George Berkeley 16851753

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George Berkeley (1685-1753)
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BERKELEYS METAPHYSICAL IDEALISM

• Berkeley is a metaphysical idealist, or
  immaterialist, regarding the ultimate nature of
  reality. He denies the existence of matter.
• For Berkeley, the universe consists of minds and
  their ideas. Both minds and ideas are
  immaterial.
• As reality contains nothing except minds and
  their ideas, and minds and ideas are immaterial,
  there is no such thing as matter or physical
  objects of any kind. In thinking that matter
  exists, both science and common sense are
  mistaken.

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EXISTENCE I

• For Berkeley, a thing which exists is either
  something which is perceived, or is the thing
  which does the perceiving. The thing which
  perceives is a mind. That which is perceived is
  either an idea or a cluster of ideas.
• Objects in the external world like trees and
  stars cannot exist apart from minds which are
  aware of them. Minds are beings which perceive
  and will. Perception is passive while such
  mental operations as willing, imagining, and
  remembering are active.

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EXISTENCE II

• Existence for Berkeley then takes two forms 1)
  To exist is to be perceived. This is passive
  existence. An external world object of which a
  mind is aware exists passively. 2) To exist is to
  be a perceiver or agent. That is, a mind. This
  is active existence.
• According to Berkeley, there is and can be
  nothing which exists which is not either an
  active mind or an object of perception of an
  active mind. And objects of perception consist
  of ideas, and are therefore mental in nature, not
  physical. Since both minds and their ideas are
  immaterial, and these are all the things there
  are, there is no matter in the universe.

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IDEAS I

• Berkeley continues the use of idea which we
  have seen to be used by Descartes and Locke. For
  Berkeley, idea is used in a very wide sense to
  include sensations, thoughts, memories, images,
  feelings, and anything which is an object of a
  current act of awareness or knowing something.
• We typically think of an idea as being attached
  to or a property of some mind. For instance,
  when a person says I have an idea we think that
  the idea is a kind of mental entity, and, as
  such, is mind-dependent. Thus physical objects
  like rocks dont have ideas.

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IDEAS II

• Recall that, for Locke, an idea stands for
  whatever is the object of the understanding when
  a person thinks and an idea is whatever it is
  which the mind can be employed about in
  thinking.
• In his wide use of the term idea, Berkeley
  makes it stand for whatever is an object of
  awareness, or ideas form the data of awareness.
• This includes sense data. Sense data are ideas
  in Berkeleys sense of idea.
• By saying that sense data like a patch of yellow
  or a rough surface are ideas, Berkeley ties them
  fundamentally to minds without which they cannot
  exist.

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IDEAS III

• For Berkeley, anything known by a mind, in being
  known, is an idea.
• Berkeley says that ideas come from perceptions of
  external objects - what he calls ideas actually
  imprinted on the senses - things like colors and
  shapes. (Lockes source of ideas in sensation.)
• We are also aware of ideas when we attend to the
  passions and operations of the mind. (Lockes
  source of ideas in reflection.)
• Thus emotions and feelings are also ideas. When
  Im happy my happiness is an idea since it is
  something of which I am aware.
• And objects of mental operations such as memory
  and imagination are also ideas.

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IDEAS IV

• Perceptions, emotions, sensations, and thoughts
  of things are ideas which we can grasp which are
  either outside of the mind or inside of it.
• However, the mind also has the ability to
  generate new ideas through the use of memory and
  imagination. And, as with Locke, the mind does
  this by combining or dividing ideas which it has
  previously perceived.

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EMPIRICISM AND IDEAS

• Berkeley is an empiricist, and he agrees with
  Locke that all knowledge depends on experience.
• But Berkeleys idealism means that, for him, a
  common object like an apple is a collection of
  ideas. This is because what we would call sense
  data - things like colors, and shapes, and
  textures - are ideas in his sense of idea.

