George Berkeley (1685-1753)

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

2. Bishop Berkeley • The common person has no problems getting around the world. • The philosopher ends up in skepticism • Wants to return to common sense and instincts

3. Problem • The main problem of philosophy concerns the nature and abuse of language. • “I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves – that we have first raised a dust and then complain that we cannot see” (137).

4. Problem • The abuse of Language

5. Purpose • “My purpose therefore is, to try if I can discover what those principles are which have introduced all that doubtfulness and uncertainty, those absurdities and contradictions, into several sects of philosophy;” (137)

6. Abstract Ideas • Do abstract ideas exist in the mind? • Most philosophers and scientist believe they do • What is an abstract idea?

7. Abstract Ideas of Qualities and Modes • The mind can consider a quality independent of the substance upon which it depends. • The mind, therefore, can frame an abstract idea. • For instance, I can consider the idea of color, extension or motion as separate from the substance or object which manifest these ideas.

8. Abstract Ideas • Notice that even though color cannot exist on its own or apart from an extended thing, the mind can through abstraction, contemplate it exclusively.

9. Abstract Ideas of Substances • For instance, the mind having observed several individual or particular persons, such as John, Robert and Betty, it can frame a general abstract idea of person or human. • How does the mind do this?

10. Framing Abstract Ideas • We encounter through our sense individual instances of a kind of thing, the mind then retains what is common to these things and constructs the common idea in which all the particular partake. • If the mind widens its scope of things, it can form more abstract ideas. • For instance, if it considers other creatures in addition to humans, it can abstract from these and frame the general idea of animal.

11. Berkeley's Critique of Abstract Ideas • Berkeley’s main argument is that there cannot be abstract general ideas. • There can only be particular ideas in the mind. • While we can have general terms or signs, they do not refer or signify an idea.

12. There are no Abstract Ideas • Abstract Ideas do not exist. • The positing of abstract ideas goes contrary to commonsense. • The only thing I have that comes close to abstract ideas is the faculty of imagining.

13. The Faculty of Imagination • Through the faculty of imagination I can represent to myself the idea of a person or the idea of an animal. • However, the idea that I represent to myself will have to be of a particular person or animal.

14. Why Can’t Abstract Ideas Exist • All ideas have to be particular. • “Likewise the idea of man that I frame to myself must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny, a straight, or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man. I cannot by any effort of thought conceive the abstract idea above described” (140).

15. The View Berkeley Critiques • “The having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by not means attain unto. For, it is evident we observe signs for universal ideas; from which we have reason to imagine that they have not the faculty of abstracting, or making general ideas, since they have no use of words or any other general signs” (141).

16. Why brutes do not have general ideas? • Brutes do not have general ideas because they do not have the general signs or language. • What is special about humans is not a power to frame an abstract idea, but rather a power to use a general terms in place of a set of particulars.

17. Particulars vs. Generals • “Since all things that exists are only particulars, how come we by general terms?” • Berkeley’s opponent: “Words become general by being made the signs of general ideas.” • Berkeley: “But it seems that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of an abstract general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it indifferently suggest to the mind” (141).

18. For Example • “whatever has extension is divisible” • This proposition is to be understood about all things that have extension, that is, about extension in general. • But they do not represent an abstract idea in my mind! • “The claim implies every particular extension, it matters not whether line, surface, or solid, whether of this or that magnitude, or figure.”

19. General Ideas vs. Abstract GI • Berkeley does not deny General Ideas only Abstract General Ideas. • That is an a particular idea does not become general through abstraction. • It becomes general by being made to represent or stand for all other particular ideas of the same sort.

20. Berkeley on Abstraction • Berkeley did believe that there was abstraction insofar as the mind could separate a quality of a mode from a substance and conceive of this on its own.

21. General Ideas • Necessary for Communication • Necessary of Knowledge: Knowledge is about Universal conceptions

22. Universals • A Universal is not an absolute, positive nature or conception. • Universals consist in the relations it bears to the particulars signified or represented by it. • It is a word that applies to all particular cases.

23. Truth and Universals • If universals do not represent abstract ideas, then how can we have universal truths? • I would have to know that they are true of all particular cases which is impossible. • Berkeley claims that we can abstract insofar as we can consider particular things as generals, e.g., I can consider Peter insofar as he is human.

24. Source of the Problem • The source of the problem is language, Signs and Names. • The assumption is that every name must have one signification. • In fact general names have various particular significations.

25. Source of Problem • The purpose of language to communicate our ideas. • Every name stands for an idea. • This has led us to conclude that general names must represent some idea.

26. Language • The purpose of language is not just communication of ideas • Raising some passion • The exciting to or deterring from an action. • Putting the mind in some disposition. • In doing these things ideas do not intervene between the word and their effect, e.g., the feeling of danger.

27. Conclusion • Abstract general ideas are impossible. • There are only particular ideas. • There are general, universal terms, but they are only words that indifferently represent (are a sign for) particular ideas.