This is philosophy bites with me David Edmonds and me Nigel Warton.

Philosophy bites is available at W.

Thats W. philosophy exhibits its disdain for Indian philosophy by more or less ignoring it.

But that, says Keith Ward, author of numerous books including concepts of God, is a big mistake.

Take idealism, a theory that the ultimate nature of reality is non-physical.

There's a parallel tradition of idealism in both East and West,

and according to Professor Ward Ward each could learn from the other.

Keith Ward, welcome to Philosophy Bides.

How?

We're going to focus on idealism, East and West. So what is idealism? Well I suppose idealism is the

view that the fundamental reality is spiritual, not material. So it contrasts with

materialism and if you're a materialist you say well ultimately everything's made up of

little material bits probably in laws governing their interaction so it's

all material idealism is the opposite of that so it's not all material in Idealism is the opposite of that. So it's not all material. In fact matter is an expression or appearance of something which is not material. You could say spiritual or mental or conscious probably.

So an idealist would think that ultimately this universe

is an expression or manifestation of a conscious

or mental reality.

So this is very much in the philosophical tradition of the distinction between appearance

and reality because most of us think we're moving in a material world and in the idealist tradition idealist believed that what appears to be just a material world has something beyond it a deeper reality which is not material.

That's exactly right. I suppose this decision goes back to Plato, doesn't it really?

And you think you're in the real world of touches and sights and sounds and so on.

But actually these are appearances of a deeper reality.

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