ABSTRACT
The Advaita is not the only idealistic system of the Vedānta. If idealism necessarily means the absolute unreality of the world, then probably there is no idealistic system in the world; for even the Advaita does not assert that the world is absolutely unreal. What is unreal cannot be experienced; the world, nay, even the illusory snake, is experienced; and so it is not unreal. If it is necessary for idealism to regard the world as an illusion, then the Advaita alone can be idealism. For it only makes a systematic use of the idea of illusion. The systems of Spinoza and Hegel, though they admit illusion in a few places, assert that the world is real. That is why they are called objective idealism or ideal realism. Even Berkeley’s philosophy is interpreted as objective idealism. For Plato, the world of physical being partakes of non-being so far as it is material, but partakes of being also so far as it approaches the world of Ideas. Thus this world for Plato is both being and non-being, and not neither being nor non-being. However, as this world is not the real world for Plato, one may find some similarity between him and Śaṅkara. But Aristotle will have to be excluded from the idealists, for he regards this world as real. Kant, too, in spite of his regarding this world as consisting of phenomena which are different from the things in themselves and from the transcendental ego, is inclined towards treating the transcendental Ideas as having only heuristic validity and not as constituting this world: which shows that he is prone to regard this world as more substantial and therefore real. Even Bradley and others who say that this world is an appearance, maintain that it is essentially part of the real world, and so far belongs to reality. Almost all the great idealists of the West will have to be excluded, if idealism necessarily implies the illusory nature of the world.
