Idealism

The author challenges both the eliminative idealist's contention that physical objects do not exist and the phenomenalist idealist's view that statements about physical objects are translatable into statements about private mental experiences. Firstly, he details how phenomenalist translations are parasitic on the realist assumption that physical objects exist independently of experience. Secondly, the author confronts eliminative idealism head on by exposing its heuristic sterility in contrast with realism's predictive success.

Donald Hoffman proposed a bold theory—that objects do not exist independently of us perceiving them and that all that really exists is conscious agents. In this critical review, Leslie Allan examines the three core components of Hoffman's new idealism. He proposes solutions to linguistic absurdities suffered by Hoffman's theory before considering its most serious problems. These include oversimplifications of evolutionary theory, self-refutation, heuristic sterility and dependence on scientific realism.

In the light of the principle of mediocrity, naturalism is in fact transcendent exceptionalism - as opposed to transcendent mediocrity. As such, it has the burden of proof - and the "inverse criterion" defeats many of such alleged proofs.

What can we know if we take sceptical worries such as the Münchhausen trilemma seriously? Quite a lot, actually - if the world is a certain way, namely if transcendent mediocrity is the case.

If the transcendence tree to which our world belongs has a root, and that root is a mind, then what can be known about that mind? It seems there are two sources of knowledge, theology (that mind may have revealed itself to us) and philosophy (we may be able to reason about it from first principles). Here we shall look into that latter aspect.

Kant AI Textual Investigations: Critique of Practical Reason. By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. Cover art by Shawn Rodriguez. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804). German philosopher. Critique of Practical Reason (1788). Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (1788). Also known as Kant’s Second Critique. All Rights are Reserved. Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching. No change in the content, and must include (...) my full name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Enjoy reading and disagreeing. Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Language: English and German. Includes bibliographical references and an index. Pages 1-193. Warning. Warning: this is an AI Working Zone. Warning. Perhaps an impending danger of unexpected, unknown texts. These are AI investigations into Kant’s texts. Critical Analysis of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Christine Korsgaard versus Lewis White Beck: 30 Philosophical Questions and Short Answers on Kantian Practical Reason. Nietzsche’s Remarks on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason in On the Genealogy of Morality. How the Critique of Practical Reason grounds Perpetual Peace philosophically. Theological Influences on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason and Theological Themes within the Work. Conscience in Kant, Nietzsche, and Heidegger: From Moral Law to Genealogy to Ontological Call. Future Research Questions on Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason with Possible Directions for Answer. Kant on Constitutional Monarchy versus Pure Democracy: A Comparative Philosophical Analysis. Kant’s entire political philosophy derives from the principle of autonomy developed in the Critique of Practical Reason. Kant and the Right to Revolution. Highest Principles in Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason. Advanced Graduate Seminar 12 weeks. Example essay on the topic of Autonomy vs. Kant’s Notion of the Moral Worth of Actions. Heidegger’s Analysis of Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason in GA 84.1 Being, Transcendental Illusion, Finitude, and the Inner Nature of Reason. Questions in Heidegger’s Kant, Dialektik und praktische Philosophie (GA 84.1 Editor Günther Neumann) Analytical Reconstruction with Concise Interpretive Answers. Also muß auf Kant zurückgegangen werden! (shrink)

Kant AI Textual Research Investigations: Critique of Power Judgement. By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. Cover art by Shawn Rodriguez. All Rights are Reserved. Intended copies of this work can be used for research and teaching. No change in the content, and must include my full name, Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Enjoy reading and disagreeing. Publisher: Kuhn von Verden Verlag. Language: English and German. Includes (...) bibliographical references and an index. Pages 1-174. The Systematic Problem: Why a Third Critique Is Necessary. Reflecting Judgment and the Principle of Purposiveness. Aesthetic Judgment: Subjective Purposiveness and the Feeling of Pleasure. Teleological Judgment: Organisms, Natural Ends, and the Limits of Mechanism. The Architectonic Unity of Reason: How Judgment Mediates Nature and Freedom. Advanced Graduate Seminar 12 weeks. Kant’s Third Critique: A Systematic Study of the Critique of the Power of Judgment. The importance of third Critique to German philosophers. Glossary of key terms. Details on the influence of Kant’s third Critique on Hegel. Also muß auf Kant zurückgegangen werden! -/- . (shrink)

Heidegger AI Textual Investigations: Hegel / By Daniel Fidel Ferrer. Copyright©2026 Daniel Fidel Ferrer. All rights reserved. Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND. Imprint 1.0. 2026. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT) digital. 1- 678 pages. Warning. Warning: this is an AI Working Zone. Warning. Perhaps an impending danger of unexpected, unknown texts. This is an AI investigation into Martin Heidegger’s texts. Daniel Fidel Ferrer as the “Prompt Artist”. AI conducted by ©Daniel Fidel Ferrer, 2026. Maestro. I could consider myself the Maestro suggeritore. Heidegger (...) sources: “Hegel und das Problem der Metaphysik” (lecture materials and notes dated 1950 with a short 1930 preface/intro). The document comprises Heidegger’s outline for two talks in Amsterdam (Mar 22 and 24, 1950), with an earlier one page “Einleitung zum Hegel Vortrag in Haag” (Mar 24, 1930). It mixes continuous exposition with marginalia, insertions, and “Beilagen” (supplementary notes) geared to a public lecture format rather than a polished essay. The declared theme is “Hegel und das Problem der Metaphysik.” Heidegger setup his reading of Hegel as a kampf—a struggle. Hegel: Die Negativität. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Hegel aus dem Ansatz in der Negativität (1938/39, 1941), together with his “Erläuterung der ‘Einleitung’ zu Hegels Phänomenologie des Geistes” (1942) as presented in GA 68. Hegel’s Science of Logic, Book II: The Doctrine of Essence, written in 1956–57. Colloquium über Dialektik (Muggenbrunn, 15 September 1952) and the appended unread final lecture (XII) from Was heißt Denken? (SS 1952), and the lecture Hegel and the Greeks (1958 March 20). Auch muss auf Heidegger zurückgegangen werden! (shrink)

