(BIOGRAPHY: George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, (1685-1753)
a distinguished English philosopher and writer, after whom Berkeley, California, is named,
was born at Dysert Castle, near Thomastown, Ireland, March 12, 1685. Educated in Trinity
College, Dublin, he was appointed an Episcopal prelate, and devoted himself to literature
and to philanthropic efforts to establish in America a college for the education and
conversion of the Indians to Christianity. He lived nearly four years in Rhode Island,
respected, esteemed and beloved by the people of early New England. The British government
neglected to furnish the promised funds for the college, and, having exhausted much of his
own fortune in his benevolent design, Bishop Berkeley was compelled to return to his
native land. So powerfully impressed had he become with the great future of the American
colonies that he wrote the famous poem, "Destiny of America." Alexander Pope,
his most intimate friend, declared he was "possessed of every virtue." He died
January 14, 1753, at Oxford, England. Bishop Berkeley was also a renowned mathematician.
QUICK READING QUIZ: According
to Berkeley, if a tree fell in the forest and no person was there to hear it, would it
make a sound? WE'LL COME BACK TO THIS LATER...
Quick review of Russell's
argument:
1. To say "this table
exists" is merely to say "I am experiencing a number of diverse sense-data
(hard, smooth, brown, etc.) which I call 'table'."
2. Beyond these sense-data, I
can say nothing more.
3. But this means I cannot
assign a cause to these sense-data -- a "real" table -- since this would be to
make a claim about something which I have no access to. (Put differently, I only have
access to my experience of certain sense-data. To claim that there is something which
"causes" these sense-data is to go beyond the evidence).
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4. Therefore, if there is any
difference between how the table appears and how the table really is, I cannot know this.
Berkeley's argument:
1. All the objects of human
knowledge are ideas, either imprinted on the senses, or constructed out of those ideas
already imprinted on the senses.
2. Ideas exist because there
exists something which knows or perceives them.
3. So to say "X
exists" is to say nothing more nor less than "X is perceived."
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4. Therefore, to be (to
exist) is to be perceived.
Whereas Russell stops at
perception, and argues that we can go no further (i.e. he's an agnostic about an independent
reality), Berkeley claims that if we can go no further, there is nothing further
(i.e. he's an
atheist about an independent reality).
NOTE Berkeley's refutation of
the common view that objects exist independent of their being perceived (paragraphs 4 and
5).
Can you respond to the
challenge in paragraph 6 -- "try to separate the being of a sensible thing from its
being perceived"
1. For instance, what is this
table if you take away your perceptions of it...remove its hardness, color,
texture...what's left. NOTHING...hence it is (argues Berkeley) nothing more than these
perceptions. And since these perceptions can exist nowhere else but your mind, everything
is nothing more than an idea.
ANSWER TO QUICK QUIZ: NO --
if no one perceives it, there is no sound.
Berkeley's criticisms of
Locke
1. Locke claims that our
ideas of primary qualities (extension, place, etc.) resemble that which they are ideas of.
Berkeley rejects this claim in paragraph 8 (p. 130). Be able to explain why.
2. The distinction between
primary and secondary qualities comes under attack in paragraphs nine and ten...explain
Berkeley's position
3. Paragraphs 18, 19, and 20
recapitulate Berkeley's rejection of the existence of external bodies. In 18 he notes that
since in our dreams or imagination we can entertain ideas that do not come from any actual
external body (i.e. a unicorn), we could have gotten all the same ideas we have now
without any external bodies existing. In 19, he notes that the materialists (those who
believe in the existence of external bodies) cannot explain how an external bodies can
imprint an idea on the mind (i.e. how can a physical thing create a non-physical -- i.e.
mental -- effect like an idea?) Finally, in 20 Berkeley wonders aloud why we even need to
posit external substances...consider what would happen if we had only ideas of the objects
in the world, and there were no objects themselves. Would anything about our experience be
different? No...so why posit them?
Paragraph 23 sums up
Berkeley's position...briefly note its main points.
Consider, finally, an
excellent question raised by a student in a prior class: if to exist is to be perceived,
and all perceptions exist in my mind, why does MY mind see the chair in the same place
that your mind does? Isn't the obvious answer BECAUSE IT EXISTS INDEPENDENTLY OF MY
PERCEIVING IT?
RESPONSE: Berkeley does not
deny the REALITY of the chair, only the explanation for what makes it real. What makes
this puzzling is that Berkeley wants to claim BOTH (a) that ideas can only occur in the
mind, and hence are dependent on the mind, BUT (b) that ideas are not created by the mind.
He does this by positing the existence of God. The ideas we have are imprinted in our
minds by God -- there is an order of (and to) nature that is created by God. So the reason
you and I both see the chair in the same place is that God imprints in each of minds that
cluster of ideas that comprise the chair. If we did not have minds, we could not have a
perception of the chair (hence the chair's existence depends on our perceiving it). But at
the same time, our perception of the chair is not wholly our own creation -- the ideas
that comprise it are imprinted on us by God.
