5 main REPRESENTATIVES of IDEALISM in philosophy

Let's talk about the main ones representatives of idealism in philosophy, a current that affirms that ideas are more important that the rest of the things, that the reality is a construct of the mind and that the things exist if there is a mind that can think them.

Likewise, we must bear in mind that idealism is one of the longest and most fruitful philosophical currents in history: it was born with Plato (427-347 a. C.) and continues with great philosophers, such as: Rene Descartes (1596-1650), Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), Immanuel Kant (1729-1804) or Friedrich Hegel (1770-1931). Do you want to know more about the representatives of idealism? Keep reading because we explain it to you in this lesson a PROFESSOR.

Before studying the main representatives of the idealism, we must briefly explain what it is and what its evolution is throughout history. In this way, we must place his birth in the Greece of the S. IV a. C. and in the figure of Plato. This was the person in charge of putting the first stone of a current, that later, would bifurcate in several slopes with diverse representatives:

1. Platonic idealism: It is the first of the idealisms and establishes the primacy of ideas above all else, as well as the existence of two worlds or dontological ualism.
2. Objective idealism: It is an evolution of Platonic idealism and its representatives include: Leibniz, Hegel, Bolzano or Dilthey.
3. Subjective idealism: This current affirms that ideas depend on the subjectivity of the individual who perceives them. Within this current, the following stand out: Descartes, Berkeley, Kant and Fichte.
4. German idealism: It was developed in Germany in the 18th-19th centuries, highlighting the Kant's transcendental idealism and Hegel's absolute idealism.

However, all these currents converge and start from the general thesis that establishes that the idea is the most important thing. As the etymology of the word indicates, which means doctrine of ideas.

Within philosophical idealism the following philosophers stand out:

1. Plato, 427-347 BC. C.: the father of idealism

This Greek philosopher stands as the father of philosophical idealism by defending the following theses:

• The preponderance of the idea over the rest of things: The idea exists independently of the objects.
• Reality is not a mental construct and things exist if there is a mind that thinks them.
• Ideas are created in a supersensible-extramental reality and they are eternal, universal, necessary, and incorruptible.
• The soul knows the ideas.
• There are two worlds or duplicity of reality:
• The sensible world: It is the world of the human being or the physical world, which is characterized by being the world of appearances, of the changing and of the partial perception of things. It is a copy of the world of ideas.
• The world of the intelligible: It is a world outside of being and supersensible, the world of universal ideas and that of truth. A world that is sensed through reason and not through the senses. Therefore, to know the reality in which we live it is necessary to doubt the perception of our senses because they deceive us.

2. Descartes, 1596-1650

Discards he is another of the representatives of idealism. He defends that the existence of the idea is innate, that ideas do not reside in a supersensible world, external and independent, but they are in our own mind and that at all times depend on the subjectivity of the individual who perceives them.

Likewise, he establishes a method to achieve a truth that he eliminates the doubta, that is, the French starts from doubt as a method to question knowledge and analyze the reasons that lead to the creation of an idea that is given as valid, the only true thing being that which does not present any doubt about its evidence, the thought.

3. Gottfried Wihelm Leibniz, 1646-1716

This German philosopher establishes that ideas exist by themselves, they are innate and that are discovered through our own experience, we must learn them.

Furthermore, he claims that the ideas they are possibilities of knowledge and, in this sense, exposes his theory of the monads (infinite substances or metaphysical atoms: the last elements of the universe and where knowledge is located (the innate ideas), likewise, monads are eternal, individual, governed by their own laws, have perceptions and have their own internal activity, from which the ideas come.

4. Immanuel Kant, 1724-1804

Kant is the highest representative of the transcendental idealism, according to which, in order for the knowledge two variables or elements have to intervene: the subject (the put / noumenon) and the object (the given / phenomenon). In this process, the subject is the one who sets the conditions for the development of knowledge and the object is the material principle of knowledge, thus setting limits to human knowledge.

Likewise, he considers that the individual knows things through the knowledge of things in themselves and establishes three levels of knowledge: sensitivity, understanding and reason.

5. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1770-1931

Hegel is the main representative of the absolute idealism and for him the idea is defined as the basis of all knowledge and it is what leads us to understand reality (something intangible but rational). Thus, reality is the development of an idea and the idea is the development itself. Both reality and idea are needed and one cannot exist without the other.

On the other hand, it also affirms that reality can be known through reason and that existence is the result of the exchange of ideas = everything can be thought and, therefore, reality can be known through the concepts, the dialectic. Which is a linear process which is divided into four stages: thesis, antithesis, synthesis and evolution.

These are the 5 main representatives of idealism in philosophy.