November 4

Lecture Notes: November 4

In the following, references to the section numbers of the texts are recorded as S29, for example.

Berkeley (1685-1753) (continued)

Berkeley begins with the assumption that objects are what we see, hear, smell, touch, and taste.
Esse is percipi (or percipere): being is perceiving, or being perceived (See S3).
For Locke: our ideas were like objects (if only for our ideas of the primary qualities).
For Berkeley, the move to beyond sensory experience is illegitimate inference.

Berkeley does accept some inference: to our selves, and to others, and to God.

He says we have no ideas of these, merely notions.
Selves (spirits): S140, but only in a loose sense (see S138)
Others: S145, SS148-9
God: S29, S146, SS148-9

For similar, empirical, or a posteriori, arguments for God's existence, see the links to works by Aquinas .

Anselm's ontological argument is an a priori argument (as is Descartes' version).
Consider, in a similar vein, the argument from design: a watch found in the desert, for example, leads us to believe that a designer of the watch must exist somewhere. The universe works like a carefully crafted machine. We conclude that it must have a designer.

Notice that God is not the foundation of Berkeley's work, but a conclusion.
See S146 and S152.

We don't start by assuming or arguing from God's existence to the (ideal) world, but conclude that God must exist, because we have these ideas, which must come from somewhere.

Returning to Berkeley's account of the sensible world:
Berkeley accepts the resemblance hypothesis, but not for material objects as the causes of my ideas
(RH1): My ideas resemble material objects - rejected
(RH2): my ideas resemble their causes - accepted
Berkeley: There is nothing like an idea but another idea. (See S8)

What happens to the world when we're not looking (or otherwise perceiving it)?
Read S6
Also S45: sensible things having to be perceived.

A Berkeleyan limerick:

There was a young man who said God
Must think it exceedingly odd
When he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the quad

Dear sir, your confusion is odd
I am always about in the quad
and that's why this tree
will continue to be
Since observed by, yours faithfully, God.

What is the world like?

Locke and Descartes grant matter as the cause of our ideas, with only primary qualities.
But then there's no yellow in the world; it's merely mental.
Berkeley tries making terms for objects refer to my sensory states.
But then there's the problem of intersubjectivity: Why do different perceivers have (or report) similar experiences?
So Berekeley posits God, which he thinks is more commonsensical than atheism and skepticism.

Atheism makes the world independent of God.

Even if we are materialists, we would have to explain the origin of the material world.

Why not direct our explanation immediately to the initial cause.

Skepticism entails that we don't experience the objects in themselves.

See Descartes, AT55: I do not understand why I err
Locke's contentedness with ignorance
On Berkeleyan idealism, since the objects are just my mental states, we do experience the world.

Berkeley says that his answer is more commonsensical than those of Descartes or Locke.
He gets to retain colors, sounds, etc.
Refer, again, to S1 and the apple
He thinks there's a real world, just not a material world.
The only drawback is that we're left with only mental states.

Numbers and mathematics are also eliminated from Berkeley's metaphysics.
You might think these OK, as they aren't material, and may be mental
But it's the same process of abstraction which gets us there: S118
Berkeley thinks geometry's infinite divisibility is a paradox: S127

The kind of abstraction that Berkeley rejects also serves as the basis for science
Laws of motion, e.g., are the same kinds of abstractions that lead to the positing of a material world.
Descartes thought these were innate truths.
If these laws were universally valid, then that might serve as an argument for their truth.
And hence the legitimacy of abstraction.
So Berkeley should construe science in a different way.
But he doesn't.
Read SS30-32

Descartes, recall, considered the possibility of a Berkeleyan world, at AT79; also at the end of AT78.
But he says this makes God a deceiver, which would be a fault in God.
Is this a draw between Descartes and Berkeley?

Argument from the Principle of Sufficient Reason:

God doesn't do more work than (s)he has to do.

The world of minds and ideas is a simpler world than that of minds and ideas and physical objects, in addition.

If there's a God, and there are minds, then we don't need objects at all.
Why would God create them, instead of creating the ideas of objects directly?
(Especially if he has to create AND preserve, anyway!)

Big Question, for the materialist: How do we get out of our mental states to refer to or understand the world?

Berekeley shows that, for the (Lockean) empiricist, if there are bodies, we can't know it.
The solipsistic picture of Descartes rears its ugly head.

Of course, we can always return to Descartes' appeal to reason, with its reliance on innate ideas.

Hume shows that the prospects are even worse for the empiricist, even if you reject Berkeley's metaphysics.

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