Modal idealism is a Theory of Everything, based on metaphysical abstractions of the physical principles of hidden symmetries, entanglement, and quantum field theory, considered in the context of the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics. These abstractions are used to extend the scope of existing philosophical positions on idealism, consciousness and possible world semantics, to rationally explain the fundamental mysteries of our existence. While it conceptually aligns with the Many Minds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, modal idealism posits a more comprehensive (...) characterization of the mind, and thereby addresses many of the objections to MMI and MWI. Consequently, it can provide unequivocal, logical answers to our most enduring existential questions. To demonstrate the explanatory power of modal idealism, this article will present seven of our most meaningful physical and metaphysical questions, enumerate the principles of this framework, and use them to rationally answer these questions. (shrink)

[This manuscript is outdated; read chapter 5 and 6 of my book "Information, Intelligence and Idealism" instead, which is also available as full text on PhilPapers] The tremendous advances of research into artificial intelligence as well as neuroscience made over the last two to three decades have given further support to a renewed interest into philosophical discussions of the mind-body problem. Especially the last decade has seen a revival of panpsychist and idealist considerations, often focused on solving philosophical puzzles like (...) the socalled hard problem of consciousness.1–9 While a number of respectable philosophers advocate some sort of panpsychistic solution to the mind-body problem now, fewer advocate that idealism can contribute substantially to the debate. Interest in idealism has nevertheless risen again, as can be seen also from recent overview articles and collections of works.10–14 The working hypothesis here is that a properly formulated idealism can not only provide an alternative view of the mind/matter gap, but that this new view will also shed light on open questions in our common scientific, i.e. materialist, world view. To investigate this possibility, idealism first of all needs a model for the integration of modern science which allows for a mathematically consistent reinterpretation of the physical world as a limiting case of a both material and non-material world, which would make the outcome of idealistic considerations accessible to scientific investigation. To develop such a model I will first try to explain what I mean when I speak of a ‘scientifically tenable’ idealism, including a formulation of the emanation problem which for idealism replaces the interaction problem, then give a very brief summary of the available elements of such a theory in the philosophical literature, before sketching out some ‘design questions’ which have to be answered upon the construction of such models, and finally put forward a first model for a scientifically tenable objective idealism. (shrink)

Over the last years, ‘sub-symbolic’ deep neural network (DNN) based artificial intelligence (AI) systems have run into all sorts of problems, especially with ‘hallucinations’ and in general with reliability.(REFs) One way to conceptualize this is to understand sub-symbolic AI to lack proper world models,(REFs) i.e. some type of proper mapping of what’s supposedly real and what’s not – though it might be more helpful to concede that such AI systems have ‘fuzzy’ implicit world models, that are superpositions of all proper (...) world models compatible with the statistics of the language token use in the training data. Understood in one of these ways, it is tempting to think that the problems of these models can be solved by adding proper world model information, only that the generation and operation of open, extended world models is exactly the task at which ‘classical’ symbolic AI approaches failed.(REFs) Combined sub-symbolic and symbolic approaches (like for instance ‘Neuro-AI‘ or similar)(REFs) are thus most likely doomed to run not only into some of the problems of both subsymbolic, as well as symbolic systems, but even into additional problems related to the interfacing of the two. For this interfacing, no generally applicable approach is known yet and given that (even after at least decades of research) our knowledge of how humans generate or access (layers of) symbol systems and world models is very limited, it seems at least questionable that substantial progress will be made with this in the near future. AI research and developement thus lead us back to core philosophical questions: What is abstraction? Are there proper (Platonic) abstract objects? etc. Somewhat surprisingly, we find ourselves on what appears to be a new path among many, leading to the realization that there is something very ‘real’ about abstract objects. (And that thus a lot of new problems are indeed old ones.) -- But if abstract objects are real, shouldn't we find evidence for this at the Neuroscience/Psychology interface? (shrink)

