Fichas
Berkeley
Fichas del conjunto (32)
- 1Empiricism is incompatible with realism. It is not possible to experience objects of senses as existing unperceived or as capable of existing unperceived; experience cannot be the source of ideas of existing unperceived; thus we do not have the idea at all.It is not possible to conceive of external objects existing unconceived anymore than it is possible to conceive of them existing unperceived.
We do not know what is meant by the mind-independent existence of sensible objects. - 2There are limits of perception and conception. In order to conceive of something existing without the mind it is necessary to conceive of them existing unconceived/unthought of. This is then a contradiction.Berkeley's Puzzle
Explanatory role of experience: concepts of individual physical objects and concepts of the observable characteristics of such objects are made available by our experience of the world.
Tree in the Quad. - 3How can perceptual experience of objects be what provides you with a grasp of the possibility of existence unperceived? This would mean that something perceived is giving evidence of something unperceived. This is Berkeley's Puzzle.Empiricism and Scepticism?
Empiricism about knowledge: our knowledge of the external world is ultimately grounded in experience.
Experience cannot give us knowledge of mind-independent objects if it cannot give us the conception of mind-independent objects; thus we do not have knowledge of mind-independent objects. - 4Berkeley's Puzzle (Detail) Locke believes that the experience of shapes provides you with knowledge of what categorical property shape is; the puzzle is how can this be?How can the experience of shape provide you with anything more than the conception of a propensity to produce a particular type of experience? (All the experience will provide is that we are capable of producing the experience).
- 5Tackling This Resemblance: ideas of PQs resemble those qualities as they are in the objects and thereby provide us with an adequate conception of such Qs. Berkeley's response: an idea can be like nothing but an idea.Abstraction: We cannot perceive PQs existing unperceived but by abstraction we can conceive of them existing unperceived; we can abstract ideas of PQs from our experiences of objects.
B: Can we distinguish the existence of sensible objects from their being perceived so as to conceive them existing unperceived? Impossible. - 6Alternative Solution Representationalism: experience represents its objects as possessing mind-ind PQs. The possession of such Qs by ordinary objects is built into the representational content of sensory experience.Non-conceptualism: experience can thereby ground and make available concepts of mind-ind PQs because it does not presuppose concepts of PQs.
- 7Berkeley's Main Thesis - The only substance is spirit or that which perceives. - Spirit is one simple undivided, active being; it perceives ideas and is called the understanding as it produces/operates, it is called the will. Matter/corporeal substance is a contradiction. -Esse is percipi; to be is to be perceived. Unthinking things cannot exist without being perceived.Berkeley's metaphysics is monistic and mentalistic. There is only one type of substance - mental/spiritual.
His target is the representative theory of perception which he thinks generates the veil of perception and leads inevitably to scepticism. - 8Berkeley's Response to Puzzle There is no puzzle. If we had the idea of matter or existence unperceived it would be impossible to account for this fact by reference to experience but that is a reason for denying that we have this idea. (We cannot use experience as proof of something unperceived; you cannot have experience of something unperceived.)No substance other than spirit
-Substance supports sensible qualities
- Sensible Qs are ideas of sense but this is not clear.
- The only substance which can support ideas is mental; it does this by perceiving them.
- Only substance is spirit; if sensible Qs are mental that which has sensible Qs must also be mental. - 9The Fuller Proof: Sensible Qs are ideas (colour etc) For an idea to exist in an unperceiving thing is a contradiction; for to have an idea is to perceive. Hence, no unthinking substance or substratum of those ideas.By matter, we understand an inert, senseless substance in which extension etc do actually subsist. There are ideas and can only exist in the mind.
Hence the notion of matter is contradictory; the only thing which ideas/Sensible Qs can inhere is a mind and the only way that a mind can 'have' an idea is by perceiving it. - 10Esse is percipi Objects of human knowledge are ideas and ordinary objects are a collection of ideas. The existence of an idea consists in being perceived; ideas are perceived by minds or spirits.If ideas cannot exist unperceived, the same is true for a collection of ideas.
The contradiction is in sensible things existing unperceived; we perceive these by sense and these cannot exist unperceived.
This rests on a doctrine of abstraction. - 11A+B can only be conceived separately if they can exist separately, but the existence of sensible things cannot be separated from their being perceived...As long as bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world are not actually perceived by me or another created spirit.
