IDEALISM. Idealism is the metaphysical view that reality is of the nature of mind. It stands in contrast with scientific philosophies, such as naturalism, realism, and pragmatism that assume that natural life in the natural world is philosophy's appropriate point of departure. Idealism is not grounded in an empirical evaluation of fact. It is grounded in an intuitive evaluation of meaning. Because all philosophy presupposes that things have a meaning and that something, at least, of that meaning can be known, all philosophy has an idealistic element.

Idealism does not deny the reality of the physical world. It insists only that the apparent self-sufficiency of the natural world is deceptive. Nature seems to go its own way, to be self-sufficient, eternal, and operating on the basis of its own laws without need of a creator or outside force to initiate and sustain its motions, but idealism maintains that...