[This is an ealier English manuscript of the German book published by Brill/Mentis, see external link below.] Why are computers so smart these days? And why are humans apparently still a bit smarter? Does this have something to do with the difference between data and meaning? Does this in turn mean that at least some abstract entities, such as numbers, exist independently of human thought? Wouldn’t that require an expansion of our scientific world view? And would that at all be (...) compatible with what we know about our world from physics and chemistry, philosophy, psychology, neuroscience and the theory of evolution? Finally, what would this tell us about ethical and aesthetic value theories? These and related questions will be discussed in this book. We will find that the difference between data and meaning, i.e. quantitative and qualitative information, does indeed appear to be of central importance for understanding both artificial and natural intelligence. And then the independent existence of abstract entities not only appears to be a particularly promising hypothesis, but also one that is entirely compatible with the sum of our scientific knowledge, especially with regard to value theories. The book thus arrives at the exploration of a scientifically tenable, panpsychistically inspired, objective idealism that can be derived from our most fundamental intuitions as subjects that perceive qualities, but that can also take into account the structuring of the world already at the micro-scale, found in the modern natural sciences. The result is a Platonic, but in a second step also a scientific realism and a naturalism in the sense that it is informed by the natural sciences in terms of an inductive metaphysics. An objective idealism, not in a rationalistic maximum form, but in a pragmatic minimum form; without eternal truths, but dependent on the continued philosophical-scientific and also philosophical-social dialog. The proposed model could offer interesting solutions to a number of problems at and near the mind/matter boundary: Proposals are being considered for the interpretation of quantum mechanics, the problem of molecular symmetry, the neuronal code and the binding problem in neuroscience, mental causation, a more holistic understanding of mental processes, and so on and so forth. However, the extent to which the model threatens to promise far too much is also being discussed. In sum, the core question is how we can imagine human thinking beyond physically conceived information processing. An alternative model of human thinking is then put up for discussion, for which not only machine-like cognitive performance, but above all the intentional perception of qualitative information, i.e. of abstract entities, would be central, as well as the free, ultimately creative linking of patterns of quantitative information (signals, data) with such qualities (meanings). (shrink)

[This manuscript is outdated; read chapter 6 of my book "Information, Intelligence and Idealism" instead, which is also available as full text on PhilPapers] After about a century since the first attempts by Bohr, the interpretation of quantum theory is still a field with many open questions.1 In this article a new interpretation of quantum theory is suggested, motivated by philosophical considerations. Based on the findings that the ’weirdness’ of quantum theory can be understood to derive from a vanishing distinguishability (...) of indiscernible particles, and the observation that a similar vanishing distinguishability is found for bundle theories in philosophical ontology, the claim is made that quantum theory can be interpreted in an intelligible way by positing a bundle-theoretic view of objective idealism instead of materialism as the underlying fundamental nature of reality. (shrink)

[This manuscript is outdated; read chapter 7 of my book "Information, Intelligence and Idealism" instead, which is also available as full text on PhilPapers] Despite recent breakthroughs in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) – or more specifically machine learning (ML) algorithms for object recognition and natural language processing – it seems to be the majority view that current AI approaches are still no real match for natural intelligence (NI). More importantly, philosophers have collected a long catalogue of features which (...) imply that NI works differently from current AI not only in a gradual sense, but in a more substantial way: NI is closely related to consciousness, intentionality and experiential features like qualia (the subjective contents of mental states)1 and allows for understanding (e.g., taking insight into causal relationships instead of ‘blindly’ relying on correlations), as well as aesthetical and ethical judgement beyond what we can put into (explicit or data-induced implicit) rules to program machines with. Additionally, Psychologists find NI to range from unconscious psychological processes to focused information processing, and from embodied and implicit cognition to ‘true’ agency and creativity. NI thus seems to transcend any neurobiological functionalism by operating on ‘bits of meaning’ instead of information in the sense of data, quite unlike both the ‘good old fashioned’, symbolic AI of the past, as well as the current wave of deep neural network based, ‘sub-symbolic’ AI, which both share the idea of thinking as (only) information processing: In symbolic AI, the name explicitly references to its formal system based, i.e. essentially rule-based, nature, but also sub-symbolic AI is (implicitly) rule-based, only now via globally parametrized, nested functions. In the following I propose an alternative view of NI as information processing plus ‘bundle pushing’, discuss an example which illustrates how bundle pushing can cut information processing short,and suggest first ideas for scientific experiments in neuro-biology and information theory as further investigations. (shrink)

Concerning the mind/body problem, most people seem to have basic intuitions about the nature of this problem that lie somewhere on a spectrum between what one could call an ‘inflated’ and a ‘deflated’ view of subjectivity, experience and human thought. On the ‘inflated’ side, people take a strong view of subjectivity, the central importance of phenomenological experiences and often also special human cognitive abilities as so obvious, that they and not some ‘scientific poetry’ on top of them should be taken (...) as the basis for our understanding of the world. The cogito argument, the (at least perceived) freedom of will and qualia are then seen as clearly supporting this view, and seem to call for a revision of the common physicalist world view, alas without giving any unambiguous hints on how this could be done. For the inflationist there exists something like qualitative information that is intuitively grasped (as quality or idea), and human thought can accordingly be much more than ‘symbol pushing’, with rich pre-, sub- and unconscious contributions at the bottom as well as access to universal abstract entities at the top. But how to connect this to the scientific concept of physical, quantitative information processing? On the ‘deflated’ side, subjectivity is understood to be no more than the access to self-locating information, and phenomenological experience and meaning are just special types of concepts and properly coordinated, physically realized information. For the deflationist there is only quantitative information, so that human thought boils down to physical information processing and meaning to optimized (logico-)mathematical relations, e.g. in a web of symbols or as what remains constant over ‘all possible worlds’. The underlying assumption is that not only symbolic structure, but also qualitative features arise from self-organization on the basis of feedback to actions in some form of reinforcement-type learning; only that it is still very unclear how broad and stable abstractions could self-implement in neural-network type systems, let alone how structural relations from the individual coordination of quantitative information could be uniquely connected with identity, quality or universal elements of meaning. The deflated view is very much in line with current physics and AI research, but does not seem to cover the human experience in all aspects, and is therefore in danger of missing important clues even for the further development of physics and AI research themselves. (The later is really now repeating all of this including all errors; we have to see whether there is anything to the saying that sometimes problems were only solved because young people didn’t know that it couldn’t be done.) In trying to understand, let alone make progress with, the mind/body problem, I went through several mindsets that, in retrospect, were not very helpful. To remind myself to not fall into the same trap twice, I have written this manuscript. (shrink)

