Single Idea 6159

[catalogued under 11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism]

Full Idea

Neo-Kantian idealism, and the excesses of recent versions of it, are precisely the sort of mess one can get oneself into through an uncritical acceptance of the dichotomizing of mind and world along Cartesian internalist lines.

Clarification

'Dichotomizing' means separation

Gist of Idea

Strong idealism is the sort of mess produced by a Cartesian separation of mind and world

Source

Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3)

Book Reference

Rowlands,Mark: 'Externalism' [Acumen 2003], p.32


A Reaction

I am unconvinced that internalism about the mind (that its contents can be defined without reference to anything external) leads to this disastrous split. We don't have to abandon the links between an internal mind and the world.