https://prole.wiki/w/api.php?action=feedcontributions&feedformat=atom&user=42.0.6.157ProleWiki - User contributions [en]2026-10-26T06:56:46ZUser contributionsMediaWiki 1.43.11https://prole.wiki/w/index.php?title=Objective_idealism&diff=89269Objective idealism2026-01-20T17:21:41Z<p>42.0.6.157: Linked the Geist here</p>
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<div>'''Objective idealism''' posits that reality is fundamentally constituted by mind, spirit, or idea, but locates this mental principle outside individual consciousness i.e. in an absolute mind, world spirit, or transcendent realm of forms. While avoiding some vulgar errors of [[subjective idealism]], it remains an inverted worldview that mystifies material relations and serves [[reactionary]] functions. <br />
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== Classical systems ==<br />
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[[Plato|Plato's]] theory of Forms establishes the paradigm: material reality is merely imperfect reflection of eternal, immaterial Ideas existing in transcendent realm. Particular just acts "participate in" the Form of Justice itself. This [[dualism]] denigrates material existence while hypostatizing mental abstractions into independent entities i.e. putting the world on its head. <ref>{{Web citation|author=Robinson, Howard|newspaper=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.)|title="Dualism"|date=2003-08-19|url=https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dualism/#HisDua}}</ref><br />
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[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel]] represents objective idealism's most sophisticated development. The [[Absolute Knowing|Absolute Idea]] unfolds through [[Dialectics|dialectical]] self-development, with nature and history as stages in [[Geist|Geist's]] self-realization. Material reality becomes mere externalization of Concept. Hegel's correctness was recognizing [[Dialectics|dialectical]] development; his error was making dialectics a property of Idea rather than matter.<br />
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== Progressive and reactionary aspects ==<br />
[[Karl Marx|Marx]] recognized Hegel's dialectics as containing "rational kernel" within "mystical shell."<ref>{{Web citation|author=Karl Marx|newspaper=Marxists.org|title=Capital Volume One<br />
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Afterward to the Second German Edition<br />
[Abstract]|date=1873-01-24|url=https://www.marxists.org/subject/dialectics/marx-engels/capital-afterward.htm|quote=The mystification which dialectic suffers in Hegel’s hands, by no means prevents him from being the first to present its general form of working in a comprehensive and conscious manner. With him it is standing on its head. It must be turned right side up again, if you would discover the rational kernel within the mystical shell.}}</ref> Hegel grasped that reality develops through contradiction, that quantity transforms into quality, that negation is productive. But his idealism inverted causality: rather than consciousness reflecting material development, he made matter the self-externalization of Spirit.<br />
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This inversion serves definite class interests. By making history the unfolding of Idea, objective idealism naturalizes existing social orders as necessary moments in Spirit's development. The [[Kingdom of Prussia (1701–1918)|Prussian]] state becomes rationality incarnate. [[Exploitation]] appears as stages in [[Geist]]'s self-knowledge rather than as historically specific relations that can be abolished.<br />
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== Marxist reversal ==<br />
[[Ludwig Feuerbach|Feuerbach]] began the [[Materialism|materialist]] critique by revealing how humans project their own essence onto imaginary gods. Marx completed this by grounding consciousness in material social practice. The "Geist" that Hegel claimed drives history is actually the mystified reflection of real human labor and [[Relations of production|social relations]]. By standing Hegel "right side up," Marx demonstrated that dialectics describes material reality's actual development, contradictions in [[productive forces]] and relations, not in disembodied Spirit.<br />
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== Contemporary significance ==<br />
Objective idealism persists in theories positing autonomous "structures," "systems," or "information" as prior to material relations. While these may offer partial insights, they repeat [[Idealism|idealist]] inversion when treating mental abstractions as self-subsistent entities rather than reflections of material processes. Against all idealisms, [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxism-Leninism]] maintains: matter is primary, consciousness secondary; reality exists objectively; and knowledge, though mediated by practice and social position, can grasp objective truth.<br />
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== References ==<br />
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[[Category:Objective idealism]]</div>42.0.6.157