Throughout Arthur Schopenhauer’s post-Kantian Weltanschauung, one frequently encounters the philosopher of pessimism pondering over the enigmatic relationship between our waking-lives, dream-lives, and Reality. Schopenhauer’s efforts to unravel this puzzle take the form of an extensive and elaborate exploration that reaches into the depths of epistemology, speculative metaphysics, physiology, and even parapsychology. To fully appreciate the fruits of Schopenhauer’s labor, and to better understand the many-sided character of his proposed solutions to the enigma of the oneiric world, Schopenhauer’s discussions of dreams (...) must be grasped in the context of (i) his voluntaristic, transcendental idealism—our perceptible and palpable world being the self-knowledge and phenomenal manifestation of an unconscious, unfulfilled, and never-satisfied Will; (ii) his conception of consciousness, and intellectual activity in general, as merely secondary functions of the human and animal psyche—mere tools in service of, and subordinate to, the primal impulses and drives of the Will-to-live; and (iii) the existence of a special “dream-organ”—a faculty postulated by Schopenhauer to account for the mysterious nature of oneiric images. (shrink)

In the philosophy of Nicholas of Cusa, the relationship between God and His Creation is a difficult and elusive matter. The following essay is an analysis of Cusanus’ idea of God as “Not-Other”—a concept that he develops in his 1461 dialogue, De li Non-Aliud (On the Not-Other). The main thesis propounded in the dialogue is that conceiving God as “Not-Other” is the least inadequate way for us to direct our minds towards the Divine. By diving into this difficult text, and (...) defending Cusanus’ ideas against potential criticisms, we can see how “Not-Other”—this elusive symbol, this perplexing double negation—provides us with a compass pointing the way towards a radically transcendent and radically immanent God. (shrink)

Phenomenal consciousness seems fragmented: phenomenal states seem to belong to many families, where members of each family just resemble members of that family. This paper argues that phenomenal fragmentation poses a neglected problem for consciousness fundamentalism. Consciousness fundamentalism holds that some phenomenal states are fundamental and that they ground any non-fundamental phenomenal states. While consciousness fundamentalism is not a familiar view, it encompasses familiar forms of dualism, panpsychism, and idealism. Roughly, the problem is: on consciousness fundamentalism, phenomenal fragmentation leads to (...) a radical and highly objectionable expansion of our fundamental ontology. After developing the phenomenal fragmentation problem, I survey candidate solutions and illustrate how the problem offers a fruitful constraint on theorizing about consciousness for consciousness fundamentalists. (shrink)

This is a draft for a revised edition of Mark Sharlow's book "From Brain to Cosmos." It includes most of the material from the first edition, two shorter pieces pertaining to the book, and a detailed new introduction.

This paper argues that engaging in a ubiquitous form of rational inquiry commits us to an epistemic form of Explanatory Idealism: the claim that any rational (human) inquirer can access every explanation.

What is the temporal structure of conscious experience? While it is popular to think that our most basic conscious experiences are temporally extended, we will be arguing against this view, on the grounds that it makes our conscious experiences depend on the future in an implausible way. We then defend an alternative view of the temporal structure of experience from a variety of different objections. Along the way, we hope to illustrate the wider philosophical ramifications of the relationship between experience (...) and time. What one thinks about the temporal structure of experience is, we believe, deeply interconnected with issues concerning whether consciousness is vague or precise, whether conscious states can be reduced to physical states, whether phenomenal properties are intrinsic properties, and whether phenomenal consciousness can “overflow” access consciousness. As we will see, even seemingly unrelated metaphysical questions, such as the debate between Humean and Non-Humean accounts of natural necessity, bear on questions about the relationship between experience and time. (shrink)

Throughout history, numerous thinkers have claimed that monism – in the form of priority monism, existence monism, monotheistic monism, or versions that posit an extra-cosmic ultimate being – theoretically surpasses pluralism, above all by positing a unified universe. This view re-emerges in recent metaphysics through what I call cosmological arguments from parsimony (CAPs) and cosmological arguments from relations (CARs). According to CAPs, monism is more ontologically parsimonious than pluralism because it posits only one fundamental entity. According to CARs, the single (...) fundamental object in monism serves as a required metaphysical explanans for how things in the universe can form certain relations with each other. I argue that this longstanding tradition of arguments spanning Neoplatonism, early and late modern philosophy, analytic philosophy, and even some Eastern traditions fails: monistic frameworks largely fail to reduce the universe’s ontological complexity as alleged, and the remaining ones fail to show any theoretical advantage over pluralism for related reasons. Drawing on the broader materialist tradition, the article also offers a positive case for several theoretical merits of pluralism and ends with a takeaway concerning how best to inquire into the universe’s unity. (shrink)

