Philosophical metaphysical position — holding that reality is fundamentally mental, mind-dependent, or spiritual — that matter as naively conceived does not exist independently of mind or experience — ranging from Berkeley's subjective idealism to Kant's transcendental idealism to Hegel's absolute idealism to contemporary analytic idealism (Bernardo Kastrup).
Creates the most radical epistemological challenge to naive materialism — Idealism's claim (we have direct access only to experience, never to mind-independent matter) generates the most rigorous alternative to scientific materialism; Kant's transcendental idealism (objects conform to our cognition, not cognition to objects) — the Copernican revolution in philosophy — and Hegel's absolute idealism (reality as self-unfolding reason) are the most transformative metaphysical frameworks in modern Western philosophy.
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