Berkeley Idealism and Russell

Question 1

Essay structure

Answer 1

P1: response against representationalism

• B’s argument
• RR response
• Likeness Principle

P2: against Materialism

• Master Argument
• Pitcher response
• de re v de dicto
• response: inconceivability is not unintelligibility

P3: PQs and SQs

• Hylas v Philonous
• perceptual relativity argument
• PQs are mind-dependent
• response to B’s argument

P4: strength and criticism of idealism

• evades scepticism + preserves common sense
• hallucinations, illusions, permanency and regularity of the universe
• hallucination: our world coheres better
• illusions: oar in water
• God as explanation for permanency
• bath counter
• B counter

P5: God problems

• dishonest use of God; obscurum per obscurius
• God is beyond our minds
• god would have to suffer pain
• B response

Question 2

Russel Ch1 appearance and reality

Answer 2

• it is natural to want to begin with present experiences, but these are likely to be wrong
• the table example: “no two people will see exactly the same distribution of colours”
• R argues that colour is not inherent to the table, it depends on lighting etc; since one colour isn’t more real than another, “We are compelled to deny that, in itself, the table has any one particular colour”
• R concludes that we do not perceive the table immediately
• Distinction between sense-datum and sensation: the awareness of the colour is the sensation, the colour itself is the sense-datum

Question 3

Russell Ch2 The Existence of Matter

Answer 3

• “If we cannot be sure of the independent existence of objects, we cannot be sure […] of other people’s bodies, and therefore still less of other people’s minds”
• solipsism can’t be ruled out but we never doubt sense data
• outline of Descartes’ cogito and problems with the “self”
• cloth and table; it would be absurd for the cloth to be suspended in empty air
• we want physical objects to exist because this explains why there are “public neutral objects”; others have similar sense data which makes us suppose this
• but the argument above begs the question: our own private experiences must be sufficient to demonstrate the existence of the physical world
• Russell IBE and example of the cat; if the cat is “only sense data, It cannot be hungry, since no hunger but my own can be a sense-datum to me”
• and we have an instinctive belief in objects

Question 4

Russell Ch3 Nature of Matter

Answer 4

• science reduces natural phenomena to motions
• light cannot be a wave motion, since wave motion can be understood by a blind man
• “When it is said that light is waves, what is really meant is that waves are the physical cause of our sensations of light”
• similarly, space is understood in two ways; via touch and via perspective
• physical objects that cause our sensations are in physical space, sensations are in “our private spaces” such as “the space of sight”
• if there is one all-embracing physical space,. Then the positions of objects in physical space “must more or less correspond to the relative positions of sense-data in our private spaces”
• time lag argument; “physical objects themselves remain unknown in their intrinsic nature”
• colour we see will be more or less like the colour of the object

Question 5

Essay P1

Answer 5

• we perceive ordinary objects; we perceive only ideas; ordinary objects are ideas
• RR: we mediately perceive objects and immediately perceive ideas
• Likeness Principle: “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”; matter and ideas are qualitatively different; no representation involved here - objects must be ideas

Question 6

Essay P2

Answer 6

-Master Argument: conception of mind-independent objects is impossible; when one thinks of objects, one must think of them as ideas, since to think about them without the mind, “it is necessary that you conceive of them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest repugnancy”
-Pitcher’s response on conflating the representation (what we conceive with) with the represented (what we conceive of); camera analogy
-de re v de dicto - rose example; Berkeley wants de dicto knowledge
Reply - inconceivability does not entail unintelligibility

Question 7

P3: against materialism, PQs and SQs

Answer 7

• Hylas states that SQs exist in physical objects
• P contends these qualities can become pain or pleasure; pain can’t exist “in” objects; if SQs are part of the object, then all qualities of the objects eventually become sensory qualities perceived only by the mind
• P shows that sensory qualities are relative to the observer using the bowl of water example
• B points out that no mind-independent object can bear contradictions
• everything we perceive is either P or S quality; both P and S are mind-dependent; so objects of perceptions are entirely MD
• Premise 2 can be countered; some take SQs to be powers in the object to cause sensations in us - relational properties; the sense-data (SQs) are still in the object - so premise 3 does not follow

