idealism

An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 6: Does God have a body?

by

Idealism asks us to take seriously the reality of things that cannot be weighed or measured. Love, presence, memory, and meaning shape our lives without occupying physical space. If what matters most about us isn’t our bodies but our ways of thinking, loving, and relating, then reality itself may be more than matter alone. Philosophy invites us to look beneath appearances and consider whether consciousness, not physical form, is the deeper ground of being.

Read the letter →

An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 4: How old will you be in heaven?

by

Asking how old we would be in heaven reveals more than curiosity about the afterlife. It exposes our assumptions about identity itself. Idealism loosens time and age into irrelevance, while physicalism ties who we are to the body and its limits. Philosophy doesn’t rush to answer the question; it invites us to notice what our instinctive answers say about how we understand reality.

Read the letter →

An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 2: Are you hallucinating yourself?

by

Idealism invites us to consider a radical possibility: that consciousness is primary, and what we call “physical reality” is something like a projection or appearance within it. Much like a dream that feels real while we’re inside it, the world may be experienced through mind rather than existing independently of it. Philosophy doesn’t ask us to panic about this idea, only to wonder what becomes possible when we take consciousness seriously.

Read the letter →

An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 06 – Metaphysics 3 (Metaphysical Monism) – Part 1: Introduction: If you had to choose, you would rather be without a body or a mind?

by

Metaphysical monism challenges us to reconsider the split between mind and body. Rather than choosing one over the other, philosophy asks us to notice how our lives already reveal our assumptions. Do we treat the physical world as primary, or do we live as though inner experience carries greater weight? Our daily habits often disclose our metaphysical commitments more honestly than our words.

Read the letter →

An Introduction to Philosophy (RLL style) Week 04 – Metaphysics 1 (The Nature of Reality) – Part 4: Wanna see something really scary?

by

Not everything real can be touched or measured. Fear can paralyze, love can heal, belief can alter outcomes, and none of these live neatly in the physical world. Metaphysical idealism invites us to take the mind seriously, suggesting that consciousness, emotion, and meaning may be as real as atoms and objects. Sometimes the most powerful realities are the ones we can’t see.

Read the letter →