Berkeley biography

1. Berkeley biography • 1685-1753, Irish philosopher • Of English descent, hence Protestant • Educated in Dublin • Began writing books early: • 1709 An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision • 1710 Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge • 1713 Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous • 1732 Alciphron • Oversaw a failed missionary project to build a college in the New World (Bermuda). • 1728 Moved to America (Rhode Island) • 1731 Returned to London • Appointed Bishop of Cloyne in 1734 • Became a well-known advocate of tar-water in later years

2. As critic of Locke • Abstract ideas • No such thing • Everything existing is particular • All ideas are particular (though they can be used as general) • Material substance • makes no sense (Berkeley is an immaterialist) • Lockean realism about everyday objects • everyday objects are mind-dependent • otherwise, interaction problems loom • Primary / secondary qualities • all qualities of objects are mind-dependent • Locke and skepticism • Locke’s position leads to skepticism about everyday objects

3. Positive theory • Only minds and ideas exist. • This is a complete inventory of the world. • Everything existing is mind-dependent. • We directly perceive everyday objects as they are. • Everyday objects and their qualities are mind-dependent. • Objects = collections of ideas, qualities = ideas. • Hence there is no gap between how things seem and how they are. • Common sense is saved! • No more skepticism about the real nature of things. • No more scientific models of a colorless, soundless world of Royal Society corpuscles or a Cartesian plenum.

4. Idealism • Berkeley’s theory is a classic version of ‘idealism’. • Idealism: everything existing is mental or mind-dependent, including (should they exist) everyday objects • This term is very unclear and always up-for-grabs, so my definition does not work very well for lots of idealists. • Amazingly, versions of idealism took over German and British philosophy in the 19th century (Kant, Hegel, Schelling, Green, Bradley, McTaggart). • Dualism: both mental/mind-dependent items (minds, ideas) and material/mind-independent items (bodies) exist • Descartes and perhaps Locke (if he’s not just agnostic) • Materialism: everything existing is material, including (should they exist) minds • Hobbes and perhaps Hume (if he’s not just agnostic)

5. Famous (unfair) reactions • Jonathan Swift • When Berkeley was visiting Swift in London in 1713, Swift “instruct[ed] his servants not to open the door to Berkeley when he visited, on the grounds that Berkeley believed he could walk through doors” • Samuel Johnson • “After we came out of the church, we stood talking for some time together of Bishop Berkeley's ingenious sophistry to prove the nonexistence of matter, and that every thing in the universe is merely ideal. I observed, that though we are satisfied his doctrine is not true, it is impossible to refute it. I never shall forget the alacrity with which Johnson answered, striking his foot with mighty force against a large stone, till he rebounded from it – ‘I refute it thus.’”

6. Famous (unfair) reactions • Ronald Knox’s limerick: • There was a young man who said, "GodMust think it exceedingly oddIf he finds that this treeContinues to beWhen there's no one about in the Quad.“ • Perhaps he also wrote this reply: • Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd:I am always about in the Quad.And that's why the treeWill continue to be,Since observed by Yours faithfully, GOD. • William Cowper’s rhyme: • Substances and modes of every kind Are mere impressions in the passive mind;And he that splits his cranium, splits at most A fancied head against a fancied post.

7. Berkeley and common sense • Philonous, end of the 3rd Dialogue • “My endeavours tend only to unite and place in a clearer light that truth, which was before shared between the vulgar and the philosophers: the former being of the opinion, that those things they immediately perceive are the real things; and the latter, the things immediately perceived, are ideas which exist only in the mind. Which two notions put together, do in effect constitute the substance of what I advance.” • Common-sense view: we immediately perceive the real things • Philosophical view: we immediately perceive mind-dependent things • Berkeley’s view: the real things are mind-dependent, and that’s what we immediately perceive

8. Berkeley and common sense • His Principles provoked a lot of misunderstanding and criticism. • So the 3 Dialogues contain a lot of discussion of objections to his view. • Can we still make sense of simple sensory illusions (like a oar in water that looks crooked)? What about the difference between real things, things constructed by the imagination, and things in a dream? • Why has God led us to believe in matter if there isn’t any? Is God a deceiver? • What happens to the natural sciences? Don’t they make use of the notion of matter? Don’t we discover previously hidden qualities of things via microscopes? • When two people perceive the same object, does that mean a single idea is in two minds at once?

