Idealism

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Idealism is a philosophical view. Metaphysically, this view asserts that reality, as we can know it, is mentally constructed. From the epistemological point of view this implies that, although the existence of something independent of the mind is conceded, we cannot know the reality as it is independent from our own mind. As an ontological doctrine, idealism asserts that all entities are composed of mind or spirit, thus rejecting materialism.

Objective idealism

H. P. Blavatsky stated that "the Eastern Occultist . . . is an objective Idealist at the bottom."[1]

Objective idealism is a philosophical theory that affirms the ideal and spiritual nature of the world and conceives of the idea of which the world is made as the objective and rational form in reality rather than as subjective content of the mind or mental representation. Objective idealism thus differs both from materialism, which holds that the external world is independent of cognizing minds and that mental processes and ideas are by-products of physical events, and from subjective idealism, which conceives of reality as totally dependent on the consciousness of the subject and therefore relative to the subject itself.[2]

Notes

  1. Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine vol. I, (Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, 1993), 615.
  2. Objective idealism at Wikipedia