This paper presents a conceptual framework integrating philosophical and neurophysiological perspectives on consciousness. Drawing on Schopenhauer's notion of _Will and Representation_, Bernardo Kastrup's idealist philosophy, and the physics of neuronal signaling, we propose a model where consciousness emerges as a process of energy transformation. ATP-driven ionic activity generates neural signals, which are processed as waveforms and decoded by a “receiver,” producing the first representation of “not-wanting itself,” the foundational form of will. This model provides a bridge between metaphysical idealism and (...) measurable neural dynamics, offering a holistic view of consciousness as a distributed, energy-dependent phenomenon. (shrink)

J. M. E. McTaggart’s argument for the unreality of time—popularly called McTaggart’s Paradox—was first published 1908 and came to define 20th Century philosophy of time. A modified version appeared in 1927, then as Chapter 33, ‘Time’, in the second volume of The Nature of Existence. McTaggart’s Paradox is still at the heart of the debate between the so-called A and B-views of time. However, the discussion is very rarely related to McTaggart’s idealist metaphysics, and very little attention has been paid (...) to the initial reception of his ideas about time in the philosophical community, in the years immediately following the publication of the two versions in 1908 and 1927. Indeed, with the exception of C.D. Broad’s Examination of McTaggart’s Philosophy (1933 & 1938), the contemporary debate is entirely focused on the literature that followed in the wake of Michael Dummett’s famous defence of McTaggart in 1960. In this paper I examine the reception of McTaggart’s Paradox by four Cambridge scholars before the start of World War II, notably J.S. Mackenzie, R.B. Braithwaite, L. Susan Stebbings, and C.D. Broad. (shrink)

According to Russellian panpsychism, the physical is grounded in the mental, or more precisely, the phenomenal. This view has been argued to avoid the main problems of physicalism, according to which the mental is grounded in the physical, dualism, according to which the mental and the physical are co-fundamental, and subjective idealism, according to which only the mental is fundamental and the physical is merely an illusion. But on closer examination, pure panpsychism—according to which the physical is fully grounded in (...) the phenomenal—faces analogues of the main problems of either physicalism and subjective idealism, and impure panpsychism—according to which the physical is merely partially grounded in the phenomenal and partially in non-phenomenal relations or other features—faces analogues of the main problems of dualism. This paper offers a version of Russellian panpsychism, based on combining it with the phenomenal powers view (Mørch 2017, 2018a, 2019b), which avoids or at least significantly diminishes all these analogous problems. (shrink)

Materialist science cannot account for subjective experience (the “hard problem”), nor for a growing body of anomalous data—spontaneous remissions, non‑local healing, verified past‑life memories, and the consistent reports of a luminous “body of light” across Eastern and Western spiritual traditions. The Ogdoadic Synthesis offers a unified architecture that resolves these gaps by placing consciousness, not matter, at the foundation of reality. It integrates (1) cosmopsychist dual‑aspect monism and Faixat’s three‑facet ontology (non‑dual absolute, potential relative, spatiotemporal relative); (2) quantum biology, bioelectricity, (...) and torsion field physics; (3) the perennial maps of the world’s esoteric traditions (Vedic, Buddhist, Taoist, Gnostic, Hermetic, Christian, Essenian); and (4) Faixat’s toroidal‑harmonic law and string‑theoretic evolution. The framework proposes a Fundamental Consciousness Field (FCF) from which individual minds (Informational Attractors) arise. Each carries a perfect Template State Vector (TSV) – the “5D Blueprint” – and the progressive alignment of the biological body with this template is the Phase‑Locked Loop (PLL). Mechanisms include microtubule coherence, biophoton fields, EZ water, cell voltage restoration (-20 mV → -90 mV), and torsion spin fields. The temporal ordering of the PLL follows a nested harmonic cascade (Faixat), and the entire process is described as a holographic, toroidal, string‑resonant actualisation of potentialities. The paper concludes with testable predictions, a longitudinal case study (the author), and two Addenda integrating Faixat’s work. The goal is a “Hybrid Civilization” where science and spirit are two faces of one conscious universe. -/- Keywords: Light body, cosmopsychism, dual‑aspect monism, quantum biology, bioelectricity, torsion fields, toroidal harmonics, string theory of evolution, Eastern esotericism, Western esotericism, Ogdoadic Synthesis -/- Acknowledgements: AI tools were used for language refinement and editing. (shrink)

A central challenge for substance dualists in Early Modern European philosophy—famously epitomized in the Descartes-Princess Elisabeth correspondence—concerns how to explain causal commerce between mind and body when conceived as substances that are different in kind. This chapter analyzes a parallel explanatory challenge in Abhidharma Buddhism. Although Sanskrit Buddhist philosophers do not explicitly address a “mind-body heterogeneity problem,” the mechanics of body→mind causal interaction in the case of sense perception lie at the center of debates between competing Abhidharma traditions. In his (...) Treasury of Abhidharma, Vasubandhu (4th-5th c.) details these disagreements, which turn on the nature and function of contact (sparśa). I show how Vasubandhu goes on to exploit the Ābhidharmika dualists’ unresolved “contact problem” to motivate his argument for the more parsimonious Yogācāra idealist ontology in his Twenty Verses. While this move to idealism obviates worries about mind-body interaction, it does so only to expose new puzzles in explaining mind-mind causal interaction. (shrink)