9. Berkeley and religion • Look at the subtitles to the Principles and the 3 Dialogues: • Principles: “Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the Sciences, with the Grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are inquired into.” • 3 Dialogues: “in opposition to Sceptics and Atheists” • Berkeley was convinced that modern philosophy was dangerously skeptical: • The new sciences were connected to Cartesian or Lockean philosophy. • Religion was threatened by Descartes’ disenchanted clockwork world and by Locke’s world of unobservable corpuscles and hidden real essences.

11. Principles, Intro overview §§1-5: Whence all this error and skepticism? §§6-10: Against abstractionism §§11-17: Critiquing possible defenses of abstractionism §§18-20: How language spawned abstractionism §§21-25: Warding off words

12. §§1-5: Whence error/skepticism? • Berkeley thinks philosophy’s a mess. • Reason leads us to “paradoxes, difficulties, and inconsistencies” • We make no progress, or end up “in a forlorn Scepticism” • How did this happen? Locke • Things in the world are obscure. • Our intellectual faculties are weak. Berkeley • But we have a strong desire for knowledge, and typically Providence gives us a way to satisfy any strong desires. • Perhaps it’s not our faculties, but instead our misusing them. • Method/purpose • Examine the first principles of human knowledge. • Find the false principles that are responsible for this mess.

13. §§6-10: Against abstractionism • Take a breather. • Berkeley’s about to lay out and then criticize what I’ll call ‘abstractionism’ • “the opinion that the mind hath a power of framing abstract ideas or notions of things” • “the doctrine of abstraction” • Ask yourself these questions: • What exactly is his target? • What exactly are his arguments against abstractionism? • Do his arguments rely on any questionable assumptions? • Why does he think it’s so important to take down abstractionism?

14. §§6-10: Against abstractionism • Abstractionism is a big culprit. • All the important thinkers take abstract ideas for granted. • But what is abstractionism? • [Berkeley now goes through three different kinds of abstraction. It’s unclear how important this threefold distinction is for Berkeley.] • [1] Quality-quality abstraction • In reality, certain qualities always go together. • Indeed, certain qualities cannot exist apart. • But abstractionists say we can separate them in our minds, consider a quality by itself and make an abstract idea. • e.g., though color without extension is impossible, still they say we can make an abstract idea of color without extension

15. §§6-10: Against abstractionism • [2] General-specific quality abstraction • We can start with many specific instances of a quality, consider only what is common to them, and make an abstract idea of that quality in general. • e.g., extension, color, motion • [Notice that just as color without extension was impossible, likewise color without a specific color is impossible] • [3] General-specific object abstraction • We can start with lots of (say) individual humans, consider what’s common, and make an abstract idea of human in general. • This new abstract idea will include color but no specific color, height but no specific height, etc. • [Here Berkeley ‘jumps the gun’ and remarks of motion in general, “what that motion is it is not easy to conceive”]

16. §§6-10: Against abstractionism [Now comes Berkeley’s criticism paragraph] • Introspection: • I can imagine, compound, and divide my ideas (a disembodied nose? a centaur? no problem) • But I cannot imagine a hand without a specific color or a man without a specific height. • I cannot make an idea of motion distinct from all particular kinds of motion. • Possibility of real existence: • I can ‘mentally separate’ x from y when it’s really possible for x to exist without y. • But I cannot mentally separate qualities that are really inseparable [e.g., color from extension] • I cannot make an idea of something in general, abstracting from specific instances of that thing [e.g., color without a specific color, human without a specific height].

17. Possible arguments • One argument that might be there: • If something is genuinely impossible, then you can’t have an idea of it. • Abstract ideas are of genuinely impossible things. • Therefore, you can’t have abstract ideas. • Another argument that might be there: • Ideas are images. • Images cannot be indeterminate / inconsistent / incomplete. • Therefore, ideas cannot be indeterminate / inconsistent / incomplete (i.e., no abstract ideas).

