In traditional Platonic idealism, abstract concepts such as mathematical entities, geometric shapes, ideas, and universal “Forms” possess the highest and truest type of reality. Material reality is only a projection into our experience of these more perfect and fundamental entities – the idea of a square is more perfect and “real” than any specific manifestation of an actual square object.
This school of thought addressed reality by treating change and material objects as entirely real, on a par with universal Forms. For them, reality consisted of “matter” which had “form”, which was suited to its “purpose”. They were not promoting the absence of a physical world, but instead arguing for the existence of some non-material ideal concepts, exemplars, and archetypes called “Forms”.
These ancient idealists, however, would not be considered Subjective Idealists or Immaterialists (described later). The accepted a real world, even if they thought that man’s ability to perceive it was extremely limited, as described in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave in which the prisoners in a cave can only see shadows of the outside world (i.e. true reality).
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