Why do current academics refuse to acknolwedge idealism as viable?

Question

Berkeley is often sited as the "ideal" of idealism. Most of the academic arguments attack his various points, but his finer points seems to escape the academic community. Kant gives some effort in being fair to Berkeley's idealism in his arguments.

It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with how great an assurance and acquiescence soever this principle may be entertained in the world, yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense? and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations? and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these, or any combination of them, should exist unperceived? - Bishop Berkeley

Let us go with the example of a chair:

1) If I remember a chair being somewhere it is a perception through memory.

2) If I imagine a chair somewhere then it is a chair somewhere in imagination (or hallucination, which he does make reference to later).

3) If I see a chair, then I am perceiving a chair.

Even without arguing the "reality beyond the perception", the only reality "I" am aware of is the perception.

How is this not acceptable in the current academia? The "meat" of his arguments, if taken seriously, are soundly based. I don't know of anyone that takes idealism seriously (if there are any modern writing for or against if please give reference), why?

Answer 1

These are unsourced, but are too long to post as comments:

• Idealism, when explained very briefly or over simplified, sounds too much like various New Age ideas along the lines of "it's all in the mind" and "the mind controls everything" -- anybody trying to explain Berkeley without going into the technical details ends up sounding too much like Deepak Chopra or Timothy Leary, and academic philosophers don't want that to happen. I'm not saying that Berkeley is in the same league as those guys, just that a substantial technical presentation is necessary to explain the difference.
• Subjective Idealism per se might not have fared too well in the 20th and 21st centuries, but it has been influential - consider the continued influence of anti-realism in science, social constructivism - which is basically subjective idealism at the group/social level, the brain in a VAT experiment, and beyond academia, in the "Matrix" series, "Inception". Also, I read "Sophie's World" in high school and Berkeley is a major figure in that book.

• Subjective Idealism, like its even weirder and less palatable cousin Solipsism, doesn't have much cash value: To be, is to be perceived, so what? How does that change the way that I engage with the world? Unless I am able to start bending spoons at will or use the sheer force of my thoughts to win the lottery, Berkeley's Idealism doesn't really make your worldview any different from other Empiricists. The most important parts of Berkeley's arguments are already covered by anti-realism.

• Russell, despite having argued extensively against idealism, was himself a neutral monist, as opposed to a materialist - which supports my previous point, that most of Berkeley's arguments are covered by a strong Empiricist / Anti-realist view. Why bother taking that to the next step by committing to idealism, especially if it risks having you mistaken as being part of the cooky New Age spiritualist crowd?

Answer 2

Taking the broadest possible definition of idealism: "Idealism is the group of philosophies which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial," here are two examples:

1. James Wilberding (and many others besides) study Platonism and Neo-Platonism, which obviously discusses non-material being at length.

2. Theistic philosophers (Peter Kreeft and others) start with God as the basis of existence.

Outside of academia, there are practical examples of existence as an individual mentally constructed phenomena:

At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.

According to this reasoning, not only the existence of a chair, but existence itself is for one to define for one's self (necessarily, as a mental construct).