In metaphysics , the view that stresses the central role of the ideal or the spiritual in the constitution of the world and in mankind's interpretation of experience.
Idealism may hold that the world or reality exists essentially as spirit or consciousness, that abstractions and laws are more fundamental in reality than sensory things, or, at least, that whatever exists is known to mankind in dimensions that are chiefly mental
that is, through and as ideas. Metaphysical idealism asserts the ideality of reality; epistemological idealism holds that in the knowledge process the mind can grasp only its own contents. Metaphysical idealism is thus directly opposed to materialism , and epistemological idealism is opposed to realism . Absolute idealism (see coherentism ). See also {{link=Berkeley, George">George Berkeley .