Berkeley slides

Question 1

Is Berkeley a rationalist or an empiricist

Answer 1

empiricist

Question 2

What is Berkeley’s main question?

Answer 2

What does the world look like without us there?

Question 3

where was berkeley born

Answer 3

ireland

Question 3

what was berkeley’s job?

Answer 3

anglican bishop

Question 4

Berkeley was a subjective idealist. What does this mean?

Answer 4

its all just what you think

Question 5

Who was Berkeley a critic of?

Answer 5

Descartes and Locke

Question 6

Idealist

Answer 6

only minds and their ideas

Question 7

Immaterialist

Answer 7

no such thing as matter

Question 8

Aim of Berkeley’s work

Answer 8

To restore common sense, against the “metaphysical” philosophers.
- “…we have first raised a dust and then complain we cannot see.”

Question 9

What does Berkeley think about skepticism?

Answer 9

He wants to overcome skepticism
(Skepticism: Do my ideas match the things out there?)

Question 10

What does Berkeley think about hyperbolic doubt?

Answer 10

Berkeley rejects hyperbolic doubt

Question 11

How do we know that anything is real?

Answer 11

because of our senses

Question 12

The only object of human knowledge

Answer 12

ideas

Question 13

Three kinds of ideas

Answer 13

(1) imprinted on the senses
(2) Of the passions and operations of the mind
(3) from memory or imagination

Question 14

Examples of ideas that are Imprinted on the senses

Answer 14

yellow, spicy, wet

Question 15

examples of ideas that are of the passions and operations of the mind

Answer 15

doubting, fearing, craving

Question 16

Example of ideas that are from the memory or imagination

Answer 16

Combines, modifies the above 2
Ex: A traumatic memory of that spicy, yellow mustard I ate last week

Question 17

What is the only other thing that exists?

Answer 17

MINDS (intuitive; since we have ideas)

Question 18

Minds are ___ things that receive ___ ideas

Answer 18

Minds are the ACTIVE things that perceive PASSIVE ideas.

Question 19

Matter which exists apart from ideas is literally _____

Answer 19

Unintelligible
(if it is not a mind or thought, it is unintelligble)

Question 20

Does berkeley accept or deny the
Corpuscular hypothesis?

Answer 20

Berkeley denies the Corpuscular hypothesis

Question 21

what is the Corpuscular hypothesis

Answer 21

There is stuff/matter that is out there

Question 22

Esse est percipi

Answer 22

“To be is to be perceived”

Question 23

Therefore, what should happen when we don’t perceive an object?

Answer 23

it disappears

Question 24

why don’t objects disappear when we stop perceiving them?

Answer 24

it subsists in the mind of god
(Subjective idealism)

Question 25

If a tree falls and no one is around to perceive it, did it really fall?

Answer 25

God perceives everything. When the tree falls, it exists. It makes sound, is green, sappy, etc.

Question 26

Critique of John Locke

Answer 26

The distinction between primary and secondary qualities is
meaningless.

“But it is evident from what we have already shown, that extension,
figure, and motion are only ideas existing in the mind, and that an
idea can be like nothing but another idea?”

Question 27

What does Berkeley say about bare substances

Answer 27

there is no such thing as a bare substance. (ex: an apply minus its properities)

Substance adds nothing to our knowledge

Question 28

What does Berkeley say about the interaction problem

Answer 28

it is impossible

Question 29

Proof that god exists

Answer 29

I can’t simply will what I see, touch, smell, etc

We can only have ideas. God has the only real ideas

Question 30

Why are there predictable, laws of nature?

Answer 30

• Since there is no actual matter
• God’s Goodness (similar to Leibniz)

Question 31

We don’t need mathematically certain laws to get around, only _____ and ____

Answer 31

Only “observe nature” and use “common sense”
(Ex: reaping and planting times)

Question 32

So what is ultimately real?

Answer 32

only the ideas implanted in us by god

Question 33

Objection to what Berkeley believes is real and his response

Answer 33

OBJECTION: So the fire isn’t real? Then place your hand in it.

REPLY: What is pain, apart from the IDEA, (perception or feeling) of it?

Question 34

What does Berkeley think about causality?

Answer 34

There is no causality. God is good therefore his ideas of the world should be regular and put together.