This work outlines a possible conception of nature in Friedrich Hölderlin based on his theoretical and poetical writings. According to Hölderlin, only a transcendental experience, as the one regarding the ‘blissful intuition’, makes possible the comprehension of the essence of nature, divinity and the mortality as constitutive parts of an originary ‘One’. In this sense, the first chapter exposes and develops the conceptions present in Hölderlin’s theoretical writings for then, in chapter two, contextualizing and providing sense to his poetic works. (...) Finally, this text concludes asserting that Hölderlin’s vision of nature revolts around the ‘harmonic opposition’ as principle of reconciliation of the One, not in terms of the absolute, but rather as the possibility of man through poetics in times of the night and dawn of the gods, and also as possibility for the being as such. (shrink)

This essay is concerned with a passage from §24 of Hegel’s Encyclopaedia, in which Hegel characterises the concepts or ‘thoughts’ developed in the discipline of metaphysics by saying that they ‘used to count as expressing the essentialities of things’. I begin by drawing attention to Hegel’s use of the past tense in this passage and suggest that it looks problematic for conceptual realist interpreters of Hegel’s idealism, who want, roughly, to attribute to him the view that thoughts or ‘thought-determinations’ express (...) the essentialities of things. I then develop this challenge with help from Robert Pippin, who takes Hegel, in this passage, to be rejecting the metaphysical projects of pre-Kantian European rationalism. If Pippin is right, then in this passage Hegel is in fact distancing himself from the view that conceptual realist accounts attribute to him. In the final part of the article, I re-examine some of Hegel’s remarks concerning the history of European metaphysics and offer an alternative, better explanation of Hegel’s use of the past tense in the passage in question, one which neutralises the objection to conceptual realist accounts of Hegel’s idealism. (shrink)

This essay is an attempt to show a critical flaw of empiricism, one pointed out by T. H Green in his underappreciated masterpiece Hume and Locke. The core idea is that empiricism cannot account for itself or for the relation of ideas. Thought is the only thing that relates. Towards the end of the essay, a very brief sketch of empiricism’s downfall is given while also reminding the readers that even dead systems and foundations still have value.

This paper revisits the debate on ideal and nonideal theory by taking seriously Charles Mills’s suggestion that it should be understood as a dispute between idealism and materialism. I argue that by understanding different sides of the debates as relying on idealist or materialist assumptions, respectively, we can better make sense of disagreements where theorists otherwise seem to be talking past each other. In addition, I claim that the materialist objection to ideal theory is best understood as a fetishism critique (...) in the Marxian sense: ideal theory treats products of human problem-solving as if they had independent authority over us. To justify ideal theory, one needs to accord either normative or practical authority to ideal-as-idealized-models, and materialism denies both. Finally, I show that rejecting ideal theory does not entail reformism but is compatible with radical critique. (shrink)

For years, Wittgenstein’s Tractatus was interpreted as a work on metaphysics (by Peter Hacker, David Pears and others). Recent studies demonstrated, however, that the Tractarian objects were only introduced in order to make the logic of depiction understandable. Similarly to Wittgenstein, Hegel only discussed the categories in order to lay down the hypothetical structure of what is thinkable (intelligible). Following this argument, Hegel and Wittgenstein maintained that philosophy explores thinking/language. However, thinking/language it is already there; it is not synthetic, must (...) not be first discovered. This makes philosophy analytical in principle. (shrink)

This paper examines Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling’s doctrine of Absolute Identity within the tradition of German Idealism, focusing on his attempt to overcome the dualism of subject and object inherited from Kant and Fichte. It traces the philosophical movement from Kant’s distinction between noumena and phenomena, through Fichte’s ego-centred idealism, to Schelling’s claim that the real and the ideal are ultimately one and the same reality. Through a historical and analytical exposition, the paper explicates Schelling’s three-stage account of the (...) self-unfolding of the Absolute and his effort to establish a unified metaphysical ground for nature, consciousness, and freedom. The study then considers major criticisms of this position, particularly Hegel’s objection to the indeterminacy of Absolute Identity and Jacobi’s concern regarding the loss of divine and human freedom. Drawing on later reflections by Christopher Groves and Gilles Deleuze, the paper argues that Schelling’s conception of the Absolute introduces an unresolved tension between identity and difference, thereby raising questions about the coherence of metaphysical unity and the status of human freedom. The paper concludes that while Schelling’s philosophy represents a significant advance beyond the unilateral emphases of earlier Idealist systems, its central metaphysical claim remains philosophically problematic. (shrink)

All major religions in history have offered hope of some kind of afterlife to answer the perennial interest in the question of life after death. -/- This volume brings together renowned experts in the philosophy of religion, Graham Oppy, David Apolloni, Shyam Ranganathan, Joshua Farris and Steven B. Cowan, to present four key starting points in the life after death debate. -/- Providing a lively and collaborative dialogue between leaders in the field, each thinker defends a particular view of the (...) afterlife and critically interacts with the alternative perspectives. They focus on the positions of No Life After Death, the Immortality of the Soul, Reincarnation and Resurrection, with each chapter drawing on views from naturalism, antiquity, Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Jainism and Yoga. This engagement moves the current debate forward to consider global perspectives whilst the clear and accessible structure allows for a developed exploration of the central issues at stake. -/- Incorporating views spanning secular and religious spheres in both the east and west, this comprehensive guide will be welcomed by students and scholars of contemporary philosophy of religion and comparative philosophy. (shrink)