Either there is no existence or subsist in the mind of eternal spirit. - 12Argument (Valid) - Objects are collections of ideas. - Sensible Qs are ideas. - Ideas cannot exist unperceived. - Objects cannot exist unperceived. ('my table exists' is short for 'my table would exist/be perceived if someone were looking at it')Supposition that objects can exist unperceived is incoherent because it amounts to supposition that ideas can exist unperceived.
The idea is that an idea cannot be separated from the idea that the idea is being perceived.
Ideas and therefore sensible Qs only exist in being perceived. - 13Imagination and Existence Unperceived Surely we can imagine and there is no one to perceive? Yet...are you not perceiving/ thinking about them? This shows you have the power of imagination and forming ideas in your mind....but not that you can conceive it possible; objects of your thought may exist without your mind.
For this it is necessary that you conceive them existing unthought of/unconceived.
This is a manifest repugnancy. - 14Spirit as the only efficient Cause - All our ideas are inert; cannot change others ideas. - Extension, figure etc canot cause these sensations. - Only intelligible causality is spiritual/volitional; only possible cause is thus spirit which is essentially active, possessing a will. Causation is founded solely upon experience of volition which cannot be abstracted.Mind-Dependence of PQs
For Locke, PQs are mind-ind but SQs are mind-dep.
PQs are inseparably united with SQs.
The abstraction of extension and others from all other qualities is inconceivable. - 15Upon B's Argument Why wouldn't inseparability of P+SQs prove mind-ind of SQs rather than the mind-dep of PQs? Qs are ideas and ideas cannot be mind-ind; they can only exist in the mind and have to be had therefore mind-ind of SQs could not be proved.Why can't PQs be abstracted in thought from SQs?
Why can we not consider PQs and ignore SQs in line with partial consideration of abstraction?
B denies that this separateness is possible. - 16No Distinction between PQs and SQs - PQs are essential to body in a way that SQs are not. A quality Q is essential to the body just if: - it isn't perception to perceive a body without perceiving it as having Q - it isnt conception of a body without conceiving of it as having QIt is not possible to perceive a body without perceiving it as having SQs (these are essential to perception) and it is not possible to conceive of a body without conceiving of it as having SQs.
- 17Even if it were possible to distinguish ideas from SQs this would not help. Ideas themselves do not exist without the mind (they mind-dep). An idea can only ever be like an idea.Materialists may believe in (external) bodies but they are never near to knowing how ideas are produced.
They cannot comprehend in what manner the body can act against spirit. - 18Dilemma If SQs are ideas then the supposition that they can exist unperceived is self-contradictory. This is not self-contradictory if they are distinct from ideas but...- we cannot distinguish the existence of SQs from the existence of ideas.
- SQs distinct from ideas would be inert and unknown.
- exp could not give us the idea of mind-ind SQs since the only objects of exp are ideas. - 19Lockean Responses - B is wrong to identify ideas and SQs. - Objects of perception are SQs rather than ideas; we perceive SQs by having ideas but we do not perceive ideas.-There is no contradiction in notion of matter; it supports the existence of non-mental SQs and produces corresponding ideas in us by impulse.
- Principle of esse is percipi does not apply to material substance; we can distinguish in thought the existence of matter from its being perceived. This doesn't solve the fact that B doesn't believe there is matter. - 20In abstracting the esse of a material substance from its percipi or its PQs from its SQs, we are not conceiving separately what cannot exist separately. B is wrong upon that they would have to exist separetely. There is still the remaning issue of whether B has any other arguments beyond or against Locke.There are two Arguments for Identification of Sensible Qs with ideas...
- 211. Argument from Simplicity - Heat is a sensible quality; put your hand too near a fire you will immediately perceive intense heat and intense pain. - you perceive 'one simple uniform sensation'. - you perceive one simple idea hence the heat is nothing distinct from the pain. -Intense pain are ideas (sensations) - Intense heat is an idea (sensation)Problems
- Are we sure it is one sensation and not two which we struggle to distinguish?
- Why can you not conceive of an intense heat without feeling/conceiving of an intense pain?
- Even if intense heat is an idea/sensation, how does that show all Sensible Qs are ideas/sensatons?
