Berkeley's Idealism Flashcards
What are mind-dependent objects
The immediate object of perception. For example objects such as tables and chairs
Explain Idealism
- Idealism is the view that what is real is dependent on the mind
- It is the belief that all we know comes through experience
- We only experience ideas and sense data
- Berkeley believes that all that exists are minds and their ideas, sensations and thoughts.
- We know that we have a mind
- We also know we perceive various colours and shapes
- However to suppose that there is a material world that causes these sensations is a leap of faith that is not needed
Explain Berkeley’s attack on primary and secondary qualtiies
•He cannot conceive of an object with only primary qualities
•When we pretend to imagine an apple without its secondary qualities we would fail to do so
•We can only conceive of an odourless, colourless and silent apple
•However this does not present any image at all
•If an object can only be conceived with both primary and secondary qualities then our ideas of secondary qualities are inseparable from the primary
•Therefore if we accept our perceptions of secondary as in the mind
•Then our perceptions of primary must be in the mind too
•Locke discusses the idea that heat is purely a subjective reaction and has nothing to do with water itself
•Berkeley exploits this:
1.If an object can appear different shapes and sizes to different animals from different distances
2.Then size cannot be real
3.If the property is purely apparent it exists only in the mind
Explain Berkeley’s master argument
- The idea of an object that exists independently of the mind is incoherent
- For example you may attempt to conceive of a banana which exists outside of any mind
- To imagine this, you may try to imagine a banana locked away where no one can see it
- However it is evident that the idea of the banana is already being conceived in your mind
- Therefore the idea of a banana is not independent of any mind
- Any supposed thought of an object outside of any mind can only take place within someone’s mind
- Therefore the idea of mind-independent objects are contradictory
- If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it it does not make a noise according to idealism
- To imagine the tree falling unobserved is to imagine it being observed
- We are incapable of conceiving the tree falling without conceiving the experience of the tree falling at the same time
- Therefore this reinforces the point ‘to be is to be perceived’
The trap of solipsism (issue 1)
- The master argument is argued to lead directly to solipsism
- Idealism is the belief that I only have direct access to my mind
- Idealists also state that nothing exists independently of my mind
- This leads to a trap of solipsism:
- The whole of my experience as it seems can amount to, for example, an extended dream
- I cannot know about the existence of anything beyond my own experience
- For example the external world and other people
- If it is impossible to conceive of anything beyond my mind then only my mind can be known to exist
Inadequate account of illusions and hallucinations(Issue 2)
- Idealism is unable to explain the distinction between perceptual error and veridical perception
- If all that exists is in the mind then there would appear to be no difference between seeing something as it really is and being mistaken
- For example seeing a glass of water or seeing a floating banana
- You would not be able to differ between reality and hallucinations
- The same applies to the indirect realists
- However indirect realists state that there is a physical world which our ideas represent with a degree of accuracy
- The idealist would does not have a ‘real world’ that can feature in their account of illusion
- We have to question how well this experience fits in with my past experiences and other regularities
- For example if I saw a floating banana I would know that this experience does not cohere well with the regularity of the world
- I cannot determine if it is a hallucination or veridical experience by comparing my sensations to the nature of the world
- Therefore it would not be regarded as a real feature of the world
It cannot secure objective time (issue 2)
•Idealists believe ‘to be is to be perceived’
•If I put my banana in a drawer where nobody is perceiving it then it ceases to exist
•When I open the drawer however it returns to existence
•The banana would have no taste until someone tasted it
•Similarly the banana would have no interior until someone bites it
•This is counter intuitive to us
•We can use the example of a running bath:
1.I run a bath inside a bathroom and I wait outside for a few minutes
2.Because I left the bathroom, it should cease to exist as it is no longer being perceived
3.When I come back, the bathtub has been filled up with water
4.According to idealist logic, the bath should contain the same amount of water it had at the beginning
5.This is because it was no longer being perceived and so could not continue to exist
It cannot secure objective space(issue 3)
- Idealists believe ‘to be is to be perceived’
- Idealism does not give an account for why there is so much regularity and predictability in our experience
- Idealism also does not show where our ideas come from
- For example, how can I be sure that my banana will remain in the drawer when I reopen it
