[RightWhale]

What, at this time, is the fundamental distinction between the ideal and the real?

[cornelis]

I guess a possible first step toward an answer should include a consideration of what we are talking about, a real or unreal car, a real or unreal imagination, an real or unreal idea. Perhaps there is no one fundamental distinction that covers all the possible applications. I haven't read the entire thread although I can guess that the incarnation wasn't what anybody was talking about.

Another step would be at least to understand as much as we can what the best minds have understood so far and that that what has been understood so far has not been entirely consistent usage, not least because they have not always talked about the same thing. If undertaken honestly, that step would likewise show how the terms subject and object have been flipped. What was once considered object has become subject and vice versa. Likewise the terms real or ideal.

Another step would recognize that we are not talking of just two things whenever we try to distinguish the usage of real and ideal. Since the Enlightenment, epistemology itself has been confused with the ideal and this as given the illusion that the distinction between the ideal $100 in your mind and the real $100 in your pocket is pretty near zilch. Kant said existence adds nothing to the concept.

Well, that's a start.