-What of mild sensations/PQs? - 22Extending the argument - Solidity is a (primary) sensible quality. - When you touch something you immediately perceive one simple uniform sensation (of resistance). - The solidity you perceive by touch is the sensation of resistance which you immediately perceive; sensation of resistance is an idea. Solidity is thus an idea (sensation).Questions
Is there not a clear distinction between the solidity which you perceive by touch and the sensations by means of which you perceive solidity?
B would argue that there is no difference in experience between SenQs and sensations. - 23B: how is sensation supposed to give us the conception of sensible qualities that can exist in the absence of sensation? (B's puzzle). L: we can abstract the existence of SQs from our own sensory awareness of them.B: No such abstraction is possible.
Why not?
Because Sensibile qualities are ideas. Abstraction is not possible in any form for B. - 242. Argument from Relativity - the same water which feels hot to one of your hands may feel cold to the other. - The heat and cold are not contradictory mind-ind sensible qualities of the water but different mind-dependent sensations.Generalising Argument
- The sensible qualities we perceive an object to have vary according to the condition and the perceiver:
the same object can appear to have one shape/colour viewed from one perspective and a diff one from diff perspective.
- This is intelligible if all sensible qualities are mind-dep ideas but not if they are inherent, mind-ind properties of objects. - 25Responses -There are alternative explanations of 'relativity' of SQs: it may be a degree of motion in nerves and other similar things. -There is no corresponding relativity for PQs: B exaggerates the extent to which these are variations in the SQs objects appear to have and the significance of any such variations.Conclusion
- B has no compelling arguments for the identification of ideas and SQs.
- In the absense of such arguments, many of his central arguments fail. - 26Observations - B claims that the notion of spiritual substance is intelligible to us in a way that the notion of material substance could not possibly be. But he admits that we can form no idea of spirit.What we have according to B is not an idea but a notion of spirit(?)
B rejects a realist claiming that we have a notion of material substance because he thinks that the notion of material substance is self-contradictory but this depends on the assumption that the sensible Qs attributed to material substance are ideas. - 27If objects are collections of ideas, how can two people perceive the same object? Berkeley wrongly dismisses this as a purely verbal problem. Can he account for the distinction between dreams/hallucinations and 'real things' if real things are collections of ideas?Kant: B degrades bodies to mere illusions. For B there are three criteria for distinguishing real things from dreams/products of imagination:
- vivacity
- dependence on the will
- coherence
For all that B says, there are striking structural parallels between his system and Locke's. - 28In order to know how much realism B's system represents we have to know the role of God and his conception of existence unperceived. Two arguments for Berkeley's proof of God's existence...Passivity argument:
my own thoughts are dependent not on my will but some other will or spirit that produces them. - 29Continuity Argument: - very important passage in dialogues - Were I annihilated, would you not conceive it possible that the things perceivable would still exist? - I can but it would be another mind. When we deny existence of sensible things, this is for all minds.- There must be an omnipresent eternal mind which knows all. It exhibits them to our view in such a manner; these are termed to us by the Laws of Nature.
- Between B and materialists, the question is whether there is an absolute existence distinct from being perceived by God and exterior to all minds? - 30Identity Assumption This creates problems for both the passivity and continuity argument. (Individuation due to ideas/senses).Relevance of Identity assumption; application of
Passivity argument: B assumed that what causes ideas must have them.
If we accept that our ideas are caused by God, we would have to suppose that God as the very ideas he causes in us. - 31How can these be the same? Given the Identity Asusmption, God's ideas can only be copies. This commits B to a representative/causal theory of perception in which our ideas of sense are copies of divine archetypes.Continuity Argument:
How can my ideas exist unperceived by me, in a mind (God's) other than my own?
This violates the identity assumption; or it may be that my ideas just stop existing but their archetypes/originals continue to exist in God's mind?
Am I then perceiving copies of God's ideas? - 32Archetype Interpretation of Berkeley - This is very non-commital - These must exist in another mind - Does not object to the ideas being archetypes of God's.Conclusions
- Although B does not commit to the archetype view, it was clear that he thought it viable and did not make him the same as Locke.
- Why? The supposition that our ideas are 'like' God's is inteligible in a way that the supposition that our ideas are like non-mental sensible Qs is not.
- B was sceptical about identity assumption; believed identity disputes were merely verbal.
- Berkeley's Puzzle!
Información
- Descripción
- HMP Fichas sobre Berkeley, creado por Karina De-Bourne el 01/06/2014.
- Creado por
- Karina De-Bourne
- Visitas
- 26
- Valoración