You might already be an absolute idealist without knowing it
In short: Most people believe reality is an external world we gradually discover through observation. But a provocative new reading of Sebastian Rödl suggests that the very act of making a judgment already contains the truth of the world, making absolute idealism an inescapable framework for all human thought.
While many view absolute idealism as a relic of 18th and 19 and century German thought, modern scholars like Sebastian Rödl argue it is the only coherent form philosophy can take. Unlike traditional 'subjective' idealism, which suggests reality is merely a product of the mind, Rödl’s version rejects the idea of a 'given' external world. Rather, he argues that thought can grasp all existence, as reality is inherently contained within the very framework of judgment.
The core mechanism lies in the relationship between self-consciousness and objectivity. Traditionally, philosophers viewed judgment as having two separate poles: an objective content and a subjective attitude toward that content. Rödl rejects this distinction. He argues that judgment is inherently self-conscious; to judge that something is true is to simultaneously recognize its validity. In this view, the 'I think' is not an external label applied to a proposition, but an expression of the thought's own internal awareness of its truth.
This perspective challenges the 'realist' orthodoxy, which posits that we are observers incrementally approaching an independent, external reality. Historically, figures like Hegel and Schelling sought a completion of metaphysics by showing the identity of thought and being. Hegel, in particular, argued that because reason is immanent, the world is not 'other' than the self. By collapsing the gap between the subject and the object, absolute idealism suggests that the formula of knowledge and the formula of reality are one and the same.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: Self-Consciousness and Objectivity: An Introduction to Absolute Idealism | Reviews | Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews | University of Notre Dame
- Also: Absolute idealism
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