Question 8

P4 Russell

Answer 8

• evades Scepticism and preserves common sense
• hallucination
• illusions: we can be mistaken about the oar in the water; if esse est percipi, then the oar MUST be bent
• B counter about semantics
• counter by talking about the conflicting senses
• permanency: B on God; omnipresent and perfect = regular universe
• bath counter: idealism lacks explanatory motion, it’s not a consistent mechanism by which to understand the world
• B counter: matter does not give us a better explanation; Gods perfection gives rise to order

Question 9

Essay P5

Answer 9

-Using God is unsatisfactory; dishonest; obscurum per obscurius
-God is supposed to be beyond our minds
God would have to feel pain like us, arguably

Question 10

Russell 15 marker

Answer 10

• Russell is faced, as a RR, with the epistemological problem of justifying our belief in an external physical world

P1:

• IBE isn’t good enough: hypotheses is not credible enough; infallibilists consider assumptions as inadequate: better to accept DR or Idealism
• IBE Seems irrational in the context of our folk epistemology: arguing that the existence of physical objects is merely a hypothesis would be completely irrational (moving car example vs poisonous mushroom)

P2: Locke response

• sense data is imposed on me: “the latter ideas - the ones I have whether I want them or not - must be produced in my mind by some exterior cause”
• but Some sensations are not voluntarily caused by the mind and do not have external causes; e.g. schizophrenia

P3: Russell’s responses

• R is an empiricist, and therefore knowledge is either a priori or comes from experience; since the Existence of the world is not an analytic truth, we must rely on family experiences
• one must accept doubt; empirical approaches will give rise to it inevitably
• R does actually support folk epistemology: we have an “instinctive belief” in the external world + we cannot doubt these beliefs since they are the foundation for wider knowledge “All knowledge, we find, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs, and if these are rejected, nothing is left”
• R’s view is similar to Pierce’s pragmatism’s “we should not doubt in philosophy what we do no doubt in our hearts” (theoretical vs genuine doubt) or W’s hinge proposition: Beliefs are presuppositions of doubt, and therefore to doubt beliefs themselves would lead to semantic scepticism, leaving us unable to even assert sceptical hypotheses

P4: problems with Russell

• knowing there is a physical world doesn’t tell us what it is like: “ physical objects themselves remain unknown in their intrinsic nature”. This problem could be avoided by other theories of perception
• time lag argument to oppose direct realism
• DR can reformulate tenses of the argument
• perceptual connection does not entail perfect connection
• Austin also offers a response to the argument from illusion: illusions are part of reality (coins)
• appearance and reality are not dichotomous - Russell makes the mistake of reifying illusions by turning them into sense data

Question 11

Russell 10 marker

Answer 11

• distinction between appearance and reality
  -table and argument from perceptual relativity: use colour/hardness
  -we perceive sense-data (that gives rise to “sensations”; ch1)
  -the nature of sense data is that it is MD; esse est percipi - so we cannot necessarily know the table really exists
  -ch2: R argues that the table’s non existence is a conceptual possibility not a logical absurdity - its existence can’t be established a priori
  -the table is the best hypothesis (cat example)
  -sense data is a “sign” of the external world - so we must ask what the EW is actually like
  -spatial vs private spaces; coin example
  -one all embracing physical space in which the positions of objects in physical space “must more or less correspond to the relative positions of sense data in our private spaces “
  –“physical objects themselves remain unknown in their intrinsic nature “; we cannot know what physical space is like in itself because we only know of relative special properties
  – our spatial assumptions relating to spatial properties can be reasonable, because there is a consensus on what people see – intersubjectivity – our perceptions cohere, and there is a consistent manner in which we perceive EWOs