Locke And Berkeley on Abstract Ideas
On the face of it, Berkeley’s theory of generality seems to be the same as Locke’s:
“…universality, so far as I can comprehend,
not consisting in the absolute, positive nature or conception of anything, but
in the relation it bears to the particulars signified or represented by it: by
virtue whereof it is that things, names or notions, being in their own nature
particular, are rendered universal.” (PHK Intr.15)
And,
“….an idea, which considered in itself is
particular, becomes general, by being made to represent or stand for all other particular
ideas of the same sort. To make this plain by an example, suppose a
geometrician is demonstrating the method, of cutting a line in two equal parts.
He draws, for instance, a black line of an inch in length, this which in itself
is a particular line is nevertheless with regard to its signification general,
since as it is there used, it represents all particular lines whatsoever; for
what is demonstrated of it, is demonstrated of all lines or, in other words, of
a line in general. And as that particular line becomes general, by being made a
sign, so the name line which taken absolutely is particular, by being a sign is
made general. And as the former owes its generality, not to its being the sign
of an abstract or general line, but of all particular right lines that may
possibly exist, so the latter must be thought to derive its generality from the
same cause, namely, the various particular lines which it indifferently
denotes.”
The general term ‘triangle’ may denote any
number of triangles depending on the selective attention we give to particular
relations of resemblance, so if I concentrate on the way space is enclosed by
three lines, triangle can signify scalene, isosceles, equilateral, if I choose
to ignore how a triangle fills up a space and concentrate only on the aspect of
filling up of space, I can form the concept of a figure or extension. But there
is no Idea of an extension in general because as already noted in Berkeley’s
criticism of Locke, no one can form an Idea of an extension in general. For
Berkeley (PHK 1.1), like Locke an Idea is an object of immediate understanding
but contra Locke he forms a stricter criteria of individuation of an Idea which
is also then a criteria for the content of an Idea or what is thought within an
Idea. This criteria Waxman (2005) calls the Separability Principle and this is
a key concept in Berkeley’s philosophy and more particularly in his proof of
idealism:
“Whether others have this wonderful faculty
of abstracting their ideas, they best can tell: for myself I find indeed I have
a faculty of imagining, or representing to myself the ideas of those particular
things I have perceived and of variously compounding and dividing them. I can
imagine a man with two heads or the upper parts of a man joined to the body of
a horse. I can consider the hand, the eye, the nose, each by itself abstracted
or separated from the rest of the body. But then whatever hand or eye I imagine,
it must have some particular shape and colour. Likewise the idea of man that I
frame to myself, must be either of a white, or a black, or a tawny, a straight,
or a crooked, a tall, or a low, or a middle-sized man. . . . To be plain, I own myself able to abstract
in one sense, as when I consider some particular parts or qualities separated
from others, with which though they are united in some object, yet, it is
possible they may really exist without them. But I deny that I can abstract one
from another, or conceive separately, those qualities which it is impossible
should exist so separated.” (PHK Intr 10)
Waxman (2005: Ch 10 B-D) gives a
very cogent interpretation of this rule. Berkeley in his Commonplace Books
(C318), says that mind can consider one particular idea without another but
that consideration does not make it two ideas. The key distinction we have here
is a semantic use of Ideas to form words for the purpose of communication and
the ontological significance of Ideas. The one does not imply the other. Hence
even though we use words like ‘extension’ and ‘motion’, the difference of words
does not imply a difference in the Ideas themselves because in perception we
never find motion except in a certain body that is moved and to give another
example, there can be no figure without it being ‘great’ and ‘small’ in size
and hence in existence figure and size can never be separated even though they
can be in thought but such a thought would have a semantic significance but no
ontological significance. (Berkeley gives these examples in the First
Dialogues). Since perception (PHK Intr 12 and 1.15) is what alone gives us a
positive conception of an object, it alone is the ground for determining our
ontology and distinguishing it from abstractive activities of imagination and
the use of words. So perception is the base from where we separate semantic use
of words from their ontological significance:
“….nothing enters the imagination
which from the nature of the thing cannot be perceived by sense, since indeed
the imagination is nothing else than the faculty which represents sensible things
either actually existing or at least possible.” (De Motu 5)
Imagination gets its content from perception
and words even though indifferently denote only Ideas. Hence the content of
thought (ideas combined and united through words by imagination) and the scope
of its application is determined by possible perception and the scope of
possible perception is:
“…..those things alone are actually and
strictly perceived by any sense, which would have been perceived, in case that
same sense had then been first conferred on us.”
