. . . Here we discuss only Berekley’s Principles of Human Knowledge. The Dialogues can be handled separately. It is interesting to note that Berkeley does very little positive metaphysics, other than saving free will and the soul (allowing for life after death) from materialism, and giving a rationalist explanation for miracle. However, he did foundational work in subjective idealism, which was used by many of the German idealists and Indian philosophy, Aztec philosophy, and so forth. Berkeley uses the word idea for what was later known as representation by the German idealists onward.
Berkeley uses the words mind, spirit, sand soul interchangeably. Berkeley begins with the opening syllogism: (a) all objects of human knowledge are either ideas imprinted on the senses, ideas involving the operations of the mind, or ideas formed in the imagination by compounding ideas impressed on the senses, (b) ideas cannot exist unperceived mind, so (c) the objects of human knowledge cannot exist unperceived the mind. Since tables chairs, trees and so forth are objects of human knowledge, it follows that tables, chairs, trees and so forth cannot exist unperceived by a mind. If we examine the tenet that objects exist independently of the mind we find that it is impossible to separate these things from perception. Since these objects are contained within the mind, it follows that there is no substance other than spirit. To say that something exists means that it is experienced or would be experienced under appropriate conditions. For instance to say thsat the chair one sits on exists means that you see and feel it, and if you are out of the room, it means you would perceive it. This means that things are created anew and destroyed upon opening and closing one’s eyes. Tables chairs trees and so forth really exist, but they exist only in the mind of the perceiver or some nonhuman spirit. Any time a person attempts to conceive a book exising in a room by itself for instance, with no one perceiving it, they are simply admitting that if they were were in the room at that time time they would percieve it that way.
Berkeley then goes on to gives a series of indirect arguments for idealism. (1) An idea can be like nothing but another idea, a color can be like nothing but another color. It is impossible to conceive anything unlike them that they resemble. Are the things that they resemble perceivable or not? If they are perceivable, then they are ideas, and if they are not, they have no qualities, and how can an idea be like that? (2) Berkeley distinguishes between primary and secondary qualities. The understanding is that primary qualities such as solidity, shape, rigidity exist independently of the mind, while secondary qualities such as color, taste, heat exist only in the mind. However it is asked if it is possible in any mode of thought to abstract primary qualities from secondary qualities, and this indeed impossible to do. Since secondary qualities exist only in the mind, it follows that primary qualities exist only in the mind. (3) If we attempt to inquire into what is meant by material substance, we find that this is a meaningless term, and no matter which way one attempts to frame it, it leads to contradiction. Therefore, there is no reason to posit material substance as existing. (4) Even if matter existed, it cannot be demonstrated through reason since it is possible that all of our senses are produced without any object corresponding to them. Thus it is impossible to know whether material objects exist.
Ideas must have a cause, and this cause cannot be matter so that this cause must be spirit. The mind acts upon ideas, so we can have no idea of mind, However, we can have some notion of mind since we can be aware of its actions. Once the nonexistence of the external world is demonstrated, the soul becomes immortal. We can make ideas of imagination at will but our sense perceptions are more coherent than the ideas of our imagination and don’t depend on our will. Therefore, they must be held in place by some nonhuman spirit. The blemishes in creation should be seen as ways of augmenting the beauty of the rest of nature. The uneasiness that comes with the world can be seen as the effects of imperfect finite spirits. The world is contained within the mind and things at a distance are just as close to the mind as near things. We see in two dimensions. The three dimensional appearance of things are fluctuations in appearance when the person moves. It can be objected that Berkeley’s idealism comes into contradiction with the natural sciences since it cannot explain the complexities of animal bodies, why food nourishes, and so forth. For instance, why is this done without all the apparatus. The reasoning is that these are simply secondary manifestations of what happens directly in the mind. If someone finds the cause fire in terms of its chemical properties and so forth, these chemicals only exist under the microscope they are being observed, and indicates simply a sign as to when the fire will occur. Miracles are explainable through Berkeley’s idealism as God overturning the laws of physics and producing something according to his will in his mind.
