What is the opposite of idealism?

Answer 1

ignorance.

Answer 2

Idealism has at least two major meanings. In ordinary use, it means a person (or attitude) stressing the power of ideals and vision in many aspects of life: politics, society, culture. An idealist believes in the motivating power of ideals (love, sympathy, steady human progress): that we become better by working toward ideals. In this meaning of the term, the opposite of an idealist is a realist, who is aware of limitation and works within it, who believes that we do better to concentrate on what is possible rather than on misty ideals. Realists are likely to subscribe to the dictum, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". Politics becomes the art of the possible, and that means compromise. In literature, idealists are romantics, whereas realists concentrate on the grittines of things, as with Zola describing a mine in grim detail.
In the stricter philosophical sense, idealism stresses that what we know is not raw reality but the reality mediated to us through our minds: we only know our ideas of things. Plato was a transcendentalist and idealist, for he believed in the power of the mind to rise to true Ideas, which alone are real. A realist may think this conception of things a ghostly unreality: he lives in a world of bricks-and-mortar. Samuel Johnson refuted an idealist (Berkeley) by kicking at a stone, meaning that the stone and your pain from kicking it are real. The ancient stoics were idealists in the sense that they believed that the right mental attitude can overcome all material adversity or misfortune.

Answer 3

utilitarianism is the opposite of idealism. idealism is a metaphysic and ethic which professes that there are model principles and ways of behavior that must be adhered to no matter the cost or inconvenience. in short, it is an argument that the ends don't justify the means

utilitarianism is a philosophy that argues that the ends can and do justify the means, and that any course of action should be based on the most expedient way to obtain the most good for the most people.

Answer 4

Many good answers already...idealism, in philosophy is differentiated by materialism. Idealism, in its pure form, posits that the only true reality is consciousness. Materialism posits an objective, "material" reality - the physical world as the only reality. An old Zen story goes like this: A zen master, after giving a talk on the Heart Sutra, yells at his students, "All of you who think my walking stick is real, line up now for one strike of my stick. All of those who think my walking stick is not real, line up now for one strike of my stick."

Answer 5

Fatalism

Answer 6

Pessimism.

Answer 7

In practical use I believe "realism" is the answer you're looking for.

Answer 8

I believe it to be materialism.

Answer 9

pessimism and rationalism

Answer 10

cynicism