ABSTRACT
Earlier post-Kantian idealism took up the problem where Kant had left it, and tried to carry out what it took to be his real intention by substituting for the unknown thing-in-itself as the criterion of reality the universe of inclusive and coherent thought to which Kant’s ideas of the reason pointed. In view of the change of outlook to which both realism and idealism have contributed, it is impossible to found anything that can hold its own upon Kant’s supposed Copernican revolution in the sense of assigning a merely a priori origin to the formal element in experience. Idealism, without always being conscious of it, has been a long training in the point of view in the field of knowledge. The emphasis on the idea of the Self, as something primary in experience and providing the basis of an ontology, may be said to be the keynote of modern as contrasted with ancient and mediaeval philosophy.
