Contents EMPIRICISM PHIL3072, ANU, 2015 Jason Grossman http://empiricism.xeny.net preview & recap idealism Berkeley lecture 5: 11 August George Berkeley and Idealism Preview: Hume Not very original on empiricism (although more original on other topics), but arguably a much more consistent thinker than Locke or Berkeley, and certainly much more influential (in epistemology and metaphysics, not in political philosophy). Russell: A great hero of Russell and Einstein David Hume (1711-76) is one of the most important among philosophers, because he developed to its logical conclusion the empirical philosophy of Locke and Berkeley, and by making it self-consistent made it incredible.... To refute him has been, ever since he wrote, a favourite pastime among metaphysicians. For my part, I find none of their refutations convincing; nevertheless, I cannot but hope that something less sceptical than Hume s system may be discoverable. Idealism Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945, p.659 Idealism: simplest definition There are various (slighly incompatible) definitions. Simplest definition: Idealism: there are only ideas. This is using ideas in Locke s sense: roughly, anything mental. Idealism does not deny physical objects, or other minds (unlike solipsism, which does). The opposite of mental is not physical, it s material. Hold this thought. Idealism: other versions Many versions of idealism have been popular over the millennia. We ll concentrate on empiricist idealism = subjective idealism, but that s not the only sort. E.g. Absolute Idealism was very popular around 1900 The Absolute, which is the world, is indivisible (as in Parmenides), and consists of objective thought. This is not at all empiricist. Russell was an Absolute Idealist when he was a student, and his later denial of it (along with denials by Russell s friend G. E. Moore, and the Pragmatists in the United States) was one of the founding forces of analytic philosophy.
Idealism: other versions Blackburn s dictionary: Any doctrine holding that reality is fundamentally mental in nature. Simon Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, p.184 So there can be non-fundamental entities that are not mental... which leaves open whether such things exist in their own right or are just weakly emergent. E.g., panpsychism (Spinoza, Leibniz, and many others) holds that physical objects are material but that they all have a mental component. neutral monism holds that there is only one kind of thing (hence monism ) but that it has mental or material aspects depending on the interactions it finds itself in (William James, 1904, and, temporarily, Bertrand Russell). Idealism: other versions A weaker version: as far as we know, there are only ideas, and there is no point in looking for evidence of anything else. This is a popular position in recent philosophy of science. There s no agreed name for it. Arthur Fine calls it the Natural Ontological Attitude; Stephen Yablo calls it the quizzical attitude: the one that doubts there is anything to find about existence questions and is inclined to shrug the question off. Readings by Fine and Yablo on the web site. What idealism is not Idealism is the denial of an external world, IF external is taken to mean mind-independent. It is not the denial of things that are spatially external to the mind. (At least, not in general. Berkeley denied that external was an objective description.) So Berkeley could describe idealism as the denial of material objects, which he defined as objects with no mental component, but he did not deny physical objects (objects as described by physics). This only makes sense if physics is itself either idealist (which it often has been) or pluralist (which IMO it always is). Berkeley s view is sometimes called immaterialism. What idealism is compatible with Idealism is perfectly compatible with all of the following: tables and chairs physics unseen causes other minds From Locke to Idealism Imagine making Locke s view simple and consistent. Locke s view consistent; just that it s a very simple way. Do we get Berkeley s idealism? Not quite but pretty close! Berkeley
A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge Published in 1710 when Berkeley was 25, a young Fellow at Trinity College Dublin. Followed quickly by a set of dialogues on the same idea, and a book disagreeing with Newton s theories of space and optics. Berkeley was interested in replacing scholasticism (roughly, a mediaeval version of Aristotelianism) with the new science just like Galileo and Locke although not so much Hume. Berkeley on ideas Remember the empiricists methodology: epistemology before ontology. It is evident to any one who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses; or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind; or lastly, ideas formed by help of memory and imagination George Berkeley, A Treatise Concerning The Principles Of Human Knowledge, Dublin: Pepyat, 1710; see the course web site for a full citation to an edition on the web. part 1, section 1. And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Examples? Berkeley on ideas And as several of these are observed to accompany each other, they come to be marked by one name, and so to be reputed as one thing. Berkeley makes use of this point to emphasise the illusory nature of this bundling. This is just Locke except without Locke s claim that the bundling of ideas has its cause in an external object. Some of the things Locke called ideas are excluded by Berkeley. Most importantly, in Locke, tertiary properties (causal powers) are also ideas. In Berkeley, they re not. Berkeley on the self besides all that endless variety of ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise Something which knows or perceives them; and exercises divers operations, as willing, imagining, remembering, about them. This perceiving, active being is what I call mind, spirit, soul, or myself. By which words I do not denote any one of my ideas, but a thing entirely distinct from them, wherein they exist Berkeley ibid., section 2 Again, similar to Locke. Guess what Hume is going to say about this. Berkeley on existence the existence of an idea consists in being perceived Berkeley ibid., section 2 I think an intuitive knowledge may be obtained of this, by any one that shall attend to what is meant by the term exist when applied to sensible things. The table I write on I say exists; that is, I see and feel it: and if I were out of my study I should say it existed; meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. Berkeley ibid., section 3 Note the modal operator, which makes existence dispositional: if I was... I might. This is very different from the simpler view, often attributed to Berkeley, that things only exist while being perceived. Why did Berkeley probably not care? an idea can be like nothing but an idea But, say you, though the ideas themselves do not exist without [outside] the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or resemblances I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea This pretty much disposes of Locke s copy theory of how ideas represent the external world. Locke himself makes this argument against the copy theory (Book IV, chapter 1), but Locke apparently changes his mind about it later in the Essay! Berkeley believes it seriously and consistently. no? sense to assert a colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible; and so of the rest.
