Is it Possible to Theoretically Analyze the Category of “Ideal” without Contrasting it with the Material?

The article attempts to clarify the theoretical and factual foundations of the traditional opposition of material and ideal in the light of modern scientific knowledge. The opinion is expressed that the division of the world into two opposite realities, which originated in antiquity, despite a number of positive aspects, leads to an excessively strong alienation of a person from the outside world. The question of the origin of the ideal and its genetic roots also remains unresolved, which, in turn, leads to a strong blurring of ideas about this category and the emergence of a large number of contradictions and difficulties in its theoretical description. The assumption is made that the formulation of the problem of the ideal and the material took place in conditions of very limited ideas about the surrounding world, in comparison with the currently available scientific knowledge base. Further, the article analyzes the most characteristic pairs of the opposition of the ideal and the material, as well as their correlation with modern knowledge about the world. The final part examines the relationship between the ideal and information and concludes that the very fact of the emergence of information theory in the field of philosophical discourse indicates the possibility of overcoming the gap that arose more than two thousand years ago in the theoretical understanding of the surrounding reality.