18. First possible argument • If something is genuinely impossible, then you can’t have an idea of it. • In other words, for something to be conceivable, it has to be possible. • N.B. Berkeley thinks things like centaurs or two-headed men are possible. It’s things like color-without-a-specific-color that he rejects as genuinely impossible. • If you reject this premise, you have to say that certain things that are fully conceivable are nevertheless impossible. And then you’re left with the burden of giving a different criterion of possibility. • Abstract ideas are of genuinely impossible things. • Therefore, you can’t have abstract ideas.

19. Second possible argument • Ideas are images. • Roughly, they show up in our mind by showing up in our conscious experience. • Other ways of construing ideas: language (list of properties / predicates), ability, abstract objects. • Of course, imagism about ideas has problems: accounting for the way ideas are supposed to be used in reasoning, for non-visual ideas (think of the way a piano sounds) • Images cannot be indeterminate / inconsistent / incomplete. • Just try it! • Therefore, ideas cannot be indeterminate / inconsistent / incomplete (i.e., no abstract ideas).

20. §§11-17 Defenses of abstractionism • Locke: abstraction marks the boundary between humans and animals. • Locke thinks that using general words implies having general/abstract ideas, and that having general/abstract ideas implies having the power of abstraction. • Berkeley’s alternative account: • A general word doesn’t signify a abstract idea. • Instead, it signifies many particular ideas. • A general idea isn’t made by abstraction. • Is it just a particular idea made to represent all the other particular ideas of its sort. • Example: line diagram used by geometers

21. §§11-17 Defenses of abstractionism • Locke 4.7.9 • making abstract ideas can be difficult, but it is needed for communicating ideas and for getting more knowledge • also includes the ‘inconsistent triangle’ • Difficulty • Can we really make an abstract idea of an inconsistent triangle? • If they are so difficult to make, they must not be needed for communicating ideas. • When are they made? Apparently not as adults (no pains-taking), so as children?

22. §§11-17 Defenses of abstractionism • Getting more knowledge • Mathematical demonstrations don’t require abstract ideas. • They just require ‘general notions’, particular things made to represent many other particulars of the same class. • e.g., a particular triangle made to represent all other triangles (no need of an abstract inconsistent triangle) • Objection: How can you be sure the proof holds for all the other particulars? • Reply: Because the demonstration makes no mention of the specific differentiating features. • Sure, we can consider a particular idea in one respect, and ignore the other respects; but that doesn’t require any abstract idea [!]

23. §§18-20: How languagespawned abstractionism • Language is responsible. • Locke admits as much. • 3.6.39 • One settled idea • The line of thought: Each name has one settled signification/idea. Hence general names do. Hence they have one settled abstract idea as their signification. • But really: general names aren’t restricted to one settled idea, they signify many particular ideas indifferently. • Objection: Aren’t names tied down to one settled signification/idea by their definition? • Reply: Since the definition leaves specific features open, there is variety and hence no one settled signification/idea. (Tying a general name down to a single definition is necessary, but not to some single idea)

24. §§18-20: How languagespawned abstractionism • Communicating ideas • Line of thought: Language is for communicating ideas alone. Each meaningful name stands for an idea. General names are meaningful, but they do not stand for particular ideas. Hence they stand for ‘abstract notions’ • But names needn’t trigger ideas. They can act like algebraic variables. • And language is for more than communicating ideas. There’s also triggering passions, actions, moods, etc. • This triggering often happens without any ‘middleman’ idea. After familiarity, it happens immediately.

25. §§21-25: Warding off words • Words: useful but prone to abuse • So: Berkeley will endeavor to focus on “bare and naked” ideas, ignoring any associated words. • Advantages: • Avoid merely verbal disputes • Avoid the trap of abstract ideas • Avoid error (careful attention is enough to get right the presence, resemblance, and inclusion/exclusion of ideas)

26. §§21-25: Warding off words • Abstractionism’s nasty fallout: • Since abstract ideas are inconceivable, people have been forced to rely on words. • Even those who know the dangers of word abuse have problems: Locke thinks words are for idea-communication, and that general names signify abstract ideas. • But now we’re immunized: • We won’t waste time looking for abstract ideas, or for the idea behind every word. • To get knowledge, we just have to get past the words, and examine our ideas. • Otherwise, our reasonings might lead to error and skepticism. • So please dear reader: read my words, do the thinking for yourself, and then ignore the words.