Defense Against Georges Dicker
To refute Berkeley, Dicker argues that Berkeley successfully refuted Locke’s representationalism in which there is an external object, but that object is unperceivable. Dicker creates a two-term theory of perception in which there is an external object that we indirectly perceive and has the disposition to create the secondary qualities in the mind. Objects have a dispositional aspect as well as a manifest aspect. The color red is simultaneously the disposition of an object to look the color red under normal light and the conscious episode of the object appearing red. The problem with this version of representationalism is that it leaves the object undefined and there is no way of defining what this object is. The only options would be to define the object as a bundle of primary qualities without any secondary qualities. But this is impossible to do as described below since there is no way to abstract the primary qualities from the secondary qualities, and other aspects of perception such as zooming and weight. It can serve as a useful heuristic to help one function in the world, but the empirical reality of experience can be accounted for from a purely idealistic perspective, and this can be done in many ways. There is further paradox that comes into place with this perspective such as the inability to handle free will and the existence of the soul.
Dickers’ first two refutations ultimately rest on the error of him leaving his notion of the object undefined. Berkeley tries to derive the statement that an idea can be like nothing but another idea from the statement that a sensible quality can be like nothing but another sensible quality. The argument is (a) all sensible qualities are things that can resemble only sensible qualities (b) sensible qualities are identifiable with ideas, ∴(c) ideas can resemble only ideas. Dicker argues that Berkeley is begging the question since an idea can resemble something that is not an idea, namely, an object. Dicker resorts to his two-term theory of representationalism in which we immediately perceive an idea, but we indirectly perceive an object. However, Dicker again leaves this object undefined. There is no way to define this object without making it an idea since by (a), sensible qualities can only resemble sensible qualities. If the object has no color then there is no way for the noncolor to resemble the color. It cannot be a more exact copy of our ideas since that is still an idea. The more exact copy would be as perceived by someone with more exact vision. It is still unnatachable from perception. How far do you zoom in to that exact copy? It cannot be all at once. If immediately perceive means we can know its nature only on the basis of the perceptual experience, Dicker says it does exclude the possibility of us indirectly perceiving an object, but again, this object is undefined. If immediately perceive means it is necessary that something neither identical with it nor a part of it is perceived, again he says this does not conflict with the idea that a material object is perceived. But again, there is no way of defining this object without resorting to ideas. An unknowable thing-in-itself has been advanced by philosophers such as Kant and proves to be no better of an alternative than a pure idealism.
Dicker explains that you cannot make the argument that whatever is perceived is immediately perceived since when you perceive, for example, a white rhomboidal patch you are perceiving something that is not identical with an envelope. However an argument can be advanced like that of Sprigge that the envelope is really the totality of different perspectives of the envelope compounded together as a concrete universal. But we can say the white rhomboidal patch is an envelope without appealing to this description by appealing to hallucinations and dreams. Certainly if we dream an envelope as simply a white rhomboidal patch we can regard it as an envelope without appealing to a physical object.
Next, we turn to Dicker’s defense against Berkeley’s attack on the theory of primary and secondary qualities. Berkeley’s argument comes in three steps: (a) primary qualities cannot be abstracted from secondary qualities, (b) secondary qualities exist only in the mind, ∴(c) primary qualities exist only in the mind. Dicker argues that this argument has an error since one need not accept (a). Dicker resorts to his two-term theory of representationalism in which we immediately perceive an idea, but we indirectly perceive an object. Dicker says the dispositional aspect of a shape can be abstracted from the manifest aspect of a color since there properties of shapes that do not reference perception such as a square object not being able to fit into a circular hole. Dicker is again leaving the object undefined. The argument does not work because although this is less dependent on perception than the manifest aspect of a color, you are still visualizing it in order to make that statement, and so you must ascribe secondary qualities to the object when making that statement. Dicker goes on to defend an argument in which only the visual manifest aspect of a shape is nothing but a sensation in the mind, but this is in error, because he still has not been able to detach the dispositional of a shape from its manifest aspect. You can allow an object to exist beyond perception, but it is immediately diagnosed as paradoxical, that is it has paradox in it. Because that object is still part of perception, and is simply an idea in the mind. If that object has its colors, and so it must be perceived by a mind. There are other secondary qualities that must be attributed to a perciever in order for it to make any sense such as weight
We now move to Berkeley’s positive metaphysics, which should be taken independently of his proof of idealism.
