realism

One might guess what this method of thought entails merely by looking at the word itself. This ideology reflects a transcendence from the objective world through means of belief in the mind and its power to form and mold one’s reality. Hence, only ideas can be known to have any reality at all, and everything outside of the realm of subjectivity is an illusion. Probably the most popular thought experiment in this regard is the brain child of the French philosopher Rene Descartes; an idea condensed into one statement that rings through the world as “Cogito ergo sum,” i.e., “I think, therefore I am.” Even Plato added to this philosophy his own hues of thought the ‘Cave Allegory’, which suggests of a ‘true’ and ‘perfect’ Reality called the ‘World of Forms’ that exists outside of this world. Taking this idea to its extremes, many philosophers have even speculated and outright labelled religion to be a form of utopian idealism, bereft of any truth. The idealism of humans is an inseparable entity from the collective subconscious of humanity, probably because it is what transforms the prison of the ‘self’ and the stifling mundanity of ‘Reality’ into a higher Truth and a grand Revelation for humans to decipher and dedicate their lives towards. The seductive optimism of Idealism is humanity’s heaven on earth, also allowing for the concepts of God and an Afterlife to exist in the first place.