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CHAPTER III
REALITY
It will not be improper to maintain that the entire metaphysical world is divided into Idealism and Realism. If we want to study the essential features of philosophy, we will have to establish a close contact with the main trends of Idealism and Realism. Without a comprehensive and systematic study of these two isms, we cannot grasp the essence of philosophy. Although it seems that Idealism and Realism represent two apparently different lines of approach to the philosophy of life and the universe, yet, a tendency to reconcile them is not absent. It has begun in recent years to be thought that the difference between these two currents is not so much in their goal as in their presuppositions and methods of approach. Idealism :
Some thinkers maintain that a theory is often called Idealistic in so far as it underestimates the temporal and spatial aspects of the real universe. Some philosophers are convinced that the term Idealism has been used to cover all those philosophies which agree in maintaining that spiritual values have a determining voice in the ordering of the universe.' Others hold that according to Idealism, spirit is the terminus ad quem of nature.?
Idealism is the belief or doctrine according to which thought is the medium of the self-expression of reality. In other
1. Prolegomena to an Idealistic Theory of Knowledge, p. 1. 2. Idea of God, p. 200.
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