Subjective Idealism

One of the basic forms of idealism. According to the different answers given to the first side of the basic question of philosophy, i.e., which is primary, thinking or being, philosophy can be divided into two basic schools called materialism and idealism. Subjective idealism and objective idealism are the two basic forms of idealism.

Subjective idealism regards man’s subjective consciousness as the foundation of the emergence and existence of all things in the world and holds that everything is derived from subjective consciousness. For example, views of the Learning of the Mind (xinxue) in the Song and Ming dynasties in China such as “mind is reason”, “mind is universe”, “there is nothing beyond the mind”, “there is no reason beyond the mind”, and Berkeley’s views such as “matter is a collection of ideas” and “esse est percipi” (being is being perceived) are typical subjective idealist views.

Subjective idealism one-sidedly exaggerated man’s sensation, experience, feeling and will, absolutized and deified them as the sole true being, and held that all the things and phenomena in the world cannot exist independently divorced from human consciousness and sensations. Reversing the relation between man’s subjective consciousness and the objective world, it is an inverted theory of world outlook. Subjective idealism only acknowledges the true existence of “I” and denies the existence of objective world and objective laws. As Lenin said: “The absurdity of this philosophy lies in the fact that it leads to solipsism, to the recognition of the existence of the philosophizing individual only.”