Since perception is immediate, its content
cannot be determined by anything that involves reasoning or movement from one
particular idea to another. So when we remove the effects of education and
reasoning, what we get is a content that a human mind has in common with an
animal, a content in all purity which is truly perceived prior to all
perceptual judgement. The common objects of understanding or what Waxman calls
sense-divide transcending objects then do not qualify as perceived. The object
of visual sense is light and colour (which is visible extension) and of touch
is tangible extension. The common object of understanding is something that can
be seen, touched, smelled and tasted and so is common to objects of different
senses. But Berkeley wants to remove all traces of generality within Ideas and
to treat them as pure particulars and so the sensible object he believes is got
through the relation of denotation. Tangible extension which is the peculiar
object of touch comes to signify visible extension of colour and are combined
in thought in such a way that they cannot be separated within thought like
words printed on paper always signify objects to us even though they never have
anything in common. Finally Berkeley believes that what we call laws of nature
are really relations of significance or denotation but one formed by God and
are completely arbitrary because particulars have nothing in common. It is
important to note that the relation of resemblance is the basis of combining different
Ideas for Berkeley as for Locke but for the former, the relation of resemblance
is not a feature of the Ideas themselves and (like Locke’s theory of Ideas of
Relation) are constituted by the act of comparing different Ideas and are not
found in Ideas before the comparison, unlike in Locke’s theory, who needs
resemblance to be the feature of some simple Ideas like those of primary
qualities in order to form the Complex Idea of Substance. Hence Waxman seems
correct to note their point of divergence (with some modifications to
accommodate my disagreement with Waxman on Locke):
“And here we arrive at the crux of the
divergence between a philosopher who, like Locke, affirms and a philosopher
who, like Berkeley, denies aspect discrimination. For the former, resemblances
are sometimes a function of the aspects we immediately discriminate in an idea,
prior to and independently of comparisons to other ideas, and which might in
principle have been evident to us from the moment we first became acquainted
with the idea. For the latter, aspects are merely a shadow cast on ideas by
signification, and resemblance is a strictly relational affair—a function
entirely of the comparison of ideas distinct from one another according to the
criterion of the separability principle. So, even though Berkeley’s account of
generality per se is for all intents and purposes indistinguishable from Locke’s,
they diverged radically in their conception of the capacity whereby the mind
abstracts its ideas from circumstances of real existence such as time, place, and
concomitant ideas, preliminary to employing them as universals to denote other
(equally particular) ideas indifferently. It thus becomes clear that Berkeley, thanks
to his separability principle, was in the end correct to distinguish his view of
universality from those of Locke and every other previous philosopher in terms of
an absolute, unqualified rejection of abstract ideas.”
But this leads to a problem which Berkeley
did not fully confront, Ideas have nothing in common, no distinguishing
property which would allow thought to take them over as particular Ideas to
forge a connection between them. Without such distinguishing features thought
is completely blind in its activity to combine and divide Ideas because there
is no basis for it to distinguish one particular from another. And also, if
there is nothing to distinguish one Idea from another on what do we base their
difference from each other? Also Berkeley never tells us what the relation of
resemblance is, is it between the things felt or the sensations? In PHK 1.89 he
says that the relation is distinct from both but in his philosophy there is no
way to distinguish between things felt and the feelings and since feelings are
fleeting or momentary, there is no way any relation can be found within them.
The problem is both epistemological and ontological; we cannot make sense of
mind’s activities of combining and dividing Ideas to arrive at a thought
content without some clues to be found in the Ideas on which mind operates. The
Ideas mean nothing to the mind and its operations would be completely arbitrary
but whereas a thought content has formal and material relations to other
contents of thought, when they are reduced to feelings these rational relations
are not preserved in the reduction. From momentary fleeting feelings we cannot
construct knowledge. This leads us to the worry of circularity that Green
(1894) points out – considered as pure feelings or sensations, there is no way
to combine them to form a thought content, the basis of all knowledge since
they are devoid of all relations and considered as a felt object distinct from
feelings, it presupposes information that is supposed to be constituted by
mind’s activity of forming ideas as demanded by the psychologistic project.
PROOF OF IDEALISM
I will discuss Berkeley’s proof of Idealism. I
follow Waxman’s interpretation as it is the only one that makes the role of
separability principle in this proof clear since unlike other commentators he
takes seriously why Berkeley says that he is only giving us the meaning of ‘existence’
in his proof, but later I shall find an important problem in this
interpretation and in Berkeley’s philosophy too:
1. Ideas can exist only in
being perceived
2. Sensible Objects (rivers, mountains,
trees etc.) are Ideas
3. Therefore sensible objects
can only exist in being perceived.
