Idealism. Any metaphysical system that uses the ideas of mind as the basic clue to an understanding of reality. It has taken many forms in the history of thought. Characteristic of much Indian thought, it wag accommodated by Plato to that of the West. Christian thought, partly because of the strongly Neoplatonic influence that entered into it, has been much affected by idealist views. The work of Berkeley, an eighteenthcentury philosopher and Christian bishop, provides an interesting example of a thoroughgoing idealism in the form of an immaterialist philosophy in which everything is referable to mind. Many, however, would account such a thoroughgoing idealism incompatible with the data of Christian revelation, which include Creation as well as the Incarnation and Resurrection. The thought both of Kant and of Hegel is in the idealist tradition. Those who, in the late nineteenth century and afterwards, sought to rehabilitate and re-express idealist principles are commonly called neo-idealists. Among these would be included Bradley, Bosanquet, Croce, Dilthey, and Royce.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989

idealism : (m.) viññattamattavāda.

A.P. Buddhadatta Mahathera, Concise Pali-English and English-Pali Dictionary [available as digital version from Metta Net, Sri Lanka]