Idealism vs Reality
The debate between idealism and realism is a complex and often contentious area of philosophy and ethics. On the one hand idealism is related to a transcendental view of reality that places emphasis on mental ideas and on the motivation to attain high levels of perfection. On the other hand, realists question the validity and practicality of idealistic notions of ethics. In order to understand the foundations of this debate one has to take into account the long history of idealism in the West, from the beginning of the Platonic ideal Forms. One has also to take into consideration the rise of rationality, science and the secular society in the formation of a critical approach to idealism. This paper suggests that these two extremes can be more usefully integrated in an understanding of the positive aspects of both idealism and realism. The term idealism has many interpretations in philosophy and in ethical thought. On the one hand idealism is seen as the highest good that one can attain to. The term ideal refers to the notion of the "idea" or the concept of perfection in thought and action. On the other hand, idealism has been criticized in the modern context for being out of tou
In other words, the world of ideal Forms refers to true reality in contradistinction to the world of everyday particulars, which is a false reality or an illusion. This is an extremely important distinction to acknowledge, as it refers to the different approaches to many ethical and educational practices. Educationists in particular have stated that; . One of the common critiques of idealism is that it distorts reality and is therefore ethically suspect. Some argue that the idealism as it is traditionally understood is, in the final analysis, unrealistic. This has led to the view that true ethical action lies in the area of balance and intersection between idealism and reality. However, what has changed is the understanding of what is meant by these ideals. A good example of the movement towards pragmatism and secularity can be found in the dominant and dominating scientific theories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries; for example in Darwin's theory of evolution in his work On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection (1859). In essence, he inverts the Platonic idealism and suggests a view of reality that is based in reason and the rationality of the mind. Only the Forms were perfect, and material bodies were merely imperfect 'representations' or 'reflections' of transcendent Ideal Forms" (de Quincey, 1999).
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