of mind, but in terms of "the One"., from which all reality emanates. — John

You seem to be reluctant to separate ideas from mind. I think that is a materialist premises which clouds the issue. Ideas are seen to be dependent on the human mind, and the human mind is dependent on the brain. In order to understand idealism you need to allow for the separate existence of ideas. You need to accept the idealist proposal, for the sake of discussion, that perhaps ideas are prior to minds.

I think that the true question of idealism is the issue of whether ideas are dependent on the human mind or not. Platonic Idealism in its modern form assumes that there are Ideas (mathematical, geometrical, and such) independent from human minds. As Wayfarer indicated this is sometimes called realism. Aristotle argued convincingly that ideas could not have actual independent existence, but left the back door open, for the assumption of independent Forms. So the Neo-Platonists assumed independent Forms.

Now we have a distinction between human ideas and Forms (which are like human ideas, but independent). It is demonstrated that there is a necessity to assume that the Forms are prior to the existence of material objects, because when a material object comes into existence, it comes into existence as what it is and not something else. (It has a particular form, and is not something random, thus we assume a Form as that which determines what it will be when it comes into existence). So the Form of the object, which is similar to a human idea, but not a human idea, is necessarily prior to the material existence of the object.

If all existence is infinite then you would need to be infinite to inhabit it, or so it would seem. — John

Let me try again : If existence is contingent on my experiencing it, then there can be no existence without me. In that case, I inhabit all of existence whether it is infinite or no.

Remember, I am trying to follow idealism to its logical conclusions. I am not presenting the arguments as my own.

****************

How might I be infinite? How many real numbers exist between 0 and 1? Perhaps each moment of our existence is like a point on a line segment - infinite points on a finite line. (I don't really believe this - just tossing it out there for fun.)

I think many people hold materialist views without thinking through what they really mean. — Wayfarer

Perhaps. But as John has pointed out, one needs to beware of hubris. It seems that one who has experienced such an epiphany (i.e., embracing idealism) should desire to help others achieve it as well. The Buddha was not content to leave this plane of existence, but instead decided to stay and teach. In similar fashion, let us simple materialists benefit from your wisdom. Who knows - maybe a well-constructed argument will sway a few more converts to the side of enlightenment.

(And I won't continue to insist that the driving impetus behind idealism is a need to feel important in an otherwise uncaring universe.) :D

I would guess Plato was realist about matter being something. It was the various particulars, which were imperfect imitations of the forms, right? — Marchesk

There wasn't really much discussion of the nature of matter in Plato - that came along with Aristotle and hylomorphism. Platonic espistemology was more concerned with the nature and forms of knowledge. There's quite a good summary here the analogy of the divided line.

Platonism was very similar to Vedanta and other ancient philosophies in designating the 'realm of sense' as being delusory or treacherous. What the hoi polloi, the ordinary man, takes for granted as real, is ephemeral and passing. 'What a fool believes he sees, the wise man in his power, will reason away'.

. It seems that one who has experienced such an epiphany (i.e., embracing idealism) should desire to help others achieve it as well. — Real Gone Cat

Sure!

I think you're defining 'idealist' differently to me. — Wayfarer

I think that's part of the problem. Remember I have said that there are many idealisms and it's not clear how some of them differ from realism (and realism does not necessarily equate to materialism). Also, to go back to the OP, Marchesk made it quite explicit that he had in mind that the problem of the drug being in the water when no one was looking is a problem for subjective idealism, but not for Objective Idealism or Realism.

Objective Idealism as represented by Hegel and Peirce I take to be the position that says that objects are always in conceptual shape, so to speak, even when they are not being looked at. This is very clearly not to say that objects are dependent on minds, whether human or otherwise, but that being in conceptual shape or form is altogether independent of minds, just as being visible is altogether independent of actually being seen. I think the same can be said for Plato's Forms.

I had said earlier:

I think the one central tenet of any form of idealism is that being is intrinsically mental — John

and this is a bit misleading because I don't think it applies to either Objective Idealism or Transcendental Idealism.

But in the context of the Western philosophical tradition, there is indeed a primary distinction between materialists philosophies and idealist philosophies. — Wayfarer

And now the argument is shifting from realism vs idealism to materialism vs idealism. I think that is a different kettle of fish; although to be fair it has already appeared, even in some of the things I have said. But in any case realism does not necessarily equate to materialism. There is also a different sense of materialism vs idealism; namely the ethical sense in which the argument is over whether it is better to be motivated by material considerations or ethical ideals. But a person who is an ontological materialist could still consistently believe that it is better to be motivated by ethical or even spiritual ideals.

One of the names for that school is 'cittamatra'. Cittamatra is Sanskrit for 'mind only'. It is not ambiguous. — Wayfarer

It may not be ambiguous that 'cittamatra' means 'mind only', but I wasn't arguing that it is; I was arguing that the significance of 'mind only' may be ambiguous. In fact I have a book on my shelves somewhere the name and author if which i cannot remember ( although I do remember that the author is, I think, an Indian Buddhist scholar, and certainly, at least, not a Western scholar) the substance of which is an argument that 'mind only' should not be interpreted in the conventional idealist sense. So it is certainly not uncontroversial, even among Buddhist scholars, that 'mind only' must be interpreted as an assertion of the kind of idealism which is understood as a claim that reality is, at bottom, only mind.

I don't think it makes sense to separate ideas from minds, but it does make sense to separate conceptual forms from minds. See my answer to Wayfarer above for more detail.