Transcript BERKELEY AND IDEALISM

BERKELEY AND IDEALISM
EMPIRICISM
Strange to claim there is
an external world;
Inconceivable that mind independent
matter causes our experiences
SCEPTICISM
Realism entails a gap
Between appearance and reality
Objects are families of ideas, so
there is no sceptical gap
GOD
God is required as the (only) source of
the stable families of sense experiences
which constitute objects
God creates a world in which we are not
victims of the sceptical gap
The Road to Idealism

To be is to be perceived.

Idealism is thesis that all our experiences are experiences
of mental representations.

There is no world of material, physical objects as we
ordinarily think of them ‘out there’ in the world and which
cause our beliefs, perceptions, feels and so on.

Material objects are to be understood as families of
experiences.

There exist no objects independent of the mind…

…except God (according to Berkeley)
Berkeley’s Reasoning

George Berkeley (1685-1753) is committed to
empiricism.

Big problem with the primary – secondary
property distinction.

The qualities of an object taken all together seem
to be equally mind-dependent.


It is only if physical objects are collections of
ideas we experience in perception that we have
any empirical evidence for their existence.
Radical re-thinking of what we mean by ‘physical
object’.
…Principles of Human Knowledge (1710)

If knowledge is grounded in
experience (empiricism), then we
have no perceptual experience which
grounds the claim that there exist
mind-independent objects.

Why?
What can we conclude from our experience of the world?




We immediately or directly perceive ideas (e.g.
beliefs, memories, sensations).
Your experience is your perception of qualities or
properties.
The vast majority of collections of sensory
perceptions occur with regularity and stability.
They come to be named, ‘and so reputed to be
one thing’, such as an apple or tree.
Furthermore…
 There
is something distinct from
what is perceived. This is the mind or
soul or myself. (Principles 2)
and
 One’s ideas (e.g. beliefs) cannot
exist except in the mind perceiving
them. (Principles 3)
Arriving at Idealism…



It now follows that if objects are
collections of qualities and qualities are
sensible ideas, then objects are sensible
ideas.
Their essence is to be perceived: esse est
percipi.
Nor is it possible that they should have
any existence out of the minds that
perceive them. (Principles 3)

Idealism is shocking.

But no scope to allow objects a perception-independent
experience.

Objects are combinations of perceptions. No perception can
exist unperceived. (Principles 4)

The notion of mind-independent existence is a
contradiction. (Principles 5)

God is the source of orderly sets of sense experiences.

God ensures that objects exist when unperceived by noone. (Principles 6)
The Master Argument (Three Dialogues 1713)

Everything is mind-dependent because the
very attempt to conceive of something
mind-independent is impossible.

In conceiving of it, you involve your mind.

Think of something…
Problems with Idealism?
 Idealism
is absurd. Samuel Johnson
kicked a nearby stone and said, ‘I
refute it thus!’
 But
what does this establish?
 Kicking
the stone establishes
Idealism as well as Realism. Visual
stone experiences are followed by
tactile stone experiences.




It is expensive.
Instead of the world being the source of
our experiences, we have to suppose God
is.
How can I be sure God exists?
Wouldn’t God create a world in which the
simple, commonsense answer (it’s the
world causing my perceptions, Dummy!) is
the right one?



How to explain dreams, error and
illusion?
No problem – wild or random sequence of
perceptual experiences in relation to wellordered experiences we associate with
veridical perceptions.
Explain the sense in which a
misperception is false in terms of what
one can say about the object in ordinary
circumstances.

It is confused. Master Argument runs together
two thoughts:
(1) You cannot conceive of anything without conceiving of
it.
(2) You cannot conceive of anything unconceived.

(1) is trivially true.

(2) is false.

I can think of a world in which there are no
minds. Just because I am thinking of it, I am not
involved in it.
 It
leads to solipsism.
 How
can I be sure that there are
other minds if all I experience are
ideas?
 Berkeley
– Minds: esse est percipere
(to be is to perceive). But, how can
one know there is more than one’s
own mind?