- Realists believe that physical objects exist independent of our experience
- Therefore the banana would remain within the drawer
- However idealists have no parallel explanation for how the banana remains in this objective space
Berkeley’s God defence
- Berkeley still holds the belief that to be is to be perceived, even with these criticisms
- In other words nothing can exist unperceived
- Physical objects are collections of ideas or sense data appearing to mind
- The reason we have these ideas is due to God
- God plants these ideas in all of us
- God also is a permanent perceiver of all things in the universe that exists
- Therefore God ensures that physical objects retain the continuous experience that intuition would claim for them
- Berkeley rejects the possibility of solipsism as I have no control over my experiences
- Therefore there has to be another external source for my sense experience that is not matter if we rule out the existence of physical objects
- The regularity and predictability of experience suggests good and extremely powerful intelligence is involved
- Therefore sense data are produced within me by a higher being-God
Can God be used to play the role he does? (issue 4)
You can argue that Berkeley’s use of God to support a philosophical position suggests evidence of fault in his argument. There is no independent reason to suppose there is a God for Berkeley’s argument, except to play the role that Berkeley gave him
•If we need divine intervention to explain things then we could explain all mysteries
•This is because all philosophical difficulties can be explained away as miracles
•We can also complain that Berkeley’s existence of God contradicts the principle that we cannot conceive of anything beyond the mind
•God is a mind
•All that we can conceive must come from sense perception
•Therefore it seems impossible to have a coherent idea of God or any other minds
•Also we can argue that we are more similar to matter than God as we are finite and we exist within space and time
•God on the other hand is infinite and exists outside of space and time
•You can also argue that consciousness is a product of extremely complex organisation of matter within our brain
Berkeley’s response to the criticism of the role of God
- Berkeley argues that his inference of God is a justified inference in the same way he is justified in believing there are other minds
- God is continually speaking to us through our senses
- I can have the idea of other minds, including God’s by analogy with my own mind
- Even though I do not have perception of it, I intuitively recognize as that which has my ideas
- Furthermore, matter is an incoherent concept
- However there is nothing contradictory in the idea that minds can have perceptions
- It follows that minds must the basis of all that exists
- Berkeley believes that his argument was intended to instead demonstrate God’s existence, not the other way around
- Berkeley believes that his argument successfully shows that matter doesn’t exist
- Therefore the orderly appearance of sense impressions is due to the existence of some intelligence producing them
- The idea of matter as a mindless substance that behaves in a regular and orderly fashion that is accountable for the origin and regularity of experience is incoherent
Evaluation of Berkeley’s defence of the role of God
•However modern day science suggests that there is disorder in the universe instead of disorder, which may support the idea of matter existing
Berkeley’s view on space and time
- There exists spatial and temporal relations that obtain between objects
- These relations are generated from within my sense experience
- Therefore the space and time of which I am aware of is private to me
- My ideas of spatial relations are as subjective as colour
- Therefore space is nothing more than the product of spatial relations that we perceive and has no existence beyond this
- Time is similarly nothing above the perception of the succession of ideas within each mind
Criticism of Berkeley’s view on space and time
- If space and time are private and each of us occupies a world distinct from everyone else
- It is difficult to comprehend of our common sense-view that we succeed to arrange a time to meet because we converge on the same point in an objective spatial-temporal order
- For example arranging to meet a friend at 6pm at my house
- Berkeley states that we can still operate with a public time
- This is because we are able to use our perception of standard measures of time
- For example the creation of the clock
- God underwrites our perception of such standards so that they exist between all conscious minds and are regular enough to allow us to arrange to meet
- This therefore requires no need for an objective space or time
- However it is difficult for God to provide an objective framework of this sort
- This is because there can be no succession of ideas in the mind of God as he is immutable or unchanging
- If time is purely subjective and exists in finite minds like ours, then when I am not conscious of its passage, it does not pass
- For Berkeley, there is no state of unconsciousness
- This is because a mind without ideas is not a conscious mind at all
- This understanding of time appears to not reinforce Berkeley’s claim that his philosophy is in accordance to common understanding
