What is Real?: Idealist's View of Reality,The
Writing somewhat later in the Scientific Revolution, Bish George Berkeley sought to crush the threat that materialism posed to religion by arguing that reality is made up entirely of ideas. Since we know about the world only through the ideas or sen...
American Experiment, The: Steps Toward a Constitutional Democracy
In the 19th century British Prime Minister Gladstone called the American Constitution "the most remarkable work in modern times produced by the human intellect at a single stroke." Historian Bernard Bailyn agrees that our constitutional system is re...
Coherence Theory
Philosopher John Searle talks about coherence theory, which he notes was part of idealism (the idea that there is no real world, there's just our system of representations). He adds that coherence theory was an "old-fashioned" objection to correspon...
Behaviorism, Identity Theory and Functionalism
Philosopher John Searle explores various perspectives on the mind which he believes are all flawed, including behaviorism and identity theory, then discusses functionalism, which he says is essentially a combination of the other two. According to fu...
Does Science Give Us Truth?: Coherence Theory of Truth, The
A second general theory of truth that arises as part of idealism holds that truth comes from the way our various beliefs, thoughts and judgments cohere with each other. Coherence theory can be accused of leaving out external reality, but it focuses ...