Berkeley

George Berkeley

• 2nd of the Great British Empiricists

• 18th century thinker

• Archbishop

Subjective Idealism

• Central Claim of Berkeley’s empiricism:

• “ To be is to perceive or to be perceived”

• Meaning; All that exists is minds and that which is perceived within minds

Surprising implication

• Mind independent material substance does not exist

• What exist is our perception of a certain color, texture, smell,sound, but there is nothing beyond that

Berkeley vs Locke 

• Berkeley reject the existence of lockean primary qualities of object

• Locke’s insight: any argument for the existence of mind independent material substance must be based on non-empirical premises, therefore the empirical out to reject belief in substance

Dialogue format

Philonous – Mouthpiece of Berkeley
• Hylas – Common sense thinker
• Topic – Does subjective idealism entail
skepticism or atheism?
• Q: Why would SI be viewed as skepticism?

Skepticism versus subjective idea

skeptic: one that doubts of everything

Subjective idealism: doubts, material substance, but believes that doubting substance establishes the knowledge of Great many other things

Subjective idea, views, traditional empiricism as skepticism

• locke’s common sense view of cognition, puts distance between the real external objects and ideas in one's mind

• The traditional story let since data and organs put distance between perceiver and perceived that found skepticism. Ideas can't be like external objects.

Explanation of matter

Subjective idealism: says that matter is merely the perception of touch, there is nothing further

B/C of God

archbishop berkeley think that the entire external world is constantly perceived by God. Therefore, it acts with regularity and acts according to a higher order of law than our own perceptions

Why would anyone accept subjective idealism?

Subjective idea: all that exist, our minds, and that which is perceived in minds

Simplicity: the traditional account of empiricism  is more metaphysically complex

Explanatory power

Justification of knowledge: the existence of the objects of subjectivism: minds in ideas in mind. The existence of anything mine independent is very difficult to justify.

Avoidance of skepticism

fits well into a monotheistic or pantheistic world view

Against subjective idealism

• The experiment does prove that some qualities of objects like experiencing them as hot and cold or mind dependent, but does not prove that every quality is mind dependent

• Most of us experienced the world as mine independent it does not disappear radically reconfigure when we all stop pereceiving it