Ferrier and the Foundations of Idealism

This chapter reconstructs and analyses Ferrier’s main argument for a form of idealism which is both neo-Berkeleyan and post-Kantian. The argument, which is advanced in his Institutes of Metaphysic (1854), has three main premises: (1) If Absolute Existence is that which we know, it must be the synthesis of subject and object. (2) If Absolute Existence is that of which we are ignorant, it must be the synthesis of subject and object. (3) Either Absolute Existence is that which we know, or Absolute Existence is that of which we are ignorant. The first and second premises rest on two key principles: the Law of All Knowledge (a subject cannot know objects without knowing itself along with them) and the Law of All Ignorance (we can be ignorant only of what some subject can know). The main aim here is to understand why Ferrier thinks these two propositions are true.