Bernardo Kastrup
Bernardo Kastrup (born 21 October 1974)[^c1] is a Dutch philosopher and computer engineer known for developing analytic idealism, a form of metaphysical idealism formulated within the analytic tradition[^c2]. He holds doctorates in both computer engineering and philosophy[^c6], has spent decades in high-technology research and industry as well as in academic philosophy, and serves as executive director of the Essentia Foundation[^c5], a Dutch nonprofit devoted to consciousness studies and metaphysics. A prolific author, he has written books, peer-reviewed papers, and widely read essays for outlets such as Scientific American.
Analytic idealism holds that phenomenal consciousness is the sole ontological primitive. Its central thesis is that the only fundamental reality is consciousness — universal and impersonal, which Kastrup calls "mind-at-large" — and that all matter, including the brain, is representation or appearance within that consciousness[^c4]. Individual minds are not separate substances but dissociated alters of this single field; as Kastrup summarises the view, we, as well as all other living organisms, are but dissociated alters of cosmic consciousness, surrounded by its thoughts[^c3]. The physical world is the extrinsic appearance of mental processes, and the brain is what inner experience looks like when observed from outside.
The position is presented as dissolving three problems at once: the hard problem of consciousness that troubles physicalism, the combination problem that troubles panpsychism, and the decombination problem that troubles cosmopsychism. Kastrup argues for it on grounds of conceptual parsimony, explanatory power, and empirical adequacy, drawing on quantum foundations, neuroscience, and clinical psychology — especially the analogy with dissociative identity disorder. He is careful to distinguish it from solipsism, insisting that the external world is real but mental. In its most compact statement, Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell — described by Kastrup as his eleventh and most defining book[^c7] — condenses the full case into a short argument.
Kastrup's work has provoked extensive debate and has also taken an increasingly personal turn. A 2025 autobiographical book, The Daimon and the Soul of the West, grew out of a launch session structured as a tour of his life[^c8]; it documents his Brazilian childhood, the early death of his father, his move to Europe, CERN, the collapse of his health and marriage, and his account of the daimon as an impersonal force of nature[^c9]. Institutionally, the Essentia Foundation, which he leads, launched an AI-powered app in 2026 to organise its growing library of videos and essays on idealism and consciousness[^c10]. Materialist philosophers and neuroscientists contest his reading of brain data and quantum theory; religious idealists object to his naturalism; and fellow non-materialists dispute his account of how one mind becomes many. Alongside the criticism there is a substantial sympathetic literature that credits him with reviving metaphysical idealism as a serious option in contemporary philosophy. His intellectual formation runs through Schopenhauer and Jung, with affinities to Advaita Vedanta and other non-dual traditions, and his public engagement — books, essays, lectures, podcasts, and debates — has made him one of the most visible advocates of a mental universe.