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OBJECTS AND IDEAS

• Thus, a common external world object like an
  apple is a collection of ideas since it is a
  combination of colors, shapes, textures, smells,
  and tastes. And colors, shapes, textures,
  smells, and tastes are kinds of data of which
  minds are aware, and, as sense data or mind
  data, all of these things are equally ideas for
  Berkeley.
• For Berkeley, any object like an apple simply is
  a combination of ideas and nothing more.
• Objects for Berkeley are combinations of ideas
  which we associate with a single object. We take
  a particular collection of ideas to be a single
  object and refer to it with a word like apple.

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RUSSELL AND BERKELEY

• You can see here Russells indebtedness to
  Berkeley. For Russell, an external world object
  like a table is a cluster of sense data - things
  like colors, and shapes, and textures which we
  are aware of in perception. These sense data are
  taken to be signs, for Russell, of a physical
  object which causes them.
• The difference here between Berkeley and Russell
  is that Berkeley refuses to say that the sense
  data or collection of ideas is a sign of matter
  which causes them. For Berkeley, an idea can only
  be a sign of another idea, not of something which
  is not an idea.
• Berkeley could not be an idealist if he admitted
  that there is a physical cause of the sense data
  or collection of ideas. Objects for Berkeley are
  only collections of ideas and there is no matter
  behind them or supporting them. Berkeley then
  rejects the idea of physical substance.

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MINDS AND IDEAS

• There can be no ideas or objects of knowledge
  apart from a mind which is aware of the ideas as
  objects of knowledge.
• Ideas then for Berkeley depend on minds, and an
  unperceived idea, or an idea of which no mind is
  aware is a contradiction. There is an analytic
  relation between minds and ideas because the
  contradictory of a statement like All ideas are
  ideas of some mind is self-contradictory. That
  is, for Berkeley, to say that Something can
  exist apart from some mind is an absurd,
  self-contradictory assertion.

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THE KNOWER AND THE KNOWN I

• My mind, or any mind, which is aware of its ideas
  is a thing distinct from those ideas.
• That is, myself as a knower and the things I know
  are two different things.
• That which is perceived is perceived by a mind.
  And that which perceives and that which is
  perceived are two different things.

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THE EXISTENCE OF EXTERNAL WORLD OBJECTS I

• Berkeley says that to say that an external world
  object like a table exists means that it is an
  object of perception. I say that the table
  exists because I see it or feel it or both. And
  if the table exists when I am not perceiving it,
  then some other mind must be perceiving it.
• This must be the case, since to talk of external
  world objects apart from minds is unintelligible.
  External world objects are clusters of ideas
  such as colors, and shapes, and felt textures,
  and all such things have a necessary relation to
  mind.

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THE EXISTENCE OF EXTERNAL WORLD OBJECTS II

• To talk about the existence of objects apart from
  mind is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their
  esse is percipi their being is to be perceived,
  nor is it possible that they should have any
  existence out of the minds or thinking things
  which perceive them.
• As objects are collections of ideas for Berkeley,
  as the existence of an idea consists in being
  perceived, and as perception depends on minds or
  perceivers, there can be no external world
  objects apart from minds.

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THE KNOWER AND THE KNOWN II

• Berkeley takes the knower-known relation and
  applies it to the universe at large. It is
  unintelligible to say that something is known
  apart from a knower that knows it.
• And because external world objects consist of the
  ideas we have of them in perception, and ideas
  cannot exist apart from minds, objects of
  awareness cannot exist apart from the minds which
  are aware of them. Therefore their esse is
  percipi, or their being is to be perceived, and
  they have no being apart from perception.
• This is Berkeleys idealism.

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BERKELEYS TABLE I

• Berkeley asks what we mean or can mean by a
  common object such as a table. When we are aware
  of a table as an object of perception then we are
  aware of it as a number of different colors,
  shapes, textures and so forth - what we see,
  feel, and so forth.
• That is, we perceive the table to be a collection
  of ideas sense data, and that is all we can
  mean by the table as it is perceived - that it is
  a combination of ideas.

