Abstract

I. The Metaphysics Behind the New Idealism. My remarks in this paper focus on the question of the connection between thought and the world from the perspective of recent critical discussions of the correspondence theory of truth. In some of these discussions, the notion of the world has been branded a will o’ the wisp. The plain implication of these discussions is the reintroduction of something like “objective idealism” back into the philosophical arena. For, the world is countenanced only in a sense that ties it closely to a common set of beliefs, while it is rejected in the sense that would make it other than thought. There is no attempt, within the new idealism, to eliminate familiar physical objects or to insist that the set of beliefs are those of the first person. And so neither of the important characteristics of “subjective idealism” are present.