Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell

A Straightforward Summary of the 21st Century's only Plausible Metaphysics

De: Bernardo Kastrup

Narrado por: Christian Leatherman

As the failures of physicalism begin to shake the confidence of even the most biased of its supporters, a new view on the nature of reality is establishing itself as the only tenable alternative: Analytic Idealism. According to it, there is a world out there independent of our individual minds, but such world is—just like ourselves—also mental or experiential. While being a realist, naturalist, rationalist, and even reductionist view, Analytic Idealism flips our culture-bound intuitions on their head, revealing that only through understanding our own inner nature can we understand the nature of the world. This book embodies its author's years-long experience on how best to explain Analytic Idealism to someone who has never studied it before and has no background in the technical fields involved. It meets the listeners where they are, holding their hand as they are shown—through a series of evocative metaphors—how to see through their own unexamined assumptions, so to realize how the impossible dilemmas of physicalism disappear when nature is regarded from a slightly different slant. The conclusions have tremendous implications for our values and way of life, as well as our understanding of purpose, self, identity, and death.

©2023 Bernardo Kastrup (P)2025 Tantor Media

Dr. Kastrup is articulating a revolution in philosophy and science as great as Einstein‘s theories of relativity.

It seems like the only thing you can do with this philosophy is practice meditation to achieve integration of all my “selves”. But I’m not meditating! So perhaps the message I’m really getting is that I should stop thinking and take a break from myself.

This was an unprecedented read

I listened to his lectures online several years ago and found them profoundly compelling. I then made the transition from substance dualism into analytic idealism but still didn't and don't truly understand all the nuances as well as I would like to but this audiobook along with the physical copy provided me with a numinously educational experience.

Kastrup along with Jung provided me with what I needed to relinquish the cognitive dissonance embedded within the beliefs provided to me in my childhood while simultaneously giving me away out of the depressive grip of nihilism that seized me briefly during the paradigm transition. Thank you.

Underrated Insight

incredibly well put together take on Idealism, well done. This is a must for any philosopher.

A *nutty* philosophy in a nutshell

Major criticisms of "Analytic idealism"

Reduction base:
- No ACTUAL reduction performed, instead a base is "chosen" (mind), which is an appeal to cherrypicking fallacy.

Ontology
- There is no coherent ontology (his metaphysics mascerades as that also, or attempts to reject its importance)
- His first step is a metaphor (the dashboard). A metaphor can not be a starting point for a philosophy.
- The actual contents of, or scope of, this dashboard is not disclosed (can there be an experience of a dashboard on a dashboard?)
- He confuses metaphysics with ontology (what there is (access to)). Metaphysics is rather an attempt at an "ontology" of an external world
- Mind, as he uses it, must be an abstraction, since it is more fundamental than direct experience (according to him), so it must be an abstraction in itself, otherwise he cannot acces it or deal with it. Then it is not fundamental but arrives after some experience (and possibly because of it)
- Mind is a category error. It is like saying since my "grocery bag" contains groceries, the groceries mus be made of "grocery bag" (phenomena is in mind, therefore phenomena is made of mind)... This is ridiculously nutty.
- Seems to conflate dashboard, perception, experience, consciousness, mind ao without clarification. He confuses the terms and possibly mixes them up.

External world
- He has NO argument for an external world. He merely references that "you would describe my attic the same way as me". That is the old rock-kicking argument: "I have a Qualia (voices). This Qualia is supposedly representing an outside (because I have that dogma), therefore there is an outside". It is disgracefully bad argumentation. Basically he must be taking an external world for granted then, because he was used to that when he was a materialist. He just "forgot" to be critical about what argument he actually has for it, though still identifying the need for the argument. if anyone should be very concerned about a RTIGID argument for an external world, it is an idealist strongly criticizing naive realism
- His external world is an imagination that he presents as argued for. It can only be established by axiom, since it cannot be argued. From solipsism you cannot argue your way to an external world.

Metaphysics
- Is is a futile endeavor in any case. Either it is useless because it does not change the understanding of your phenomena. And if it changes the understanding, there is an obvious violation of the foundation used for establishing that metaphysics.
- No argument for why only mind (other than I avoid problems)
- If there is only mind. His philosophy would stop there
- God is invoked (why refer to ancient superstition if that is not already a part of the purpose of the philosophy)
- He appeals to theory. Theory is ONLY IN THE REALM OF SCIENCE, and as he himself says, science deals ONLY with the behaviour of the dashboard
- His use of science to settle a metaphysics is circular (begging the question fallacy). Science is a kind of philosophy that must be established AFTER the settlement of more fundamental philosophies like metaphysics and ontology. So it cannot help "establish" metaphysics, with circularity.