I show that unlike her rationalist predecessor Leibniz, Du Châtelet is committed to epistemic causal idealism about natural causes. According to this view, it is constitutive of natural causes that they are in principle knowable by us (i.e. finite intelligent beings). Du Châtelet’s causal idealism stems at least in part from the distinctive theoretical role played by the Principle of Sufficient Reason in her system (as presented in her Institutions de physique), as well as her argument for the Principle of (...) Sufficient Reason. I show that far from merely explicating Leibniz’s metaphysics, Du Châtelet develops a radical and novel rationalism that is in keeping with her core commitment to science. (shrink)

This essay highlights hitherto overlooked continuities between Husserl’s phenomenological idealism and Hegel’s absolute idealism. I focus on Husserl’s account of essence and argue that some of Husserl’s core expositions of essences suggest that they are akin to Hegelian concrete universals: like concrete universals, phenomenological essences are ideal entities instantiated in particulars and exemplify a structure of unity-in-difference. Husserl’s proximity to these Hegelian tenets is evident in his account of the ego’s self-constitution, which is broadly consistent with Hegel’s account of the (...) determination of the Concept. Appreciating Husserl’s similarities with Hegel suggests a means of reconciling competing metaphysical, epistemic, and transcendental interpretations of Husserl’s idealism. By revealing the extent to which the transcendental character of Husserl’s phenomenology is embedded within some absolute idealist commitments, these results locate Husserl in hybrid philosophical territory, between transcendental and absolute versions of idealism, allowing him to reconcile his transcendental and realist commitments, and offering him a defence against the charge that he succumbs to an unsophisticated and unattractive form of subjectivism. (shrink)

In this commentary, I raise four objections to the view defended in Michael Pelczar’s book, Phenomenalism: A Metaphysics of Chance and Experience. First, I challenge his claim that physical things are identical to possibilities for experience even if there turns out to be some categorical reality underlying these possibilities. Second, I argue that Pelczar’s phenomenalism cannot accommodate the existence of some unobservable entities that we have good scientific reason to accept. Third, I argue that his view threatens to lead to (...) massive indeterminacy about what the physical world is like. Fourth, I argue that phenomenalism fares much worse than its rivals with respect to the theoretical virtue of nomological parsimony, the ideal of keeping the fundamental laws simple. (shrink)

Review of George di Giovanni's Hegel and the Challenge of Spinoza.

The Introduction to Sartre’s Being and Nothingness (B&N) contains a condensed, cryptic argument – the ‘ontological proof’ – that is meant to establish a position ‘beyond realism and idealism’. Despite its role in establishing the fundamental ontological distinction of B&N – the distinction between being-for-itself and being-in-itself – the ontological proof has received very little scholarly attention. My goal is to fill this lacuna. I begin by clarifying the idealist position Sartre attacks in the Introduction to B&N: Husserl’s idealism as (...) interpreted by Aron Gurwitsch and Roman Ingarden. I then propose a new interpretation of the ontological proof that gives a central role to the transparency of experience. On this interpretation, Sartre argues from the ‘emptiness’ of consciousness – its purely relational nature – to the existence of mind-independent substance (being-in-itself). In assessing the strengths and weaknesses of Sartre’s case against idealism, I put him in critical dialogue with contemporary work in metaphysics and the philosophy of mind. (shrink)

A scientific, philosophical, and spiritual overview of the relationship between science and spirituality, neuroscience and the mystery of consciousness, mind and the nature of reality, evolution and life. A plaidoyer for a science that goes beyond the curve of reason and embraces a new synthesis of knowledge. The overcoming of the limitations of the intellect into an extended vision of ourselves and Nature. A critique of physicalism, the still-dominant doctrine that believes that all reality can be reduced to matter and (...) the laws of physics alone. A review and reassessment of the old and new philosophical and metaphysical ideas which attempts to bring closer Western and Eastern traditions where science, philosophy, consciousness, Spirit and Nature are united in a grand vision that transcends the limited conventional scientific and philosophical paradigm. A possible answer to the questions of purpose and meaning and the future evolution of humankind beyond a conception that posits a priori a purposeless and meaningless universe. A report of the new scientific discoveries of a basal intelligence in cells and plants, on the question if mind is computational, the issue of free will, the mind-body problem, and the so called ‘hard problem of consciousness’. An essay on ancient as modern philosophical conceptions, from the One of Plotinus, the God of Spinoza until the recent revival of panpsychism or the universal consciousness. A journey into quantum physics from the perspective of philosophical idealism and an invitation to adopt new ways of seeing that might help us to transform our present understanding, expanding it into an integral cosmology, with a special emphasis on the spiritual and evolutionary cosmology of the Indian seer Sri Aurobindo. Not just a philosophical and metaphysical meditation but, rather, an appeal to work towards a change of consciousness, a widening of our perspective towards a new way of seeing beyond a purely mechanistic worldview to avoid a social, environmental and economic collapse. Humans are transitional beings that will have to make a choice: relapse into a pre-rational state or evolve towards a new trans-rational species supported by an ideal of human unity in diversity as the expression of a spiritual evolutionary process, the call of the Spirit on Nature. -/- This is a technical treatise for scientists and philosophers that wonder if and how they can expand their intellectual horizons beyond the straitjacket of materialism. It is dedicated to those who feel there is something more but struggle with connecting the dots into a more comprehensive and coherent picture supported by a way of seeing that allows us to overcome the present paradigm while maintaining scientific and conceptual rigor. Most of the topics discussed are unknown even to neuroscientists, biologists, philosophers, and yet are based on the findings published in their own mainstream peer-reviewed literature or on deep insights of the scientific, philosophical and spiritual giants of the past. (shrink)

