Philosophers say the key to understanding human life is answering the really big questions - Why are we here? Where did we come from? Where will we go? And so on and so forth. This has truly been a debate for the ages, one that has galvanized thinkers, philosophers, theologians and scientists for thousands of years, giving rise to the schools of thoughts of idealism and realism, two heavyweights in the realm of philosophy.
Idealism puts forth the argument that reality, as we perceive it, is a mental construct. That its experience is due to the sensory abilities of the human mind and not because reality exists in itself, Plato first attempted to define reality in his Theory of Forms, what he termed the actual substance of ‘Things’ which ‘Formed’ matter and perceptible reality. Yet, Plato teaches that matter is real and can be experienced as a rational living entity, it is not a mere projection of consciousness.
Idealism in the modern world owes its development to philosophers such as George Berkeley, who was possibly its greatest proponent and the German philosopher Immanuel Kant. Yet, these two thinkers interpreted idealism in very different ways. Kant described his brand of idealism as transcendent, whereas Berkeley called it ‘immaterialism’ which we today refer to as subjective materialism.
In the philosophical sense, realism postulates that reality exists in independence with human perception and is not dependent on observers to define its objective boundaries. Platonic Idealism, is the basis for realism, since it attempts to define the universal forms or simply ‘universals’. A universal is the singular property of an object or thing which can exist simultaneously in two places in the same space-time,
such as the colour blue. The blueness of an object exists independently of the object itself in different locations. This is the problem of universals.
Aristotle is considered to be the foremost proponent of realism and, as Plato’s student, had his philosophical beginnings rooted in Platonic idealism, yet developed his own theories regarding the nature of reality later on. Aristotelian realism proposes that ideas can free float without having matter.
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