Idealism And Materialism

Idealism and Materialism are two different ways to approach every question. They provide different interpretations of the same question and the question might vary from interpreting the humankind as a whole to the interpretation of world events. They are not omly two different theories rather they provide two different world outlooks based on different philosophical traditions. For example, to explain a particular world event, idealist explanation would resort to spiritual and the materialist explanation would resort to the scientific or the material causes.
The term “idealism” at least within philosophy, is mainly used in such a way that it gets its meaning through what is taken to its opposite, like the meaningful use of the term “outside” …show more content…
It means that it is the material conditions of men which are responsible for the existing state of affairs of men and provide for the actual driving force for their evolution.Materialism requires that men and matter should exist in the first place before they “make history” and tend to think. It is the real existence of human beings that comes before ideas. For example subsistence, education and reproduction are the primary material needs of men. So matter precedes idea, that is matter provides the starting point for our interpretation of society and the development of our world.The second important feature of materialism is that it is based on real premises. It talks about real human being and his material conditions and not merely the ideas in abstract. It talks about the real human conditions which are responsible for the evolution of men and society. The material conditions it talks about which are out there in the real world. Unlike idealism which stresses on the duality principle, there is no higher spiritual world in materialism. It emphasizes that there is only one world which is the material world.There is no spiritual, mysterious element at play. The real driving force comes from the material conditions which affect the evolution of men and the evolution of society and its ideas. So there is no conception of the abstraction of ideas or the principle of dualism in materialism.The another feature of materialism is that its premises are real. Material premises are parallel to a scientific theory and materialism stresses that the world is knowable. It talks about the material world which exists out there and thus its premises can be tested and verified.Materialism does not shy away from experimentation. The real premises behind the