Greek Idealism In short: The material world is merely a byproduct of our senses, our representations, and our perceptions, according to the idealist philosophers, who claimed that only human consciousness had a genuine existence. Since all idealist theories inevitably lead to the presence of a higher power that is independent of humans, whether directly or indirectly, idealism and religion are intimately related.
Idealism in itself is a metaphysical view that our reality is based upon our own perception.
Plato, a major member of the Athens aristocracy, is credited for starting idealism in ancient Greece. He was a pupil of Socrates and the creator of the Academy, an academic institution that ran in Athens from 529 to 387 BC. Plato views the corporeal world as a world of shadows and a feeble reflection of ideas, whereas the actual world is the supersensible world of ideas. The antithesis of idealism was materialism, which was developed by Epicurus as both a philosophy and a way of life. Idealism i…
