Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 7.djvu/700

 IDEALISM

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IDEALISM

then those general statements are unreal, and each science is nothing more than a consistently arranged system of barren propositions deduced from empty, arbitrary definitions, and postulates, having no more genuine objective value than any other coherently derised scheme of artificial symbols standing for imaginary beings. But the fruitfulness of science and the constant verifications of its predictions are incom- patible with such an hypothesis.

Plato's explanation of his doctrine of ideas is scattered through most of his works, especially the Republic, Fhcedrus, TketEtetus. and Parrnenides. The subsequent literature on the Platonic ideas is enormous. Two recent books may be men- tioned in particular; Adam.son. The Development of Greek Phi- losophy (Edinburgh. 1908); Stewart. Plato's Doctrine of Ideas (Oxford. 1909). Long. Outlines from Plato (Oxford. 1905). will also be found helpful. Aristotle discusses the Platonic ideas chiefly in the M ela'y'iysics and also in the Organon. On the differences between Plato and .\ristotle see Watson. Aris- totle's Criticism of Plato (Oxford. 1909). For the doctrine of St. Thomas see his Summa, I. Q. xv, and De Veritate. Q. iii; see also Stockl, Handbook of the History of Philosophy, tr. Finlay (DubUn. 1.S.S7 .and 1903); Turner. History of Philosophy (New- York. 1903): RiCKABT, First Principles (.New York and Lon- don, 1.S96): Maher. Psychology, cc. xii-xiv (New York and Lon- don, 1905). See Hamilton. Rcid (London. 1872). notes G and JL Among Continental modern Scholastics perhaps the best treatment of many aspects of the subject is that contained in Peillaube. Thcorie des Concepts (Paris. 1894). See also RotJS- SELOT, L'intellcctualisme de St Thomas (Paris. 1908), pt. II, c. ii; Van der Berg. De Ideis Divinis juxta doctrinam Doctoris Angeliri (Bois le Due. 1872): Zigliara. Delia Ixu-e intelletluale (Rome. 1874): Domet de Vorje.s. La Perception ef la Psycholoffie Thomisle (Paris. 1S92); PlAT. L'idie (2nd ed., Paris, 19ft8). See also ElSLER. Philosophisches Worterbuch, s.v. Idee; Ueberweg, History of Philosophy.

MlCH.\^EL M.\HER.

IdeaEsm. — In discussing this term and its mean- ing, reference must be had to the cognate expressions, idealist, idealized, ideal (adjective), and the ideal (noun), all of which are derived from the Greek ISia. This signifies "image", "figure", "form"; it can be used in the sense of "hkeness" or "copy" as well as in that of "tjTJe", "model", or "pattern"; it is this latter sense that finds expression in "ideal" and the derivatives mentioned above. In speaking of "the ideal", what we have in mind is not a copy of any perceptible object, but a type. The artist is said to "idealize" his sulijcct when he represents it as fairer, nobler, more perfect than it is in reality. Ideal- ism in life is the characteristic of those who regard the ideas of truth and right, goodness and beauty, as standards and directive forces. This signification betrays the influence of Plato, who made idea a techni- cal term in philosophy, .\ccording to him the visible world is simply a copy of a supersensible, intelligible, ideal world, and consequently "things" are but the impress stamped on reality by that which is of a higher, spiritual nature.

Platonism is the oldest form of idealism, and Plato himself the progenitor of idealists. It is usual to place in contrast Plato's idealism and Aristotle's realism; the latter in fact denies that ideas are origi- nals and lliat things are mere copies; he holds that the essence or form is intelligible, but that it is immanent in the things of nature, whereas it is put into the products of art. It is more correct, therefore, to call his teaching an immanent idealism as contrasted with the transcendental idealism of Plato. Both these thinkers reveal the decisive influence of that moral and resthetic idealism which permeated Greek life, thought, and action; but for both, what lies deepest down in their philosophy is the conviction that the first and highest principle of all things is the one perfect spiritual Being which they call God, and to which they lead back, by means of intermediate principles — essence and form, purpose and law — the multifarious individual beings of the visible world. In this sense idealism is dualism, i. e. the doctrine of a higher spiritual principle over against that which is lower and material: and this doctrine again is clearly opposed to the monism which would derive the higher and the lower alike out of one and the same All-being.

This older idealism teaches, not that there is One-All, but that there is an .\lpha and Omega, i. e. a super- mundane Cause and End, of the world. By means of its principles, idealism maintains the distinctness of God and the world, of the absolute and the finite, yet holds them together in unity; it adjusts the re- lations between reality and knowledge, by ascribing to things dimension, form, purpose, value, and hiw, at the same time securing for thought the requisite certainty and validity; it establishes objective truth in the things that are known and subjective truth in the mind that knows them. In this sense the School- men teach that forma dat esse et distingui, i. e. the principle which formally constitutes the object, like- wise, in the act of cognition, informs the mind. In- asmuch as its principles express the cause and purpose of things, their determinate nature and value, ideal- ism unites the speculative and the ethical, the true and the good, moral philosophy and the philosophj' of nature.

In this sense St. Augustine developed the Platonic teaching, and his philosophy is idealism in the genuine meaning of the term. From him comes the definition of ideas which Christian philosophy has since retained: "Ideas are certain original forms of things, their ar- chet)-pes permanent and incommunicable, which are contained in the Divine intelligence. And though they neither begin to be nor cease, yet upon them are patterned the manifold things of the world that come into being and pass away. Upon these ideas only the rational soul can fix its gaze, endowed as it is with the faculty which is its peculiar excellence, i. e. mind and reason [mevte ac ralione], a power, as it were, of intel- lectual vision; and for .such intuition that soul only is qualified which is pure and holy, i. e., whose eye is normal, clear, and well adjusted to the things which it would fain behold" (De diversis qusest., Q. xlvi, in P. L., XL, 30).

This line of thought the Scholastics adopted, de- veloping it in their treatises as ideology. Their theory indeed is described not as idealism, but as realism; but this does not imply that they are in conflict with the doctrine of Augustine; it means rather that the ideal principles possess re.il validity, that as ideas they subsist in the Divine mind before the things corresponding to them are called into exists ence, while, as forms and essences, they really exist in nature and are not merely products of our thinking. In this last-named sense, i. e. as subjective construc- tions, ideas had long before been regarded by the philosophers of antiquity and especially by the Stoics, who held that ideas are nothing else than mental representations. This erroneous and misleading; view appeared during the Middle Ages in the guise of nominali-sm, a designation given to the system whose adherents claimed that our concepts are mere names (nomina), which have as their counterparts in the world of reality individual things, but not forms or essences or purposes. This opinion, which robs both science and moral principles of their universal valid- ity, and which paves the way for Materialism and agnosticism, was combated by the leaders of Schol- asticism — .\nselm of Canterliurj-, Albertus Magnu.s, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Duns Scotus— nevertheless, from the fourteenth century onwards, it had its champions and propagators, notably Wil- liam of Occam. For the untrained mind it was easier to consider individual things as the only reaUtie? and to regard forms and essences as purely mental products.

So it came to pass that the word idea in the various languages took on more and more the meaning of "representation", "mental image", and the like. Hence too, there was gradually introduced the ter- minology which we find in the writings of Berkeley, and according to which idealism is the doctrine that ascribes reality to our ideas, i. e. our representations,