28. The initial run §1: Objects of knowledge are ideas (e.g., colors, motion, odors). Sensible things are collections of ideas. §2: Other things perceive (=contain) and operate on ideas: minds / spirits. They’re what do the knowing. §3: Sensory ideas and sensible things are mind- dependent. Saying a sensible thing exists is just saying something about possible perception of sensory ideas. Unthinking things existing outside the mind is unintelligible, their esse is percipi. §4: Sensible objects existing outside the mind? Contradictory! Sensible objects are what we perceive, ideas are what we perceive; ideas can’t exist outside the mind, so sensible objects can’t exist outside the mind.

29. The initial run, cont’d §5: You can’t abstract/separate perception from sensory ideas. Perceiving sensible things without sensory ideas would be impossible; so conceiving sensible things without sensory ideas is also impossible. §6: All bodies in the natural world are mind-dependent; no part of them can exist mind-independently. Try to separate a sensible thing’s being from its being perceived. §7: No material substance, only mental substance. Sensible qualities are sensible ideas, and ideas cannot exist in mindless things, so sensible qualities cannot exist in mindless things like material substance. §8: Objection: Things like sensory ideas (resembling them) can exist in mindless things. Reply: Only an idea can be like an idea. Is this x perceivable? If so, x is an idea; if not, x cannot be like sensible qualities.

30. Specific qualities §9: Against 1q/2q theories: 1q’s are mind-dependent ideas, only ideas can be like ideas, hence nothing like 1q’s can exist in an unthinking substance. Material substance is self-contradictory. §10: 1q’s abstracted/separated from 2q’s is inconceivable. Hence if 2q’s are mind-dependent, so too are 1q’s. §11: Size/extension, speed/motion are relative to perspective, and hence cannot exist outside the mind (extension or motion in general involves inconceivable abstraction). Ditto for solidity. §12: Number/measurement is unit-relative and plainly constructed. §13: Unity is an abstract idea. §14: Arguments against the reality of 2q’s also work against 1q’s (shifting appearances, changing q’s w/o changing the thing) §15: These arguments don’t actually show that the qualities aren’t there, just that our senses can’t tell us what qualities are there. But my above arguments show that sensible qualities cannot exist in external unthinking things, and indeed that external objects cannot exist.

31. Attacking matter §16: Matter as the substratum that ‘supports’ extension makes no literal sense. §17: Material substance: being-in-general (abstract idea) + ‘supporting accidents’ (makes no literal sense); in any case, sensible qualities cannot exist outside the mind. §18: Even if possible, unknowable: senses give nothing mind-independent, reason sees no necessary connection between sensory ideas and external matter—matter is not absolutely needed for sensory ideas. §19: And moreover, matter isn’t even a good probable explanation of our sensory ideas, for everyone agrees that mind-body interaction is inexplicable. §20: A victim of radical deception would have all the same reasons we have. §21: And matter leads to other difficulties and errors (and impieties), to be mentioned later.

32. Conceiving the unconceived §22: Try to conceive of an unperceived sensible quality. Try to conceive anything like an idea existing out-side the mind. Succeed in that, and I’ll let you go from ‘matter is possible’ to ‘matter is real’. §23: Master argument: Objection: I can imagine unperc-eived trees. Reply: You’re just imagining trees and then leaving out the idea of someone perceiving them. You need to conceive trees unconceived (a contradiction!). You’re still only contemplating your ideas. The mind can’t conceive bodies outside of a mind—they’re in the mind the whole time! §24: “Sensible objects exist outside the mind” is either meaningless or self-contradictory. Just reflect on this and you’ll see that it’s true.

33. Minds and God §25: What causes our ideas?: We perceive no power in our ideas, so there is no power in our ideas. Hence nothing like our ideas has any power, which means our ideas are not caused by corpuscles or their primary qualities. §26: Spirits cause our ideas: Not qualities/ideas, not material substance, so spiritual substance. §27: No ideas of spirits: Ideas are passive, so they can’t represent anything active. Spirit cannot be directly perceived: try to frame an idea of a spirit. But we have some ‘notion’ of spirit. §28: Ideas from me (imagination): The mind is active here. Our will has control over these ideas. §29: Ideas from another spirit (senses): Our will has no control over these ideas. They come elsewhence.