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BERKELEYS TABLE II

• All we can mean by the table when we or someone
  else is not perceiving it is what we would
  perceive if we were perceiving the ideas which we
  associate with the table. For Berkeley then, all
  that can be meant by the table is either what
  we do perceive or what we would perceive when the
  table is an object of perception.
• Apart from this we cant mean anything else at
  all. All that we can mean by the table is
  either a collection of ideas that is being
  perceived or could be perceived, and apart from a
  necessary link to perception we cannot understand
  the table to mean anything at all.

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BERKELEYS TABLE III

• Berkeley says that any conception of the absolute
  existence of an object, as a thing in itself
  apart from a relation to a mind, is
  unintelligible.
• We cant even form the idea of a table apart from
  perception, because all that we can understand by
  the notion is what we perceive or would perceive
  when we are aware of a table. Berkeley says that
  we cant form an abstract conception of a table
  apart from the perceptual ideas we associate with
  it. This is because the table and the cluster of
  perceptions we associate with it are really one
  and the same thing, and so it would be like
  trying to take the object away from itself -
  nothing would be left.

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BERKELEYS TABLE IV

• We can imagine the table without its legs or with
  a different color, but we cant take away all the
  ideas or sense data which we associate with the
  table or nothing is left.
• And we cant conceive of or imagine what an
  object would be apart from all the ideas we
  associate with it. That is, we have to form a
  picture of an object based upon what we can
  perceive, and if we take away all ideas of the
  object in thought or imagination nothing is left.
  Accordingly, we have no conception of the
  object.

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BERKELEYS TABLE V

• Try to conceive of what a table would be as an
  object without a color, without a shape, a
  volume, a texture, and so forth, what kind of
  conception can you form? None, according to
  Berkeley, and this seems correct.
• Even our sophisticated scientific picture of a
  table as billions of subatomic particles whirling
  about in mostly empty space is, apart from pure
  mathematical descriptions, based upon what we
  perceive in ordinary life at the macroscopic
  level.

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BERKELEYS TABLE VI

• For Berkeley, there is no table apart from what
  we perceive - no physical object underneath the
  sense data.
• This is a rejection of physical substance and
  another application of Ockhams razor. If you
  can eliminate the table, as a substantial
  physical object, and if you can prove that
  reality consists of ideas alone and you do not
  need matter, then eliminate it.

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THE CONCEPTION AND EXISTENCE OF OBJECTS LIKE
TABLES

• We have been talking about our conception of a
  table as something which is necessarily linked to
  ideas. However, if a table truly exists when I
  am not perceiving it, it is not enough to talk
  about its existence as a cluster of possible
  ideas. If a table exists which I am not
  perceiving, then some other mind must be aware of
  it. Because the table is a cluster of ideas, and
  ideas depend on minds, no table or other external
  world object can exist apart from perception.
• The essence of objects is to be perceived esse
  est percipi - to be is to be perceived.

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THE ABSURDITY OF MIND-INDEPENDENT MATTER

• Most people think that tables go right on
  existing when no one is looking, and that a table
  is a physical object and not a cluster of ideas.
  But Berkeley says that this involves a
  contradiction.
• The contradiction is that objects like tables are
  only things which we perceive through the senses,
  and that what we perceive through the senses are
  ideas, and ideas depend on minds - no minds no
  ideas.
• Common objects can only be perceived, that is, we
  can only know of objects like tables in terms of
  what we can perceive. There is no faculty of
  mental intuition by which we know the table as
  something behind or supporting the things which
  we perceive. Therefore, objects like tables just
  consist of what we perceive and nothing more.

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TO BE IS TO BE PERCEIVED I

• For Berkeley, no object can exist which is either
  not a mind or is not an idea of which some mind
  is aware. For the external world objects with
  which we are acquainted in perception, this means
  that their being consists in their being
  perceived.
• And apart from being perceived they can have no
  existence at all. So long as external world
  objects are not actually being perceived by me,
  or do not exist in my mind or that of any other
  created spirit, they must either have no
  existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of
  some Eternal Spirit. God.
• That external world objects continue to exist
  apart from human or other animal perception
  Berkeley takes to be a proof of Gods existence.

