Which contemporary philosophers are idealists?

Question

I mean idealism, in that all is mind, as opposed to physicalism. I imagine that they would be more in the continental tradition than the anglo-american analytic tradition.

Answer 1

None. Even Continental philosophers will not assist you in that venture. They would likely say that to assert that the objects of thought are all that is real is too absolute, too exclusionary, possibly a tool of social order to devalue meaning, and thus wrong. Not to mention that as objects of thought, they're still just objects.

When Sam Johnson refuted Berkely's idealism "thus", and kicked a rock, that settled the argument for a great many people. "All things are thoughts" is too short a road to solipsism for anyone to take seriously. To avoid the solipsistic conclusion you'd have to take either Berkeley's own standpoint that God's experience makes up for the difference in experiencing the world's furniture, or be a radical panpsychist of a kind which I don't believe exists. Even Chalmers and his conscious thermometers still acknowledge that physical properties exist.

Sometimes there's no middle ground- idealism is a ridiculous notion without positing a large number of very messy metaphysical rules, all hell-bent on propping up the notion and with no other reason to be presented.

That all said, there's plenty of people who argue for a remnant of idealist thought- namely that reality begins with perception and not the other way 'round. I'd argue that's not really idealism though, as any such description still allows for an external reality to exist independently of the observer.

See this other question for more information. Apologies for the sloppy answer, but hopefully this'll attract a better one.

Answer 2

First, let's settle the terminology: Physicalism and idealism are in many respects opposite positions in philosophy of mind. But that doesn't entail that every non-physicalist position is a form of idealism. That is, there are a lot of non-physicalist positions that do not amount to idealism. Among these positions, the following were prominently defended and discussed in the 20th century: interactionist dualism, parallelism, epiphenomenalism, neutral monism.

Now, idealism is indeed not on that list. Still, there is recent work done by Robert Adams, who defends a sort of idealism ("mentalism") in phil. of mind, according to which

everything that is real in the last analysis is sufficiently spiritual in character to be aptly conceived on the model of our own minds, as experienced from the inside (35)

See his "Idealism Vindicated", in: D. Zimmerman and P. van Inwagen (eds) Persons: Human and Divine, OUP 2007, pp. 35-54.

Furthermore, there are some contemporary idealist philosophers in the broader sense (i.e. as a full-fledged philosophical position - idealism as in "German idealism"). Vittorio Hösle is a very well known contemporary idealist philosopher:

Vittorio Hösle (born June 25, 1960, in Milan, Italy) is a German philosopher. Having begun his academic career with extraordinary success, including the completion of his doctorate at age 21, he is the author of many distinguished works, including Hegels System (1987), Morals and Politics (1997, trans. 2004), and Der philosophische Dialog (2006). He advances an “objective idealist” theoretical philosophy, which attempts to revitalize Platonic and Hegelian thought, while also drawing from Karl-Otto Apel. His practical philosophy is a modified Kantianism, which also draws much from Hans Jonas.