Summary
According to G. K. Chesterton one of the main delusions to which one can succumb is the belief that the outside world is created by the self. In combating this illusion, Gill shares how Chesterton defends philosophical realism--the belief that the objects of thought have a real existence independent of the thoughts of the inquirer.
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Extract
Chesterton's Realism
ACCORDING to G.K. Chesterton (1875-1936) one of the main delusions to which we can succumb is the belief that the outside world is created by the self. In combating this illusion, Chesterton defends philosophical realism - the belief that the objects of thought have a real existence independent of the thoughts of the inquirer. Idealist thinkers, in this account, fail to do justice to the otherness of existence, for its origin is not recognized as situated outside the self. In contrast to the thought of the idealists, and against materialist reductionists who would deny that there is any Creator to whom we can express our gratitude, Chesterton ultimately came to understand his realist perspective in relation to the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. Philosophically a realist, Chesterton asserted that his politics were those of a radical idealist, and he maintained that the relativism which stemmed from anti-realism would be useless for the attainment of a genuinely radical social agenda.
By coming to recognize existence as a gift which elicits the response of gratitude, Chesterton extracted himself from a youthful solipsism and found himself to be deeply at odds with what he perceived to be the dominant theories of the intellectual establishment. Chesterton found the sciences promoting a reductionist materialism and the arts engulfed by an atmosphere of idealism with both camps positively hostile to the Judeo-Christian heritage which understood existence as a miraculous gift of God's Creation. Materialists understood nature as mere matter in motion, subject to its own inexorable laws. They denied the supernatural dimension of reality - the existence of a Creator to whom ...See the full content of this document
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