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TO BE IS TO BE PERCEIVED II

• For Berkeley, when you or I or anyone else is not
  perceiving an object, if the object continues to
  exist, as Berkeley believes it does, it does so
  as an idea in the mind of God.
• Nothing exists which is not being perceived, at
  least by God.
• A thing which does not exist, but which could
  exist, fails to exist because it is not an idea
  in the mind of anyone. That is, it is not being
  perceived.
• For Berkeley, to be is to be perceived. Here
  perceived is not limited to sense knowledge,
  but includes internal ideas such as objects of
  thought and imagination. Accordingly, perceive
  is used in a wide sense that makes it equivalent
  to to be aware of.

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PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES

• Primary qualities include extension, shape,
  motion, rest, solidity, and number that is, that
  the length, width, height, speed, and density of
  an object can be measured. Primary qualities
  are normally thought to be mind-independent, and
  thus characteristic of things as they are in
  themselves, that is, as material objects.
• Secondary qualities are all sensible qualities
  which are not primary, and include colors,
  sounds, tastes, odors, and felt textures.
  Secondary qualities are often thought to be
  mind-dependent in that physics does not tell us
  that the object has a color, but consists of
  atoms which lack color. Color is due to matter
  interacting with minds or brains.

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BERKELEY ON PRIMARY AND SECONDARY QUALITIES

• Berkeley says that primary qualities are just as
  mind-dependent as secondary ones. As such, they
  cant be characteristic of matter. And they are
  just as mind-dependent because they too are
  ideas.
• Even our ideas of primary qualities are ideas,
  and, as such, have a necessary relation to mind.
  Thus the idea of matter as something inert and
  senseless and existing in itself apart from mind
  is a contradictory notion.
• If primary qualities are mind-dependent, then
  they cannot be characteristics of objects which
  exist whether anyone is aware of them or not.

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IDEAS ARE PASSIVE I

• For Berkeley, we passively receive ideas in
  perception. And the very being of an idea
  implies passiveness, since it is impossible for
  an idea, as an idea, to do anything or cause
  anything.
• There is nothing of power or agency in an idea.
  One idea or object of thought then cannot
  produce or make any alteration in another.
• Berkeley says that anyone who reflects on these
  points can see for himself that they are true.

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IDEAS ARE PASSIVE II

• When we perceive the ideas or sense data we take
  to be a table, we see just the ideas as passive
  any color, shape, and so forth is simply
  presented to perception with no sense of power or
  activity in them. But what about the power of
  the table to support a lamp?
• According to Berkeley, we dont see the power as
  something itself, we just see the table
  supporting the lamp.
• Similarly, we can see the color of the flame from
  a burner on the stove and can feel its heat -
  each of which is an idea - but we cant similarly
  perceive the flames capacity to boil water. All
  we can perceive is that when the flame heats a
  pot of water it boils. We can see the flame and
  the boiling water, but we cant see the power of
  the flame to make the water boil.

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IDEAS ARE PASSIVE III

• So when we say that the flame makes the water
  boil, we are asserting more than we can perceive.
  This is because all we can perceive is the flame
  and the water boiling, and we cant see the power
  of the flame to make the water boil.
• Here Berkeley is talking about our lack of
  ability to perceive causal connections between
  things in addition to simply perceiving the
  things themselves. This is a point which Hume
  takes over from Berkeley.

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MIND, UNDERSTANDING, AND WILL

• Berkeley A spirit mind is one simple,
  undivided, active being - as it perceives ideas
  it is called the understanding, and as it
  produces or acts on ideas it is called the will.
• So, for Berkeley, a spirit or mind is a mental
  substance with the two aspects of understanding
  and will. However, we cant have any idea of the
  mind as active since all ideas are passive.
  Accordingly, the mind as active cannot itself be
  perceived, and can only be known through its
  effects.