Exactly what Berkeley means by materialism By Matter... we are to understand an inert, senseless substance, in which extension, figure, and motion do actually subsist. Berkeley is referring to (Locke s version of) primary qualities. it is evident, from what we have already shewn, that extension, figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an idea can be like nothing but another idea; and that consequently neither they nor their archetypes can exist in an unperceiving substance. Hence, it is plain that the very notion of what is called Matter or corporeal substance, involves a contradiction in it. Berkeley ibid., section 9 So idealism or immaterialism, for Berkeley, is the denial of objects which are essentially (not just dispositionally) unperceived and unperceiving. More against materialism even if it were possible that solid, figured, moveable substances may exist without the mind, corresponding to the ideas we have of bodies, yet how is it possible for us to know this? Either we must know it by Sense or by Reason. As for our senses, by them we have the knowledge only of our sensations, ideas, or those things that are immediately perceived by sense, call them what you will: but they do not inform us that things exist without the mind, or unperceived, like to those which are perceived. This the materialists themselves acknowledge. This was denied later by direct realists, especially in the late 20th century e.g., MacDowell. It was not contested in Berkeley s time. More against materialism It remains therefore that if we have any knowledge at all of external things, it must be by reason inferring their existence from what is immediately perceived by sense. But I do not see what reason can induce us to believe the existence of bodies without the mind, from what we perceive, since the very patrons of Matter themselves do not pretend there is any necessary connexion betwixt them and our ideas. Berkeley ibid., section 19 Not a bad argument against Locke, who had no idea how material objects might produce sensations. We still don t have much idea how material objects might produce sensations but a weakness of Berkeley s argument is that we also have no idea how mental objects might produce sensations! A famously sadly bad argument But, say you, surely there is nothing easier than for me to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet, and nobody by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty in it. But what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind certain ideas which you call books and trees, and at the same time omitting to frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not you yourself perceive or think of them all the while?... When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies568, we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. Berkeley ibid., section 23 What s wrong with this argument? A famously sadly bad argument Berkeley s opponents are (or at least think they are) imagining trees which are the causes of ideas, not trees which are themselves ideas. Berkeley re-used this terrible argument in Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, three years later. Although this argument is very incomplete, it lays a basis for Hume to improve on, by talking about causation. Summary of Berkeley s good arguments In short, if there were external bodies, it is impossible we should ever come to know it; and if there were not, we might have the very same reasons to think there were that we have now. Berkeley ibid., section 20 This topic will come up again in 20th-century philosophy of science, as instrumentalism and pragmatism.
Berkeley s theology Berkeley s views make most sense in the context of his theology, although of course his theology is no longer considered relevant. (By the way, I m not denying that many philosophers and scientists are still Christian! It s just that nobody after 1900 uses theology to do epistemology.) A little attention will discover to us that the very being of an idea implies passiveness and inertness in it; insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do anything, or, strictly speaking, to be the cause of anything Berkeley ibid., section 25 We perceive a continual succession of ideas; some are anew excited, others are changed or totally disappear. There is therefore some cause of these ideas it remains therefore that the cause of ideas is an incorporeal active substance or Spirit Berkeley ibid., section 26 Berkeley s theology A Spirit is one simple, undivided active beingâł as it perceives ideas it is called the understanding, and as it produces or otherwise operates about them it is called the will. Hence there can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit; for all ideas whatever, being passive and inert (vid. sect. 25 [!]), they cannot represent unto us, by way of image or likeness, that which acts. Berkeley ibid., section 27 But, whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on my will. There is therefore some other Will or Spirit that produces them. Berkeley ibid., section 29 Compare with occasionalism, which says that only God can make things happen. Berkeley s theology Now the set rules, or established methods, wherein the Mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of Sense, are called the laws of nature; and these we learn by experience Berkeley ibid., section 30 The ideas imprinted on the Senses by the Author of nature are called real things Berkeley ibid., section 33 by the Principles premised we are not deprived of any one thing in nature. Whatever we see, feel, hear, or any wise conceive or understand, remains as secure as ever, and is as real as ever. Ibid., section 34 Berkeley siding with the vulgar or common sense It will be urged that thus much at least is true, to wit, that we take away all corporeal substances. To this my answer is, that if the word substance be taken in the vulgar sense, for a combination of sensible qualities, such as extension, solidity, weight, and the likeâł this we cannot be accused of taking away but if it be taken in a philosophic sense, for the support of accidents or qualities without [outside] the mind then indeed I acknowledge that we take it away Ibid., section 37 The only thing whose existence we deny is that which philosophers call Matter or corporeal substance. And in doing of this there is no damage done to the rest of mankind, who, I dare say, will never miss it. Ibid., section 35 FOUR solutions to the apparent persistence of objects There are objects in the external world external to us individually but they are mental. Why do we think they re there even when we re not observing them? 1. dispositions count as ideas (Berkeley) 2. God is always observing everything (Berkeley) 3. fictionalism (a type of reductionism) not Berkeley s solution 4. they re not and we shouldn t! (Eugene Wigner) also not Berkeley s solution, but indirectly inspired by Berkeley limericks (slightly misleading) Berkeley s legacy Hume: the connection between the external world and epistemology is all to do with causation. Russell: He thinks he is proving that all reality is mental; what he is proving is that we perceive qualities, not things, and that qualities are relative to the percipient. Bertrand Russell, History of Western Philosophy, London: George Allen and Unwin, 1945, p.649 Simon Blackburn: Berkeley s target is the comfortable, common-sense view of mind as entirely different from matter, yet in satisfactory contact with a material world about which it can know a great deal.... Although his system has proved incredible to virtually all subsequent philosophers, its importance lies in the challenge it offers to a common sense that vaguely hopes that these notions fit together in a satisfactory way. Simon Blackburn, Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, pp.42 43