Idealists and Materialists of Modernity

How Idealists and Materialists Explained Substance and Consciousness

In the 19th century, there were experiments in pure idealism. The Swedish philosopher Christopher Jacob Boström (1797—1866), a tutor to royal children, reasoned as follows: If God exists beyond time and space, then He does not merely transcend the limitations of time, space, and causality; He directly negates them. The world emerges simultaneously as God's creation and as a denial by God of the very category of creation itself, which allows for both unpredictability and improvisation, as well as creativity within the world. Unpredictability can be seen as a form of individual volition, while creativity resembles the imitation of the creation of the world and simultaneously serves as a denial of that creation (the creative individual constantly rewrites themselves and engages in internal debate). This dynamic can be likened to a parliament, where endless discussions occur, yet positive resolutions are reached from time to time. Improvisation, in this context, represents the actions of a monarch who often acts in mysterious ways for his subjects, yet simultaneously ensures the prosperity of the state. According to Boström, an ideal state should therefore comprise entrepreneurs who act of their own volition and unpredictably, a monarch capable of improvising and making paradoxical but ultimately beneficial decisions, and a parliament that formulates rules for the art of governance through debate, thereby contributing most significantly to the welfare of the nation.

In contrast, Ludwig Büchner (1824—1899) epitomized pure materialism in the 19th century. Büchner argued that matter is indestructible, as we can never find a resource that would enable us to obliterate it. Since we do not wish to destroy matter and plunge the world into chaos, matter organizes itself, compelling us to accept it as it is. Thus, Büchner contended, matter organizes itself more swiftly and tidily than we can react to it. Our psychological responses, then, are merely side effects of the eternal existence of matter. Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804—1872), a thinker who influenced Karl Marx, offered a slightly different perspective on the primacy of matter. Feuerbach maintained that sensuality must not be belittled; it is fully capable of encompassing the entire cosmos, and humans can indeed feel the entirety of existence. However, according to Feuerbach, this only affirms the correctness of materialism, for if we "accept" something, we acknowledge that what is accepted precedes our acceptance. Religion, Feuerbach believed, is grounded in humanity's confusion of the acceptance of matter with the act of acceptance, which always involves gratitude, leading to the invention of a god whom one wishes to thank.

There were also thinkers who embodied both idealism and materialism, most notably Arthur Schopenhauer (1788—1860). Schopenhauer, who regarded himself as Kant's heir and a critic of Hegel, asserted that the world exists only when it is perceived, when it becomes representation, for the absence of being as representation equates to the absence of being itself. Unrepresented being is thus non-existent and untenable. On the surface, Schopenhauer appears to be an idealist, placing the entire existence of the world in dependence upon the idea, the representation, or some sensory image that must, in order to manifest as the world, exist as ideal and flawless. Yet this very visibility is understood materially, as a condition of matter that renders such visibility possible. Schopenhauer demonstrates that behind such representation lies will as the sole substance sufficient to justify all that occurs, and this will is again perceived idealistically, as pure self-realization beyond matter, while also being understood materially, as inseparable from the properties of matter, such as the universal interconnectedness of things and the causal relationships between states.