The “Idealism” of Jonathan Edwards

Abstract

That Jonathan Edwards is an idealist is a commonly held view among historians of American philosophy. Not surprisingly, the early essays “Of Being,” “The Mind,” and the so-called “Notes on Natural Science” figure prominently in the substantiation of this judgment; for they offer not infrequent and at times unambiguous testimony to a tendency in Edwards' writings which seems to reduce all reality to the status of exclusively mental existence. Yet despite the claim which such a characterization can lay to Edwards's own words, it can be seriously misleading unless viewed within the context of his broader theological, scientific, and epistemological commitments. Because the very works which are most conspicuous in their idealistic tendencies also evidence the countervailing emphases entailed in Edwards's empiricist orientation, an examination of those early essays can itself serve to place his metaphysics in perspective.