Idealism and the Harmony of Thought and Reality

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Thomas Hofweber (William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)

Idealism and the Harmony of Thought and Reality

Thomas Hofweber (William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)

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English

Oxford University Press
14 November 2025

Philosophy of language; Western philosophy, from c 1900 -; Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology

Do human beings have a special and distinguished place in reality? In Idealism and the Harmony of Thought and Reality Thomas Hofweber contends that they do. We are special since there is an intimate connection between our human minds and reality itself. This book defends a form of idealism which holds that our human minds constrain, but do not construct, reality as the totality of facts. Reality as the totality of facts is thus not independent of our minds, and our minds play a metaphysically special role in all of reality. But reality as the totality of things is taken to be completely independent of us. Hofweber's proposed form of conceptual idealism is formulated via the notion of a harmony between our minds and reality. A key step in the book's argument is to consider a special class of concepts—inescapable concepts—which we cannot rationally replace with different ones. This leads to a new approach for making progress in metaphysics—immanent metaphysics—which is broadly neo-Kantian in spirit.

By: Thomas Hofweber (William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 157mm, Spine: 18mm
Weight: 392g
ISBN: 9780198977810
ISBN 10: 0198977816
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 14 November 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface 1: Idealism and our place in the world 2: Forms of idealism we should reject 3: Conceptual idealism: the basic idea 4: The internalist conception of facts 5: Harmony and ineffability 6: Inescapable concepts 7: The immanent stance 8: Conceptual idealism: the overall picture Bibliography

Thomas Hofweber is the William R. Kenan Jr. Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He specializes in metaphysics, the philosophy of language, and the philosophy of mathematics. He is the author of Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics (Oxford University Press, 2016) besides numerous articles.

Reviews for Idealism and the Harmony of Thought and Reality

Hofweber has defended with great brilliance a position that will strike most philosophers as counterintuitive [...]. His book is an extraordinary achievement and confirms his place as one of our leading contemporary metaphysicians. * David Gordon, The Philosophical Quarterly *