A Defence of Idealism

May Sinclair (1863 - 1946)

The philosophy of Idealism, revived in eighteenth-century Europe by George Berkeley, argued against philosophical materialism by maintaining that Reality is a creation of the Mind. Despite its flourishing under the leadership of Hegel, Fichte, Schopenhauer, and Schelling, Idealism had definitely fallen into decline late in the nineteenth century and early in the twentieth. May Sinclair, the writer of many popular but philosophically provocative novels and part-time World War I ambulance corps-person, was an unlikely one to take up the torch of the old school and try to revive it yet again for the twentieth century. Most notably, in this treatise she tried to formulate a union of Idealistic Monism with the New Realism as epitomized by Bertrand Russell and his mathematics-based philosophy. How successful she was is a matter for the reader to judge, but this volume and its sequel (The New Idealism) provide fascinating insights into the mind of Sinclair herself, helping the twenty-first century reader better to understand this highly significant author as she wrote in the very midst of the Great War. - Summary by Expatriate

Genre(s): *Non-fiction, Philosophy

Language: English

Section Chapter Reader Time
Play 01 Author's Introduction Expatriate
00:27:52
Play 02 I. The Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler (1) Expatriate
00:24:17
Play 03 I. The Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler (2) Expatriate
00:23:06
Play 04 I. The Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler (3) Expatriate
00:19:42
Play 05 I. The Pan-Psychism of Samuel Butler (4) Expatriate
00:24:01
Play 06 II. Vitalism (1) Expatriate
00:24:12
Play 07 II. Vitalism (2) Expatriate
00:20:59
Play 08 III. Some Ultimate Questions of Psychology (1) Expatriate
00:24:11
Play 09 III. Some Ultimate Questions of Psychology (2) Expatriate
00:22:34
Play 10 III. Some Ultimate Questions of Psychology (3) Expatriate
00:25:40
Play 11 III. Some Ultimate Questions of Psychology (4) Expatriate
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Play 12 IV. Some Ultimate Questions of Metaphysics (1) Expatriate
00:15:51
Play 13 IV. Some Ultimate Questions of Metaphysics (2) Expatriate
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Play 14 V. Pragmatism & Humanism (1) Expatriate
00:25:34
Play 15 V. Pragmatism & Humanism (2) Expatriate
00:25:35
Play 16 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 1 (1) Expatriate
00:20:12
Play 17 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 1 (2) Expatriate
00:24:34
Play 18 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 1 (3) Expatriate
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Play 19 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 1 (4) Expatriate
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Play 20 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 2 (1) Expatriate
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Play 21 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 2 (2) Expatriate
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Play 22 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 3 (1) Expatriate
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Play 23 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 3 (2) Expatriate
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Play 24 VI. The New Realism, Pt. 3 (3) Expatriate
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Play 25 VII. The New Mysticism, Pt. 1 (1) Expatriate
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Play 26 VII. The New Mysticism, Pt. 1 (2) Expatriate
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Play 27 VII. The New Mysticism, Pt. 1 (3) Expatriate
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Play 28 VII. The New Mysticism, Pt. 2 Expatriate
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Play 29 VII. The New Mysticism, Pt. 3 Expatriate
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Play 30 VIII. Conclusions, Pt. 1 (1) Expatriate
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Play 31 VIII. Conclusions, Pt. 1 (2) Expatriate
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Play 32 VIII. Conclusions, Pt. 2-4 (1) Expatriate
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Play 33 VIII. Conclusions, Pt. 2-4 (2) Expatriate
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Play 34 VIII. Conclusions, Pt. 2-4 (3) Expatriate
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