this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2024
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Do you have any resources or examples that might clearly demonstrate what idealism is and isn't?
Right now, I don't have any sources ready, and I know for certain that the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on idealism explicitly excludes non-recent branches of idealist schools of thought.
There are at least two definitions of ontological idealism (and two corresponding ones for ontological materialism) that I have seen. One of which characterises idealist schools of thought as positing that (some) non-material things have some sort of primacy over material things (note that non-material things are not limited to thoughts). Another definition is broader and simply requires idealist schools of thought to posit that non-material things exist (while the corresponding definition for materialism requires those schools to posit that only material things exist).
Contrary to popular perception, idealism does not require you to believe in magic, including that we can psychically change matter. Simply, for example, subscribing to the idea that math does not depend on matter is idealist.
Also, while religious idealism (most prominently Christian idealism) does require you to believe in magic, it also doesn't require one to believe that it is thoughts that have any sort of primacy over matter.
I am also pretty sure that I'm not alone in considering relevant disagreements to be at least mostly linguistic in nature. I have heard that Wittgenstein said something to the same effect, but have not checked.
i personally thought the most common form of idealism was summed up as this: "humans cannot perceive reality perfectly, they perceive things to their human limit and see appearances of things"
or, alternatively: "humans have experiences that trascend humanity itself and can't be fully understood by humans"
For Marx in particular, he saw any theory divorced from practical experience as a slipperly slope towards idealism - I'm still working through this argument myself, though, and I believe I misunderstood his point. I'm not very strong on my Young Hegelian critiques, truthfully
Lenin admits that it’s true though lol. He just says practically it very strong appears and works that the real substance that is subjectively experienced can be interacted with very functionally with materialistic assumptions. From practice (scientific and political) we know that diamat is the most functional system if not necessarily perfect.