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Philosophers' Carnival 67: Idealism

Welcome to the 67th Philosophers' Carnival, on the theme of idealism! A large number of submissions were received, so among those that were not idealism-themed, I have selected only a few of my favorites. My apologies to those that were not included. Also, for those of you who find the color scheme distasteful (or a cause of headaches), let me point you to the top right of the page, where a link reading "view with boring colors" will magically turn this page to black on white (please let me know if it doesn't work in your browser). And now, without further ado, Philosophers' Carnival 67:

What Is Idealism?

I thought it would be appropriate to begin the carnival with a brief note on just what "idealism" is. We are speaking here of metaphysical idealism, the view that minds and/or their ideas are the fundamental stuff of reality and everything else depends on them. The most famous historical proponent of idealism (and the one with perhaps the simplest system) was George Berkeley (1685-1753). In Berkeley's system, the universe contains many finite minds (us) and one infinite mind (God). The physical world is made up of perceptions which are ideas inserted directly in our minds by God. A current controversy also exists as to whether G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716) was an idealist. Robert Adams argues the Leibniz holds a consistently idealist picture of the world, whereas Daniel Garber argues that in at least some of his writings Leibniz accepts "corporeal substance" as a fundamental entity in his ontology. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) called his theory "transcendental idealism" but denied that this was actually a form of idealism. Later idealists include G.W.F. Hegel (1770-1831), Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860), and F. H. Bradley (1846-1924).

For Idealism

The first group of Carnival submissions are those arguing for idealism, or defending it from objections.

• Richard Brown at Philosophy Sucks! presents Has Idealism Been Refuted? which examines three famous "refutations" of idealism and finds them all to be deficient in various ways.


• Michael Sigrist presents Who's Afraid of Idealism? at The Ends of Thought. I had a bit of difficulty classifying this post, but I've put it here because it argues against conventional notions of realism. Sigrist argues that by adopting a view adapted from Kant and Husserl we can both satisfy our realist intuitions and get the theoretical benefits of idealism.

Against Idealism

The following submissions argue against idealism. As your "impartial" carnival host, I will resist the temptation to offer counter-refutations.

• Christian presents Idealism Unmasked at Free Thinking Joy, and follows up with The Peek-a-boo of Physicalism. These posts discuss one of the most basic, intuitive objections against idealism: namely that unperceived objects exist.


• Avery Archer presents On Transcendental Arguments at Web of Belief. This post discusses "transcendental arguments" (like Kant's) against skepticism and idealism.

Consequences of Idealism

This group of submissions examines the interaction between idealist positions and arguments and other issues in philosophy.

• Enigman's submission, Atheism and Explanation, compares the negative existence claims of idealism (about matter), atheism (about God), and Humean supervenience (about laws of nature).


• In Language and the Metaphysics of the Material World, I discuss how Berkeley's theory of sense perception as language may provide a useful heuristic for solving some difficult problems in the metaphysics of the material world.

History of Idealism

One submission for this carnival discussed the topic of idealism from a purely historical perspective.

• A submission from Grundlegung is apparently the first part of a series on Hegel and Idealism and discusses the question of in what sense Kant's "transcendental idealism" is idealistic. This provides the foundation for the interpretation of Hegel.

The Best of the Rest

• Noah Greenstein discusses The Monty Hall Problem


• On a related note, a post at Advances in the History of Psychology discusses an argument that choices or rationalizations traditionally explained by "cognitive dissonance" may not be irrational, but may rather be examples of probabilities behaving strangely, as in the Monty Hall Problem.


• Tony Lloyd discusses justified true belief and the Gettier cases on The Epistemology Blog.


• Andrew Bacon at Possibly Philosophy presents A Theory of Duplication, which gets into the "best" list simply because Andrew deserves kudos for using serious formal logic in a blog post. (I personally have not yet had time to process this particularly dense post just yet, as I posted this carnival in a hurry in between freaking out about graduate admissions - I'm sure many of you understand.)


• Nathaniel Smith discusses neurological determinism as an argument against moral responsibility at Profundus Ignarus.


• Last but not least, Carnival founder Richard Chappell of Philosophy, etc. defends the Platonic view that "preference/desire aims at the good" against an objection from Liz Harman.

That's all for this time! The next Carnival will be held on April 28 at MQPhil. Submit your posts by Saturday, April 26.

Posted by Kenny at April 14, 2008 9:17 PM