Another thing we could add here about the caution with regard to idealism from the perspective of Catholic thought is the bifurcation within modernity, a remnant of nominalism, of mind and world. Much of philosophy becomes an ontological border game of extricating various "queer" entities outside the realm of actually existing things. Mind, thought, numbers, logic, consciousness, etc. Thus we get deflationary views and post-metaphysical takes on knowledge, metaphysics, ethics etc. Catholicism is an enchanted view of reality in which the trinitarian God is present in the world while being infinite dissimilar to it. Analogia entis. Thus the Eucharist, liturgy, Church, and sacraments make sense only in this metaphysics. If the world is just dumb brute material informed by the human mind, this has obvious consequences for the ancient and medieval worldviews. The seeds are here for a view of Christianity or religion as a mode of life or set of rituals that describe only how particular communities go about their business. There’s nothing true about it. It's just how we roll around here.
Excellent discussion. I would add that he idealism/realism distinction is very misleading. There is no anti-realism or idealism. There are only various realisms about a particular domain. So realism about ideas; realism about matter; realism about x. What Schelling attempts is a fusion of matter being thought-like
Another thing we could add here about the caution with regard to idealism from the perspective of Catholic thought is the bifurcation within modernity, a remnant of nominalism, of mind and world. Much of philosophy becomes an ontological border game of extricating various "queer" entities outside the realm of actually existing things. Mind, thought, numbers, logic, consciousness, etc. Thus we get deflationary views and post-metaphysical takes on knowledge, metaphysics, ethics etc. Catholicism is an enchanted view of reality in which the trinitarian God is present in the world while being infinite dissimilar to it. Analogia entis. Thus the Eucharist, liturgy, Church, and sacraments make sense only in this metaphysics. If the world is just dumb brute material informed by the human mind, this has obvious consequences for the ancient and medieval worldviews. The seeds are here for a view of Christianity or religion as a mode of life or set of rituals that describe only how particular communities go about their business. There’s nothing true about it. It's just how we roll around here.
Excellent discussion. I would add that he idealism/realism distinction is very misleading. There is no anti-realism or idealism. There are only various realisms about a particular domain. So realism about ideas; realism about matter; realism about x. What Schelling attempts is a fusion of matter being thought-like