PP111 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: John Dewey, Objective Idealism, Subjective Idealism
Document Summary
Idealism: reality as nonmatter: reality consists of more than matter, matter alone doesn"t account for everything, belief that reality is composed of minds and their ideas rather than matter. Objections: don"t idealists commit the fallacy of anthropomorphism, idealists project human characteristics onto nonhuman parts of the universe. Objections to subjective idealism: mistakenly claims that our perceptions are what we perceive (elmer sprague) Objections to objective idealism: materialism, not god, provides the best explanation of the order and permanence of the world we perceive. Reality in pragmatism: our beliefs about reality are meaningful only to the extent that they have important consequences, this assumption is the cornerstone of pragmatism. Pragmatism was a reaction to materialism and idealism. Logic, arts, education, civilization: for james, whatever excites and stimulates our interest is real. There are many different real worlds or sub-universes: james rejected the scientific method as the exclusive determinant of reality.
