George Berkeley (1685-1753)

1. George Berkeley (1685-1753) Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge

2. The Principles of Human Knowledge 1. Ideas 1.1 From sense 1.2 From reflections 1.3 From memory and imagination 2. Mind (spirit, soul, or myself)

3. 1. IDEAS • The existence of an idea is nothing but its being perceived. • Thoughts, passion, and ideas formed by the imagination are dependent on the mind. • Ideas imprinted by the sense are also dependent on the mind, that is, they would not exist if they were not perceived.

4. The Meaning of Existence • What does it mean to say that a sensible thing exists? • For example a table that is in front of you.

5. Exists • There was an odor = it was smelt. • There was a color = it was perceived. • There was a sound = it was heard.

6. Esse is Percipi • Existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived are unintelligible. • These things cannot exist outside of minds or thinking things that perceive them.

7. Things Exist • Some hold that things exist independent of perception. • Houses and mountains exist. • But this is a contradiction because what are these things except the things we perceive, and what we perceive is our own ideas or sensations.

8. The Fault of Abstract Ideas • Berkeley claims that positing the existence of material things independent of thought is based on the false notion of abstract ideas. • We abstract or separate the things from its being perceived. • We do this in our mind, since we cannot conceived of a thing unperceived.

9. Argument • “I may, indeed, divide in my thoughts, or conceive apart from each other, those things which perhaps I never perceived by sense so divided. • For instance, I can imagine the trunk of a human body without the limbs. • I also do this with sensible objects and existence. • “Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so it is impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it.”

10. Primary Qualities • It is argued that primary qualities – extension, figure, motion, rest, solidity and impenetrability - exists independent of the mind. • “Again, great and small, swift and slow, are allowed to exist nowhere without the mind, being entirely relative and changing as the frame or position of the organs of sense varies” … “Number is also visibly relative.” (155) • “I shall farther add that, after the same manner as modern philosophers prove certain sensible qualities to have no existence in matter, or without the mind, the same thing may be likewise proved of all other sensible qualities whatsoever” (156).

11. New Ontology Old Ontology • Minds/Spirits/Souls or Immaterial Substance. • Material Substances. • Ideas existing only in the mind. • Ideas existing in the mind and in the external world. • God creates and conserves all of the material world and the spiritual world. New Ontology • Minds/Spirits/Souls or Immaterial Substance • Ideas existing only in the mind. • God who conserves (through his will) all ideas.

12. Summary of Arguments 1) Pragmatist’s Argument: What does it mean to say that a thing exists? 2) The No Evidence Argument: There simply cannot be any evidence for the view that there are things that exist and are not perceived. 3) The Epistemological Argument: even if there were such things, we could never know it. 4) Ockham’s Razor Argument: Simpler ontology 5) The Primary/Secondary Qualities Argument: The argument in support of SQs being mind dependent works just as well on PQs.

13. Summary of Arguments 6) PQs are ideas and they cannot have powers; they are passive not active. 7) Ideas vs. Material Things Argument: Ideas, as “representations or pictures” of material things can never resemble material thing because ideas are substantially different things from material things. 8) Materialism’s Lack of Explanatory Value: Theories should provide explanations about the world not cause inexplicable difficulties. The positing of matter raises the inexplicable Mind-Body Problem: How does material things cause ideas? “But neither can this be said: for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced, since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind” (158).

14. Summary of Arguments 9) The idea of matter as the substratum that supports the ideas is meaningless. (What does it mean that matter “supports” extension? “It is on this therefore that I insist, to wit, that the absolute existence of unthinkable things are words without a meaning, or which include a contradiction” (160). 10) Possibility Argument: “That it is possible we might be affected with all the ideas we have now, though there were no bodies existing without, resembling them” (158).

15. Summary of Arguments 11) Religious Argument: Material world is superfluous from a theistic perspective. 12) Religious Argument: No extra duties attributed to God (Theists believe that God create and continuously conserves the existence of the world.)

16. Conservation of Sensible Things • If things cannot exists unperceived, then what happens to the tree in the Amazon forest that no one perceives? (1) The tree exists unperceived. (prominent materialist view) (2) The tree does not exists. (3) The tree comes into and out of existence, as someone perceives it and later does not perceive it respectively. (4) There is an Eternal Spirit who perceives everything.

17. 2. SPIRIT • “A spirit is one simple, undivided, active being” (161) • As it perceives ideas it is called the understanding. • As it produces or operates about them it is called the will.

18. Spirit • There can be no idea of a soul or spirit. • “Such is the nature of spirit, or that which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived, but only be the effects which it produceth” (161) Very Pragmatic • A spirit/soul is an agent of action and not an idea.

19. Who Produces Ideas • Some ideas I produce (e.g., willing, imaginations, memory, etc) • However, some ideas are forced upon me; they are involuntary. • These must be produced by another spirit.

20. Regular Ideas • Some ideas are produced in a steady, coherent order. • “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, which teaches us that such and such ideas are attended with such and such ideas” (162).

21. Real Things • Real things are simply the ideas imprinted on the sense by the Author of nature. • “Those excited in the imagination, being less regular, vivid, and constant, are more properly termed ideas, or images of things” (163).

22. Objections 1) No more real nature. 2) There is a difference between a real fire and the idea of fire. 3) We see things at a distance so they cannot be in the mind. 4) Things are every moment annihilated and created anew. 5) If extension and figure exist in the mind, the mind must be extended and have a figure. 6) Many things have been explained by matter and motion.

23. Objections 7) Is not the elimination of natural causes absurd? 8) Everyone believes that there is matter. Must we suppose the whole world to be mistaken? 10) This theory contradicts truths of natural sciences, such as the motion of the earth. 11) If there is not nature or physical things? Why have all of the organization in plants and animals? 12) What if we change our definition of matter to an inert senseless substance? 13) What if we change our definition of matter to stand as an unknown somewhat?

24. Human Knowledge • IDEAS (pp. 185-206) Paragraphs 86-134 Natural philosophy (pp.191-198) Para.101-117 Mathematics (pp. 198-206) Para. 118-134 • SPIRITS (pp. 206-215) Paragraphs 135-156