This study confronts Sartre and Derrida’s interpretations of Genet. It argues that it is incorrect to assume that Sartre applies Hegelian logic to Genet, while Derrida frees him from it. Both contend that Genet’s writing is antithetical to absolute idealism, albeit in different ways. To elucidate this variation, I examine, in particular, Derrida’s interpretation of Genet’s signature. According to Derrida, Genet does not resist dialectics because he is a pederast, thief or traitor, as Sartre claims, but rather because of the (...) way he places his signature on everything he writes. However, my analysis of Derrida’s attempt to sign Genet’s text indicates that it constitutes a subtle critique of Genet. Drawing on some often-overlooked analyses by Derrida, I suggest that even Genet’s writing may not be able to escape dialectics because no signature is absolutely singular. (shrink)

This paper argues that the notion of a single object or 'being one' does not require worldly or perceived conditions of integrity and even less so concept-relative atomicity. It generally is based on conditions of integrity of some sort, but not strictly so. It rather is imposed by the use of count categories in natural language and thus makes a case for linguistic idealism.

Can we rationally choose between philosophical hinge commitments if they resist argument and evidence? At first glance, such choices seem arbitrary. Coliva and Palmira (2020, 2021) and Coliva and Doulas (2022) argue, however, that adopting a constitutivist account of hinges allows for rational choice through what Coliva terms ‘extended rationality’. They claim that accepting the hinge ‘there are physical objects’ is constitutive of epistemic rationality. This paper challenges that view, arguing that the idealist hinge is misrepresented in their work and (...) that this particular hinge may not ground rational belief. The paper shows that constitutivism, though promising, faces a criterion problem in philosophical hinge disagreements. It concludes that while constitutivism and extended rationality can explain belief rationality, they must be supported by independent criteria for selecting between competing hinges. (shrink)

According to metaphysical realists, conscious experiences are caused by a world of independently existing physical objects. This physical reality explains all of the facts about conscious experience and the potential for such experience. Pelczar’s (2022) phenomenalism is more austere: the world is nothing but experiences and potentials for experiences. Pelczar identifies physical entities with certain of these potentials; for example, a stone is identified with the potential for observers to have various cohering experiences as of a stone. In this paper, (...) I raise three objections to the phenomenalist’s account of physical reality. I also respond to certain objections that Pelczar raises against realism. (shrink)

This article offers a novel argument for vicarious metaphysical idealism, according to which all perceptions are about the mental states of other minds. Unlike conventional arguments for idealism, nothing in the argument hinges on the problem of skepticism, the intractability of the mind–body problem, the mysteriousness of the intrinsic nature of physical things, or verificationist semantics. Instead, the argument relies only on assumptions modern materialists generally accept: that qualitative states of experience are equally compatible with all possible nonqualitative states, that (...) physical states are essentially nonqualitative, and that our experiences are generally informative about a world independent of our own minds. Vicarious metaphysical idealism resists the standard objections to conventional idealism given by analytic philosophers. Nonetheless, I conclude that it is easily refuted by the phenomenology of action, which is overlooked in the conventional debate. (shrink)

This paper presents a novel argument against one theoretically attractive form of panpsychism. I argue that “idealist panpsychism” is false since it cannot account for spacetime’s structure. Idealist panpsychists posit that fundamental reality is purely experiential. Moreover, they posit that the consciousness at the fundamental level metaphysically grounds and explains both the facts of physics and the facts of human consciousness. I argue that if idealist panpsychism is true, human consciousness and the consciousness at the fundamental level will have the (...) same metrical structure. However, as I demonstrate, human consciousness does not exhibit the same metrical structure as spacetime. Consequently, the idealist panpsychist faces an explanatory gap between the fundamental consciousness she posits and spacetime. Idealist panpsychism is incompatible with the existence of such an explanatory gap. Thus, idealist panpsychists must close this explanatory gap (which I argue they lack the resources to do), or idealist panpsychism is false. (shrink)

Through reappraising F.H. Bradley’s debt to Hegel, this dissertation offers a novel account of Bradley’s thought which emphasizes its epistemological, phenomenological, and metaphysical structure, thereby clarifying the overall argument that Bradley makes in favour of his variation of absolute idealism and bolstering the strength of his development of orthodox Hegelianism. Yet, by reading Bradley’s work through this Hegelian lens, a dilemma appears: 1) because his philosophy is rooted within fundamentally Hegelian principles, we cannot separate Bradley’s work from Hegel’s; 2) Bradley (...) does diverge from Hegel’s system in ways which mean that his thought is not merely identical with that of Hegel. Against both heads of this dilemma, I conclude that because of the simultaneously affirmative and critical stance that he takes towards Hegel’s system, Bradley must be understood as a Neo-Hegelian philosopher. This dissertation concludes that through emphasizing logical rigour, phenomenological examination of the qualitative aspect of immediate experience, and by rendering explicit the conclusions necessitated by Hegel’s principles which are merely implicit within Hegel’s own writings, F.H. Bradley’s philosophy offers an improved version of Hegel’s system. (shrink)