Idealism

As a category in metaphysics, “idealism” usually refers at the most general level to the proposition that “reality” is in some sense mental rather than material. In political philosophy/theory, idealism refers to theories that hold concepts and propositions to be the constitutive and determining factors in politics, a claim that includes the belief that “material” processes are actually mental at root. Normatively, idealists tend to hold that the values by which personal and political conduct should be judged are in some sense “spiritual,” usually founded on some notion of human nature that individuals are innately driven to realize in their daily lives. They also tend to reject utilitarianism, claiming that it celebrates man's animality rather than his inchoate humanity or, in many cases, immanent “divinity.” That noted, idealists have tended to hold theological beliefs that were heterodox at best or even atheistic. Beyond these very general claims, little is shared by those political theories that are commonly labeled “idealist,” aside from certain common misinterpretations made by nonidealists. For example, there is no necessary requirement to understand the world “idealistically”—that is, as ultimately “good,” peaceful, or providentially ordered. Similarly, there is no common tendency to deny the existence of the external world outside of thought (the denial that is most associated with Berkeleyian solipsism). Instead, what is characteristically at issue is one's understanding of the concept of “reality,” especially social reality. Idealists tend to hold that the closest one can get to any mind-independent world “out there” are the various (interpreted) sensations excited by (it seems) that world in our consciousnesses. Consequently, one can only analyze with even a modicum of precision those sensations and the ideas to which they give rise. Hence, the realms of human conduct such as social life, politics, aesthetics, and economics are constructs of the mind but are no less real for that (in fact, they are real because they are such constructions). Counterfactually, humans have no direct access to an underlying material world, meaning that the only “reality” that one can become aware of and can analyze and criticize rationally is the mental reality of interpreted thought.

Plato (ca. 428–348 BCE) was the first recorded idealist political philosopher. He claimed the world that we perceive is made up of imperfect ideas, which are themselves copies of a world of purely mental entities, each of which forms part of a single eternal coherent system of concepts, ordered with reference to the “Form of the Good.” Only that single system is real, and our actual, imperfect ideas at best imitate what is real, and do so only to the extent that they reproduce elements of that system. To the extent that our beliefs do not match the eternal system of concepts, they trap us in mere opinion and error. This claim has highly significant ethical and political implications. According to Plato, the good life is one lived in accordance with the virtues of wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice, with the last of these being achieved through the correct [Page 1126]ordering of the first three virtues within the individual's soul and within the life of the ancient Greek city-state or polis. Possibly on grounds of its impracticality rather than on philosophical grounds, Plato's later political works (The Laws and The Statesman) replaced the Republic's system of rule by “guardians” with systems relying on greater constitutional checks. Nevertheless, many scholars have seen even these later books as totalitarian models.

...