The World As Idea or Object of Subject

“The world is my idea.”

This is a truth which is true for every conscious being that lives and knows.

Though man alone can bring it into reflective and abstract consciousness.

Converting undefined perceptions into defined ideas is philosophical wisdom.

This conversion to idea makes it clear to him that:

• what he knows is not a sun and an earth, but only:
  • an eye that sees a sun
  • a hand that feels an earth
• his world is only idea
• his world is only in relation to his consciousness

The only a priori truth is that idea is the expression of the most general form real and mental experience.

This form of experience is more general than time, space, or causality which presuppose idea.

Time, space, and causality are just:

• modes of the principle of sufficient reason
• valid only for a particular class of ideas

Whereas all ideas are in object and subject.

Therefore is most certain truth is that everything, as the world, is the object of the subject, as idea.

This is true of:

• past, present, and future
• near, far

It is true of time and space themselves, in which alone these distinctions arise.

Anything in the world is conditioned through the subject, and exists only for the subject.

The world is idea.

This truth is not new.

It was implicitly involved in the sceptical reflections begun by Descartes.

Berkeley was the first who distinctly enunciate it.

Kant’s primary mistake was the neglect of this principle.

as is shown in the appendix. How early again this truth was recognised by the wise men of India, appearing indeed as the fundamental tenet of the

This is in Vedânta philosophy ascribed to Vyasa.

Book 1 considers the world only as idea.

People avoid this truth because it is one-sided as some arbitrary abstraction.

I address this objection with “the world is my will.”