According to Berkeley, ideas are dependent beings that exist in the mind or spirit. He argues that ideas must have a cause, and this cause is not material, so that this cause must be a mental substance. So Berkeley locates the soul in a nonspatial location situated in the mind. We can have no idea of the soul since the mind is the active creator of ideas, so no idea can be like it. This raises the objection that our ideas could simply be collection of sense impressions without any substance underlying them. Dicker argues that Berkeley to be consistent should have rejected spiritual substance for the same reason as rejecting material substance. However, Berkeley’s point is that his idealism demonstrates the possibility of the soul. In materialism, there the soul is difficult to argue for, while Berkeley’s idealism leaves open the possibility of the soul. If one system makes a positive claim that another cannot, one should accept the system holding the positive claim. Clearly, there is a mind and the question becomes whether this is synonymous with mental substance. We have a notion of mental substance since we see ourselves acting, and we have memories and traits that remain the same throughout our life that can be obtained through introspection. So the soul can be argued for a posteriori. We should distinguish between the soul and the self, and the notion of a self has been argued to be self-contradictory by philosophers such as the Buddhists. But it can be argued that there are errors in the argument. The only material substance that can be argued for that is not self-contradictory is a completely unknowable thing-in-itself, and we can have no notion of this thing-in-itself. And reality remains consistent for the most part when the thing-in-itself is denied.
Berekeley next demonstrates the existence of God with the argument that (a) we produce some of our ideas voluntarily, but our ideas of perception do not depend on us, (b) this cause must be some nonhuman spirit, (c) these ideas have an amazing degree of clarity, order, and beauty, ∴(d) this spirit must be God. Dicker finds error in the teleological argument for Gods existence, however, I do not believe this is Berkeley’s main point. First of all, the teleological argument for Gods existence is not a mathematical proof of God but it is certainly a solid proof of Gods existence as no a posteriori proof is completely infallible. It must be remembered that Berkley’s idealism is subjective, making what the subject experiences in first order experience most important. Secondly, this is where religion with its revelation takes over. Again, philosophy must not necessarily detach from religion and it is an equally valid abstraction for philosophy to attach to as the sciences. Berkeley’s main point is that some nonhuman spirit’s consciousness is enough to hold the empirical reality of experience in place. Berkeley then says that God imprints these ideas on the human mind. And I think this is appropriate because if this sprits ideas were independent of the human mind and the human then perceived these independent ideas, you would run into issues of causality such as how a human can perceive another idea. Therefore it is best to think of this spirits ideas as existing one with our ideas and imprinted on our ideas. Also I believe there should be regarded an element of externality to these ideas, that they are external, but what is external exists in the mind.
Two points are in order. First, Dicker, says that one runs into issues such as how this spirits ideas can cauase the human body when clearly, Berkely argues for free will and this runs into paradox. However, Betcher’s argument holds and that is that the body is simultaneously an idea of imagination and an idea of the world and this is the same argument Fichte uses when he derives the body within the world. Another way of looking at it is that the soul extends into the body. Another issue involving the mind body problem is how an object be caused by the mind when every object must be the cause of an idea, which Dicker terms CCP. And this makes sense because we have the standard model of how the light bounces off the object and creates and penetrates the retina. There are two ways around this difficulty. The first is to accept CCP, exept adding an additional component where all of this takes place within a mind. But also we must remember that CCP has errors in it and that is that there is no way of translating that frequency that turns into beats in the brain into the actual representation. This is demonstrated with arguments for qualia that necessarily are necessarily metaphysical and Schopenhauer raises this objection. So CCP runs into paradox with Berkeley, but there is paradox within CCP itself. So we have the well known problem of CCP running running into paradoxes with idealism and idealism running paradoxes with CCP. Further it can be argued that that piece of information is only for the natural scientist according to Berkeley. For the ordinary person, this can be ignored. That is, there is no evidence of the light bouning off the object to ordinary vision, and the internal consistency of taking mind first and science secondary allows one to ignore this information.
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Idealism Studies 