PHIL100 Coursework 1
Describe the argument of the assignment text in your own words, as far as possible without quoting or closely paraphrasing it.
In A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge, George Berkeley puts forward his belief that all physical objects are composed of ideas, which he refers to as esse is percipi – to be is to be perceived. Throughout his argument, Berkeley chooses to defend idealism by attacking materialism, hence defending the two theories of idealism – firstly the claim that everything that exists either is a mind or depends on a mind for its existence- and secondly, immaterialism – the claim that matter does not exist. Berkeley argues that no material things exist, only ideas and that we live in a world where all things depend on the minds of thinking and perceiving things to exist. This type of world he describes as mind-dependent.
Berkeley is an idealist, made very apparent in the first Principle where starts by setting out his basic ontology. He is of the belief that ordinary objects are a collection of visual and tangible ideas, such as colour and shape, taste and smell, whose existence is therefore mind-dependent. He does not deny the existence of ordinary objects such as trees or apples but, as an immaterialist, believes that there is no material world but only a world that is physical and composed of ideas. All collections of ideas are objects of knowledge and with that, there must be ‘something who knows or perceives them’. Berkeley call this perceiving being ‘mind’ or ‘spirit’ which is entirely distinct and unique from all ideas. Because ideas follow what is probably Berkeley’s most famous principle of essi is percipi – to be is to be perceived – this is not just exclusive to objects but also includes sensory facets and ideas such as that of heat, smell or taste described as ‘sensations or ideas imprinted on sense’ in Principle 3.
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Principle 4 seems to be the starting point of his attack on materialism and abstraction. His argument is that it is understood that we perceive normal objects such as houses and mountains yet, as Berkeley has shown, we only perceive ideas. Therefore it would be reasonable to suggest that normal objects are just ideas. Berkeley goes on to explain how because you can’t possibly see or feel a thing without having an actual sensation of it you cant conceive of a perceptible thing which is separate and distinct from the sensation or perception of it. Supportive of immaterialism, Berkeley believes that, alongside there being no material substances there is also an infinite substance or an ‘external spirit’ which, as supposed from his religious background, he assumes to be God. He claims that his is the reason why, when you shut your eyes, even though you are not perceiving objects at that time, they still exist. This, he says, is because they are being perceived and exist in the mind of God. In Principle 7 Berkeley declares that the only known substances are those of spirit or those which perceive.
Following the seventh Principle, Berkeley then goes on to question whether there are any grounds for the claim that ordinary objects are more than just ideas and whether thinking substances are immaterial. He starts off by saying that an idea can only resemble an idea. And that because ideas are immediately perceived the mind can compare nothing but its own ideas. He then goes on by referring to Locke’s primary and secondary qualities. Primary qualities are those such as extension, number, solidity while examples of secondary qualities might be sound, colour, heat, taste. Some philosophers say that ideas of secondary qualities are in the mind and perceived whereas primary qualities are images of things that exist outside the mind in an unthinking substance called ‘matter’. However Berkeley has already shown that shape, extension, motion etc. as primary qualities are perceived through sense perception and are therefore sense dependent. Sensory qualities have already been shown to be nothing more than ideas in the mind. We also already know that ideas are only like other ideas and therefore cannot exist in an substance such as ‘matter’, which is incapable of perceiving. Berkeley concludes that ‘matter’ is ultimately a contradiction and that realism is therefore false. Berkeley then goes on to argue that there is no ground for distinction between primary and secondary qualities. he believes that this is because ideas are conceived and you can’t conceive of a primary quality without a secondary one as well. This then brings about the question that if sensible qualities exist only in the mind and primary qualities can’t be known without some sensible quality then how can primary qualities exist apart from the mind? Berkeley’s answer is that they obviously can’t.
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Berkeley uses the remaining Principles from 11 to 15 to show that there is no evidence that any primary qualities can exist anywhere apart from in the mind. For example, in Principle 12 Berkeley concedes that even if some primary qualities may exist outside the mind, the primary principle of number must be created in the mind as the same thing can be assigned different numbers depending on how it is best perceived by the mind of the perceiver. For example the same distance has a different numerical value depending on whether it is measured in yards, inches or feet. This is so entirely dependent on the mind that it would be impossible to definitively say that it exists as a quality anywhere else other than in the mind.
Berkeley concludes by saying that his argument clearly shows that it is impossible for any perceptible quality to exist in an unthinking thing that is outside the mind, or that an object outside the mind could even exist.
Make one objection to the argument as you have reconstructed it, and suggest how Berkeley could reply to it.
Berkeley’s argument for idealism poses some interesting questions. Berkeley’s theory fundamentally rests on the assumption, which was also used by Locke, which is that the starting point of deeper philosophical thinking is in the ideas of an individual’s experience. If this assumption is accepted then the rest of his argument seems wholly plausible. However, there is a large difference between the statement ‘the chair is blue’ and the similar statement of ‘the chair looks blue to me’. We could have the situation where the chair may indeed be blue but it doesn’t seem blue to me. In this case, Berkeley’s argument ceases to be as powerful as initially thought.
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Berkeley, however would reject this objection. Our objection is essentially about how the qualities an object has are different to how it is known that they possess these qualities. You could also say that this leads to the fact that there are characteristics of objects which can be stated without ever having any reference to experience of the object and its qualities. Berkeley would argue that any characteristics of a quality as perceived through the senses has to make reference to how it appears to a perceiver. Because, he would argue, you cannot explain sensible qualities such as colour and texture independently of how they appear. Berkeley may even go as far as dismissing it on the basis that it might lead to scepticism, as certain knowledge would be accepted as impossible.
To deny would be like re-asserting that things in the world are collections of qualities perceived through the use of senses and are therefore ideas. For Berkeley, the sensible object is what is immediately perceived rather than representations different from the object. For example we do not realise the existence of tables simply from sensory information or characteristics that may be present in the table. Instead we just perceive a table, immediately. But it could be argued that Berkeley is trying to have it both ways; immediately perceive objects of sense experience that are familiar to us such as a table while instantaneously perceiving colours and textures. We take physical objects to be exist independently of them being perceived and to be perceived by more than one perceiver at a time. This is not true of the sensory ideas from which the objects came from.
Berkeley’s response to this could be that at a first level we perceive textures and colours and then and a second level we perceive tables. Both of these are perceived immediately. Objects such as tables consist entirely of textures and colours rather than the table being additional to the colours and textures it is comprised from. Therefore the ideas of one sense suggest the ideas of another.
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As long as Berkeley’s first initial premises are accepted then his argument is persuasive and strong, however if his premises are rejected then his beliefs are not so resilient.