34. Minds and God, cont’d • Design, laws of nature • §30: Whereas ideas of the imagination are faint and irregular, ideas of the senses are vivid and orderly—which points to a divine intelligence. The rules by which God produces ideas in us are the laws of nature, which we learn by experience. • §31: Practical knowledge of cause and effect comes not from seeing necessary connections, but from observing these laws. • §32: There is no causal power in nature, only in God. The regularity of sensory ideas leads people to falsely attribute power to mere ideas (e.g., the sun is what causes heat). • §33: Real things vs. images of things • Ideas of the senses from God are called real things. • Ideas of the imagination from us are called “ideas, or images of things, which they copy and represent”. • Sensory ideas have “more reality in them”: i.e., they’re more vivid and orderly, and also less dependent on our minds (because they come from God). • But all these ideas are nothing more than ideas.

35. Answering objections • Objection 1: “You’re denying everything that’s real” • Replies • What we perceive is as real as ever. • The distinction between real things and figments of imagination still stands. • I only deny material substance (the masses won’t miss it). • What else could ‘reality’ mean besides strong, orderly, non-imagined ideas?

36. Answering objections • Objection 1b: “Well, you’re taking away material substance” • Reply: Only the philosophers’ ‘substance’, ordinary people’s substance remains. • Objection 1c: “We eat ideas and wear ideas???” • Reply: Sure, it sounds weird put like that. But “We eat and wear what we immediately perceive with our senses” sounds okay. And I care about truth, not linguistic propriety. (I use the term ‘idea’ instead of ‘thing’ because ‘thing’ suggests mind-independent existence and it also applies to minds). • Objection 1d: “I’ll trust my senses, thank you” • Reply: Please do trust your senses, I’m happy with that. Your senses won’t give you anything but ideas.

37. Answering objections • Objection 2: “There’s a big difference between fire and the idea of fire, between really being burnt and imagining being burnt.” • Reply: I’ve already given the answer to this. But I’ll add: there’s a big difference between real pain and the idea of pain, and yet pain is still mind-dependent.” • Objection 3: “We see things as distant” • Reply: You can also dream things as distant. But also, distance isn’t really perceived by sight, but instead suggested by experience-based associations. See my book on vision.

38. Answering objections • Objection 4: “Everything’s blinking in and out of existence???” • Replies: • What could it even mean for an idea to ‘exist’, apart from its being perceived? Again, reflect on your own ideas. Try to conceive ideas (or anything like ideas) existing without being perceived. • Lockeans think 2q’s blink in and out of existence, Scholastics think everything is continually created by God. • And since matter is supposed to be an incomprehensible substratum or something composed of infinitesimal particles, then everyone agrees that all the bodies we see exist only in the mind. • In any case, even if we’ve stopped perceiving something, there might still be some other spirit perceiving it.

39. Answering objections • Objection 5: “If extension/figure exist only in the mind, then is the mind extended and figured???” • Reply: Those qualities are in the mind by being perceived, by way of idea, not by way of mode or attribute. Red and blue exist only in the mind, but the mind has no color. • Also, the traditional substance-mode account makes no sense. There is no underlying subject distinct from all the qualities of a thing, there’s just the qualities and that’s all [this is what’s called a ‘bundle theory’ in metaphysics]. • Objection 6: “What about the successful scientific explanations that cite matter?” • Reply: Matter doesn’t help explain anything: good explanations must explain why we have the ideas we do, but the way matter is supposed to operate on mind is inexplicable. In any case, real scientific explanations just use qualities like figure and motion.

40. Answering objections • Objection 7: “All causes turn out to be spirits? Fire doesn’t heat, spirit heats???” • Reply: Sure, this sounds weird to say, but no big deal. We can still use ordinary language, in the same way heliocentrists still say that the sun sets: “think with the learned, and speak with the vulgar”. We often say things that are strictly speaking false, because they are customary. • Also, others have held the view that there is no causal power in nature (e.g., some Scholastics, Malebranche). The only question is why they even bothered to hypothesize a useless external world filled with inactive bodies.