Rapoz asked:

What is objective idealism? (I understand that it is related to the world view of Plato.) What arguments
are there in favour of this position and what arguments are against it?

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Short overview:

Idealism, in terms of metaphysics, is the philosophical view that the mind or spirit constitutes the
fundamental reality. It has taken several distinct but related forms. Among them are Objective and
Subjective idealism. Objective idealism accepts common sense Realism (the view that material
objects exist) but rejects Naturalism (according to which the mind and spiritual values have emerged
from material things), whereas subjective idealism denies that material objects exist independently of
human perception and thus stands opposed to both realism and naturalism.

Detailed elaboration:

As we experience ourselves as subjects (mind, consciousness) and objects (body, matter), it is no
wonder that questions like 'How are mind and matter related?', 'Which is primary, consciousness or
matter?', 'Which, mind or matter, is the source of the other?' are fundamental to all philosophy.

There are many philosophical positions trying to answer these questions. The spectrum of answers
reaches from the extreme spiritual to the extreme material position and is usually divided into
materialism and idealism.

Materialism holds to the primacy of matter, idealism to the primacy of consciousness.

Positions trying to avoid duality of matter and consciousness, are called monistic.They escape
having to explain how mind and matter interact and therefore reduce one to another.

A justification of the idealist position is that that we only know for certain that our experience exists,
while we never can be sure that matter exists. Hence, to explain mind by matter would be to explain
the certain by the uncertain, which is a flawed form of explanation. This sounds quite clear, but how
should we think of physical objects?

According to idealism a physical object is a cluster of properties such as color, size, weight, and
texture, but there is no reason to think that those properties are caused by some non-mental stuff
called matter. To treat an abstract concept as if it were something having physical reality is to reify
that concept. Just because a noun "oddness" can be constructed from the adjective odd, doesn't
mean that oddness really exists, there are only odd numbers. Likewise there is no good reason to
think that matter exists. There are only objects with physical properties.

Plato can be said to be the earliest representative of metaphysical objective idealism. Dissenting from
the view of Heraclitus that everything is in a state of flux and flow, he formulated, in the interest of
ethics, his doctrine of eternal unchanging ideas. These ideas exist objectively in a supersensuous
world and form the background and basis of the ever-changing phenomenal world. Reality is not
inherent in the individual object, as, for instance, a horse or a tree, but in the general idea of horse or
tree. The highest idea is the idea of the Good — a self-realizing end. According to Plato, transitory
and imperfect matter does exist by participating in eternal and perfect ideas or "forms". Matter can be
perceived by our senses, while the forms are recognized by our souls.

So Plato's worldview was dualistic, therefore not truly idealistic.

Modern idealism tries to escape this dualistic worldview. I will pick out two kinds of modern
metaphysical idealism: subjectiveidealism and objectiveidealism.

Subjective idealism denies the existence of objective reality altogether, except perhaps as illusory, as
for instance in the views of Berkeley. Objective idealism, such as the system of Schelling, recognizes
the existence of objective worlds while regarding the ideal world as the primary production and
paramount: the external world has a relative and temporary reality.

An example for subjective idealism is Berkeley's theistic idealism. Berkeley said that it is God who
causes us to experience physical objects by His directly willing us to experience matter avoiding the
extra, unnecessary step of creating matter.

But isn't belief in God not even more problematic than belief in matter? Not at all, Berkeley would
reply: We do not know what matter is like, but we do know what minds are like. Therefore we know
what God is like, as it is a supreme mind. We may not understand God fully, as he is infinite and we
are only finite, but God is still a mind.

How about common experience? According to Berkeley it is again God, who makes different people
experience the same thing at the same time. So-called common perceptions is like copies of the
same movie running in different theatres at the same time. God causes each of us to have such
similar experiences that we can communicate about them, just as if we were really in the same
situation.

In contrast to Berkeley's subjective idealism was objective idealism. Objective idealism is the view
that the world out there is Mind communicating with our human minds. It is formulated by the three
German successors of Kant. These were F.W.J. Schelling (aesthetic idealism), J.G. Fichte (moral
idealism), and G.W.F. Hegel (dialectical idealism). Differences between subjective and objective
idealism were not always clear-cut, however. For instance, Fichte's idealism was later called
subjective in contrast to Schelling's objective variety, while Hegel's became known as absolute
idealism. The term Objective Idealism was only sometimes used by Schelling, while the term
Subjective Idealism was used by both, Schelling and Hegel, to put their own ideas in contrast to
Fichte's position.

While Schelling's Objective idealism remained insignificant, the objective idealist with most influence
is probably G. W. F. Hegel. Hegel agreed with Berkeley, that there is no such thing as matter in the
materialist's sense, and that spirit is the essence and whole of reality. But he objected to the idea that
God is separated from the world. Therefore reality is not God and the minds that God creates, but a
single, absolute, all-inclusive mind, which Hegel referred to as "The Absolute Spirit" or simply "The
Absolute". The Absolute Spirit is all of reality, no time, space, relation or event ever exists or occurs
outside of the Absolute. As the Absolute also contains all possibilities in itself, it is not static, but
constantly changing and progressing.

How the do we relate to the Absolute?

Finite individuals like human beings, planets and even galaxies are not separate beings, but part of
something larger. Our relation to the Absolute is similar to the relation of cells or organs to the whole
body. Like the cells, that constitute an organism continually emerge, make their contribution, die and
are replaced, we as human beings come and go, while the Absolute continues.

Hegel had no problem in considering an objective world beyond any particular subjective mind. But
this objective world itself had to be understood as conceptually informed, as it were — it was
objectified spirit.

A general objection to idealism is that it is implausible to think that there can be an analytic reduction
of the physical to the mental. Hegel's system of objective idealism is under suspicion for substituting
the Absolute for God, which doesn't make anything clearer in the end. And if we are forms that the
Absolute is taking, it means that the Absolute gets headaches, all kinds of diseases and even thinks
of committing suicide sometimes. Why should the Absolute inflict such things upon itself? If it does, or
can't help doing so, is it worthy of being called "The Absolute"?

Simone Klein