Berkeley s Idealism
Idealism Matter doesn t exist, but the external world still does. All reality is mental, consisting only of minds and their ideas. Ideas are passive, whereas minds are active. Every idea needs a mind to be in. They don t exist independently, any more than pains can.
(It s not like the brain in a vat, a where we re radically deceived. Rather, Berkeley argues that this is in accordance with common sense, even more than Locke s representational realism.) For example, Berkeley thinks that tomatoes really are red.
In order for the external world to be suitably solid and objective, e.g. for objects to continue to exist even when no human is perceiving them, a superperceiver, permanent perceiver, (God) is required. The need for God is an advantage of the theory, for (Bishop) Berkeley.
To me it is evident, for the reasons you agree to, that sensible things can t exist except in a mind or spirit. From this I conclude not that they have no real existence but that seeing they don t depend on my thought, and have an existence distinct from being perceived by me there must be some other mind in which they exist. As sure as the sensible world really exists, therefore, so sure is there an infinite, omnipresent Spirit who contains and supports it.
God in the Quad by Ronald Knox There was a young man who said, "God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there's no one about in the Quad." REPLY Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd: I am always about in the Quad. And that's why the tree Will continue to be, Since observed by Yours faithfully, GOD.
But,you say, it sounds weird to say that we eat and drink ideas, and are clothed with them. So it does, because the word idea isn t used in ordinary talk to signify if the combinations of perceptible qualities that t are called things; and any expression that differs from the familiar use of language is bound to seem weird and ridiculous. But this doesn t concern the truth of the proposition, which in other words merely says that we are fed and clothed with things that we perceive immediately by our senses. Berkeley, The Principles of Human Knowledge, #38
Berkeley s argument 1. sensible things = things that areperceived immediately by the senses. On the question of What do we see? (either external objects, or our ideas of them) Hylas always says that we see external objects, like trees. We see them directly, or immediately. This is common sense. Hylas makes the usual distinction between what is actually seen (perceived) and what reason infers from such perceptions.
Unfortunately Hylas seems to be a direct realist! Hyl: To head off any more questions of this kind, I tell you once and for all that by sensible things I mean only things that are perceived by sense, and that the senses perceive only what they perceive immediately; because they don t make inferences. So the deducing of causes or occasions from effects and appearances (which are the only things we perceive by sense) is entirely the business of reason.
Philonous points out that we re only directly aware of sensations (colours, tastes, smells, sounds, etc.) These things are ideas, that require a perceiver in order to exist. So sensible things are ideas. (pp. 3 4)
Fallacy of Equivocation? (1) We perceive ordinary objects (houses, mountains, etc.). (2) We perceive only ideas. Therefore, (3) Ordinary objects are ideas.
Back to the argument 2. Sensible objects arecombinations of sensible qualities. (Bundle theory of objects.) E.g. a snowball is the combination of whiteness, coldness, roundness, firmness, etc.
3. The reality of sensible things consists in being perceived. The notion of a pain, for example, that isn t felt by anyone, is silly. For sensible objects, esse est percipi (to be is to be perceived).
4. Then Hylas asserts that real objects must exist independently, without any need to be perceived. Philonous responds with Lockean arguments that some things (qualities) cannot exist outside the mind. Heat, for example, is continuous with pain, and pain is only in minds. the intense heat immediately perceived is nothing distinct from a certain sort of pain.
5. Hylas yields, agreeing that heat and cold are not in the objects, but are only sensations in our minds. But there are other qualities that do exist objectively. Tastes. Sounds. Real sound is nothing but a certain motion of the air. (p. 8) Hyl: Philonous, you must distinguish sound as it is perceived by us from sound as it is in itself; or in other words distinguish the sound we immediately perceive from the sound dtht that exists it outside tid us. The former is indeed a particular kind of sensation, but the latter is merely a vibration in the air.
6. Philonous mocks Hylas for expressing views that depart so far from common sense. If real sound is actually motion, then sounds may be seen or felt but not heard! Hylas concedes that sounds only exist in the mind. (Note how Hylas is slowly forced to accept Locke s (Note how Hylas is slowly forced to accept Locke s claims about secondary qualities.)
7. Then they discuss colours. Philonous notes that colours look different under a microscope. But the closer view is surely more real. Finally Hylas agrees with Locke s full list of secondary qualities. (p. 12). But, like Locke, he continues to believe that shape, size ( extension and figure ) etc. are primary, and exist in the object, not just in a perceiving mind.
8. Now the main argument. Philonous tries to show that the same arguments can be applied to (what Locke considers to be) primary qualities, such as figure and extension (shape and size). Philonous appeals to mites again. The foot of a mite will seem to be large to a mite, yet tiny to us. So size is subjective. (p. 13)
Note the general pattern of argument here. If a quality depends on the observer, i.e. its appearance varies with the type of observer (mite or human) or with the way in which it s perceived, then the quality is subjective, and exists only in the mind.
[Aside: Is there such a thing as absolute (rather than relative) size? Certainly, absolute sizes cannot be assigned a measure (a number). But arguably we need to postulate them to explain the stability of relative sizes. But in that case we admit the existence of a quality that is inconceivable.] i
9. Also, as we approach and recede from an object, its visible size varies. [Berkeley might have added, but didn t, that a circular pond appears circular only from directly above. From most angles its apparent shape is an ellipse.]
