idealismi

Idealismi, in Finnish, refers to the philosophical position known in English as idealism. It is a family of philosophical positions that maintain that reality is in some essential sense mind-dependent or spiritually constituted. In its broadest sense, idealism holds that what exists is either mind, ideas, or a structure of consciousness, rather than a world of entirely mind-independent matter. Major variants include subjective or epistemological idealism, wherein perception and knowledge are inseparable from the perceiving subject; and objective or absolute idealism, which posits an overarching mind or spiritual reality that organizes the world.

Historically, idealism has deep roots in ancient philosophy and was refined in several strands during the modern period. Kant’s transcendental idealism argues that the objects of experience are shaped by the mind’s forms of intuition and categories of understanding, so we never know things as they are in themselves. Berkeley’s immaterialism suggests that existence consists in being perceived. German and British idealists of the 18th–19th centuries — notably Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and the Green and Bradley schools — developed the claim that mind or spirit constitutes the structure of reality, sometimes culminating in the notion of an absolute or universal mind.

Critics, especially proponents of realism and naturalism, challenge idealism on grounds of empirical testability and the plausibility of a wholly mental ontology. Despite criticism, idealist ideas have influenced subsequent philosophy, including phenomenology, existentialism, and various forms of philosophy of mind, ethics, and theology.