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THE CAUSE OF IDEAS I

• Berkeley notes that we perceive a continual
  succession of ideas. (This continual succession
  of ideas which Berkeley says we see in the
  external world is taken over by Hume in his talk
  of the self as consisting of just a continuous
  series of perceptions.)
• Now Berkeley notes that there must be a cause of
  this succession of ideas since we do not cause
  the external world objects which we perceive.
  And that cause cannot itself be an idea or a
  combination of ideas like a table - weve just
  seen that causes cant be seen.

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THE CAUSE OF IDEAS II

• A person has some power over his own thoughts,
  but has no power over what objects ideas the
  person perceives in the external world. The
  cause of our ideas of external world objects then
  has to be some immaterial active substance or
  spirit other than ourselves.
• The cause of our ideas of external world objects
  cant be physical because Berkeley takes it to be
  proved that there is no such thing as matter. In
  addition, ideas are passive and so cant be
  causes which are active.
• The cause of our ideas sense data of external
  world objects is God. And for Berkeley we can
  know that God exists as the cause of these ideas.
  Such things as we perceive in nature, and the
  regularity of nature that is described by the
  laws of science, are due to God.

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BERKELEY AND REALISM I

• Recall that realism regarding external world is
  the position that objects do not depend on
  awareness of them for their existence. Or
  realism is the position that at least some kinds
  of object sometimes exist without being
  perceived. Such objects can be described as
  being mind-independent. Berkeley is not a
  realist in this sense.

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BERKELEY AND REALISM II

• However, Berkeley does maintain that external
  world objects can exist apart from human
  perception. External world objects for Berkeley
  are clusters of ideas, and they can exist as
  ideas as long as some mind is aware of them. The
  mind which is aware of things like mountains, and
  stones, and stars when no earthly mind is aware
  of them is God.
• Thus Berkeley denies realism as an assertion of
  the possibility of mind-independent objects, but
  says that objects do exist independently of our
  awareness.

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CONSIDERATIONS OF BERKELEIAN IDEALISM I

• Recall that Berkeley follows Locke in saying that
  the data of awareness is ideas, and that ideas
  are mind-dependent. Since any object is either a
  simple or complex idea, and ideas are
  mind-dependent, then there can be no such thing
  as a mind-independent object.
• But do we have to say that that of which we are
  aware when we are aware is an idea or group of
  ideas? Does Berkeleys position just follow from
  a point of terminology? That is, by saying that
  what we are aware of when we are aware is an idea
  or set of ideas it follows that everything is
  mind-dependent?

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CONSIDERATIONS OF BERKELEIAN IDEALISM II

• Berkeleys argument might be said to have the
  following form 1) Objects of awareness depend on
  awareness or there can be no object of awareness
  apart from things that are aware. 2) Things that
  are aware are minds, and minds are immaterial.
  3) Objects of awareness, in depending on
  immaterial minds which are aware of them, are
  themselves immaterial. These are Berkeleys
  ideas. 4) We can conceive of no object apart
  from the ideas we associate with it. Take away
  the ideas and you take away the object. 5) This
  then seems to leave no room in the universe for
  mind-independent matter.

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CONSIDERATIONS OF BERKELEIAN IDEALISM III

• The first point, that objects of awareness are
  dependent on awareness is simply logical, and so
  can be accepted. However, a materialist like
  Taylor would not accept the second point that
  anything which perceives or is conscious is
  thereby necessarily immaterial. A materialist or
  even a dualist would also not accept the third
  point that objects of awareness must be
  immaterial, or need not conceive that an object
  of awareness is an idea and therefore immaterial.
  Why assume that a mind or brain cannot be
  conscious of matter?

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CONSIDERATIONS OF BERKELEIAN IDEALISM IV

• Point four would not be accepted by Russell or
  any scientific realist, since it is conceivable
  that we can work with mathematical descriptions
  of subatomic particles quite successfully, and
  so, even when we have subtracted the primary and
  secondary qualities of an object of which we are
  aware in perception, something remains which can
  fulfill our concept of matter.
• Thus it would not seem to follow that everything
  is necessarily immaterial as Berkeley supposes.