10. Also, the same object that is smooth to the naked eye is rough when viewed through a microscope. So textures, a supposed primary quality, also depend on the observer. Is there a good reply py to this, from a realist?
[We can reply that in the case of naked eyeeye observation, the smooth idea we have is either incomplete or wrong.] Incomplete the surface really is smoothish, or approximately smooth. Wrong the surface is truly rough, but this is just another case of optical lillusion. i
11. In other words, all qualities turn out to be 11. In other words, all qualities turn out to be secondary. There are no primary qualities at all. None which can be supposed to exist independently, without being perceived.
12. As a last resort, Hylas appeals to the notion of substratum. Theidea of substratum is that the qualities of an object need to belong to something. They need to be properties of something. They re not just a bundle. That something that t has the properties is the substratum. You can picture the properties as sewing pins. The substratum is then the pincushion that the pins are stuck into.
But when on the other hand I look in a different way at sensible things, considering them as so many properties p and qualities, I find that I have to suppose a material substratum, without which they can t be conceived to exist. (p. 19)
Pegasus vs. Platypus One way to think about this is to consider the difference between real objects and fictional ones. A fictional object is just a set of properties, p selected by the author. Real objects have something extra. What is it? They have substance, or substratum, a thing that actually has the properties.
13.The substratum is not sensible. I conclude it exists because qualities cannot be conceived to exist without a support. (p. 19) Philonous shows that metaphors of the substratum spreadunder, standing under or supporting the qualities means that the substratum itself would require extension. Hylas (p. 20) I find that I don t know anything about it. Is it not a great contradiction to talk of conceiving a thing which h is unconceived?
Phil: So it seems that you have no idea at all, either positive or relative, of matter. You don t know what it is in itself, or what relation it has to qualities. HlI Hyl: I admit it. Phil: And yet you said that you couldn t conceive the real existence of qualities without conceiving ce at the same time a material support for them. Hyl: I did. Phil: That amounted to saying that when you conceive the real existence of qualities you also conceive something that you can t conceive!
Another fallacy of equivocation? Inconceivable = contrary to reason, e.g. 4 sided circle Inconceivable = inscrutable, beyond understanding Surely it s not absurd to hold that some matters exist that are beyond the understanding of jellyfish? So is it absurd to say that some matters are beyond the understanding of homo sapiens sapiens? (Is it absurd for a human to say this?)
Aren t there cases in science where we have Aren t there cases in science where we have grounds to think that something exists that isn t part of our present theory?
We have something very much like this in the case of absolute length. There s an (apparently decent) argument that absolute lengths must exist. But we have no clear conception of what they are. (They re not numbers, for example.) In general, it seems conceivable that some features of reality are inconceivable i (impossible ibl to understand). And we might even be able to say what some of these things are, at least roughly. We might, for example, have a very fuzzy conception of them.
Another argument 14. no idea nor anything like an idea can exist in an unperceiving substance (p. 25) can anything be like a sensation or idea, but another sensation or idea? (p. 25). The correspondence between ideas and non mental things strikes many as problematic. For example, the correspondence of propositions to objective facts or states of affairs is often regarded as impossible.
Alvin Plantinga, How to be an Anti Realist, Proceedings and Addresses of the APA, Sept. 1982 How could there be truths totally independent d of minds or persons? Truths are the sort of things persons know; and the idea that there are or could be truths quite beyond the best methods of apprehension seems peculiar and outre and somehow outrageous. What would account for such truths? How would they get there? Where would they come from?
Resemblance of mental to non mental items? The correspondence relation must be some sort of resemblance relation. But truthbearers do not resemble anything in the world except other truthbearers echoing Berkeley s an idea can be like nothing but an idea. Marian David, The Correspondence Theory of Truth, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. h
States of Affairs are beliefs in the sky? All facts, even the most simple ones, are disreputable. Fact-talk, being wedded to that-clauses, is entirely parasitic on truth-talk. Facts are too much like truthbearers. Facts are fictions, spurious sentence-like slices of reality, projected from true sentences for the sake of correspondence (Quine 1987, p. 213; cf. Strawson 1950). Marian David, SEP.
States of affairs = divine beliefs? "Even if there were no human intellects, there could be truths because of their relation to the divine intellect. But if, per impossible, there were no intellects at all, but things continued to exist, then there would be no such reality as truth." (Aquinas, De Veritate Q. 1, A.6 Respondeo). Objective states of affairs are God s beliefs? Truth isn t the view from nowhere, but rather the view from God? Plantinga says that this position was suggested by St. Augustine, and endorsed by most of the Christian tradition i (including himself). 37
Anti realism? Anti realism says that our ideas fail to correspond to reality. (Either there is no reality, or if there is one, then it s radically different from our conception of it.) Berkeley s view seems a lot like Descartes evil y demon scenario, where all our beliefs are false. How is Berkeley then different from an anti realist?
A problem for Berkeley Minds, or spirits, aremind independent independent substances for Berkeley, in the sense that they aren t just ideas in the mind of God. When God creates humans, for example, he does more than just have an idea. He has to concretise that idea somehow make it active.
If we ask Berkeley what makes a mind active or concrete in a way that ideas are not, what would he say? Something, I know not what? After all, we don t perceive minds, just ideas Can Berkeley have a clear conception of what the mind really is?