Idealism

Idealism: nothing exists that exists

independently of minds.
Berkeley: To be is to be perceived (or to
perceive): esse est percipi (aut percipere)

What is a material object, exactly? We

think it is mind-independent, but
does this make sense?

Plato and Idealism

Plato believed education helped move
individuals collectively toward achieving the
good.
World of matter in constant state of flux,
senses are not to be trusted, continually
deceive us
Truth is perfect and eternal, but not found in
the world of matter, only through the mind

Idealism
The State should be involved in education,
moving brighter students toward abstract
ideas and the less able toward collecting
dataa gender free tracking system
Those who were brighter should rule, others
should assume roles to maintain the state
The philosopher-king would lead the State to
the ultimate good

Idealism
Evil comes through ignorance, education will
lead to the obliteration of evil
More modern idealists: St. Augustine,
Descartes, Kant, Hegel
Goal of Education: interested in the search
for truth through ideaswith truth comes
responsibility to enlighten others, education
is transformation: Ideas can change lives.

Idealism
Role of the Teacher: to analyze and
discuss ideas with students so that
students can move to new levels of
awareness so that they can ultimately be
transformed, abstractions dealt with
through the dialectic, but should aim to
connect analysis with action
Role of the teacher is to bring out what is
already in students mind: reminiscence

Methods of Instruction
Lecture from time to time, but primary
method of teaching is the dialectic
discuss, analyze, synthesize, and apply
what they have read to contemporary
society
Curriculumimportance of the study of
the classicsmany support a back to
the basics approach to education

Why idealism?
Objection to nave realism: secondary qualities
are subjective, so we dont perceive objects just
as they are.
Objection to representative realism: primary
qualities do not resemble objects any more than
secondary qualities do.
So no qualities of material objects are mindindependent; we perceive only ideas. Material
objects are just bundles of ideas.
If we are not idealists, we will fall into confusion
or scepticism.

What causes perceptions?

Options: ideas, my mind, another mind
Not ideas: they are passive
Not my mind: perception is very different from
imagining
So another mind - given the systematicity and
complexity of what we perceive, that mind must be
God

Is appealing to God any worse than appealing to

material objects? They dont explain perception
either, e.g. how do they cause ideas?

Illusion and reality

How do I distinguish my ideas from
reality (ideas outside my mind)?
A perception is not voluntary
The idea perceived is part of the order of
nature (coherent reality)
The idea is caused by the mind of God

What of illusions?
We arent wrong - it is bent. But we make
a mistake if we think it would still be
bent out of water. To mark this, we rightly
say, The pencil looks bent.

In, out, in, out

When objects are not being
perceived, then they dont exist!
There was a young man who
said, God
must find it exceedingly odd
when He finds that the tree
continues to be
when no ones about in the
Quad.
Courtesy of UCL

Reply 1
To say an object of perception exists is
to say that it is or can be perceived.
But this conflicts with esse est percipi to be is to be perceived.
But should we worry if objects pop in
and out of existence if they do so with
complete regularity?

Reply 2: Gods response

Dear Sir, your astonishments odd,
Im always about in the Quad.
And thats why the tree
continues to be
since observed by, yours faithfully, God
Ideas we perceive are not just caused
by Gods mind, but exist in Gods mind

A final objection
Gods mind cant contain the kind of
perceptions (partial, visual, etc.) that we
have.
God is said to be unchanging, but reality
changes all the time.
Response: the ideas dont exist in Gods mind
in this way (as thoughts). What we see is
what God wills us to perceive (so they exist
as intentions).