In justification of premise (1) Berkeley says
in his Commonplace Books:
“I Defy any man to Imagine or conceive
perception without an Idea or an Idea without perception . . . Consciousness, perception,
existence of Ideas, seem to be all one.” (C572 And 578)
As Waxman (2005: 276) explains:
“…if aspects are an illusion and no two ideas
are distinct unless one is capable of being perceived in the absence of the
other, then we have no choice but to concede the impossibility of distinguishing
the existence of a sensation from its presence in perception; and since this is
just to say that the existence of an idea unperceived is (not a semantic but)
an ideational contradiction…..”
This shows that the justification of Premise
(1) like that of Premise (2) which we shall see below, is based on his
Separability Principle. In PHK, Berkeley does not explicitly argue for this
premise taking it to be much too obvious. We have seen that on the basis of a
similar position Locke argued against intellectualism. But it is Berkeley who
whole heartedly espouses it and understands its complete implications. In his
philosophy there is no ontological distinction between Ideas of Sensation and
Ideas of Reflection, because the former do not also perform a representative
function. So Berkeley collapses the distinction between consciousness and the
object of consciousness; it is the same consciousness that in one aspect is
active in willing, perceiving an Idea and so brings an Idea into existence and is
also passive in perceiving it:
“A spirit is one simple, undivided, active
being: as it perceives ideas, it is called the understanding, and as it
produces or otherwise operates about them, it is called the will. Hence there
can be no idea formed of a soul or spirit: for all ideas whatever, being
passive and inert, vide sect. 25, they cannot represent unto us, by way of
image or likeness, that which acts. A little attention will make it plain to
anyone, that to have an idea which shall be like that active principle of motion
and change of ideas, is absolutely impossible. Such is the nature of spirit or
that which acts, that it cannot be of itself perceived, but only by the effects
which it produceth. If any man shall doubt of the truth of what is here
delivered, let him but reflect and try if he can frame the idea of any power or
active being; and whether he hath ideas of two principal
powers, marked by the names will and
understanding, distinct from each other as well as from a third idea of
substance or being in general, with a relative notion of its supporting or being
the subject of the aforesaid powers, which is signified by the name soul or
spirit. This is what some hold; but so far as I can see, the words will, soul,
spirit, do not stand for different ideas, or in truth, for any idea at all, but
for something which is very different from ideas, and which being an agent
cannot be like unto, or represented by, any idea whatsoever. Though it must be
owned at the same time, that we have some notion of soul, spirit, and the
operations of the mind, such as willing, loving, hating, in as much as we know
or understand the meaning of those words.” (PHK 1.27)
In PHK 1.25, Berkeley refers to the above
passage, he considers activity and passivity of consciousness to be aspects of
the same reality, distinct only in words:
“A little attention will discover to us that
the very being of an idea implies passiveness and inertness in it, insomuch that
it is impossible for an idea to do anything, or, strictly speaking, to be the
cause of anything: neither can it be the resemblance or pattern of any active
being.”
Consciousness has two aspects, an active one
and a passive one but there is no ontological distinction corresponding to them
within consciousness. Berkeley has got rid of the act-object analysis of
consciousness completely. Idea is the passive aspect of the same consciousness
that actively perceives it. The same consciousness is both the patient and the
agent of the action. This also opens the way for Berkeley to come up with two
distinct sources of knowledge: Ideas and Notions. Since Ideas are passive or inert
they cannot be the source of knowledge of causality which conception contains
activity. The esse of Ideas completely consists in being perceived, but an
internal consciousness of the act of perceiving or of willing or any kind of
mental action is the source of the ‘notion’ of causality.
The first premise is based on the identity of
Mind and Ideas. Premise (2) which seeks to identify sensible objects with
Ideas, Berkeley justifies this premise in the following way:
“If we thoroughly examine this tenet, it
will, perhaps, be found at bottom to depend on the doctrine of abstract ideas.
For can there be a nicer strain of abstraction than to distinguish the
existence of sensible objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive
them existing unperceived? Light and colours, heat and cold, extension and
figures, in a word the things we see and feel, what are they but so many
sensations, notions, ideas or impressions on the sense; and is it possible to
separate, even in thought, any of these from perception? For my part I might as
easily divide a thing from itself. I may indeed divide in my thoughts or
conceive apart from each other those things which, perhaps, I never perceived
by sense so divided. Thus I imagine the trunk of a human body without the
limbs, or conceive the smell of a rose without thinking on the rose itself. So
far I will not deny I can abstract, if that may properly be called abstraction,
which extends only to the conceiving separately such objects, as it is possible
may really exist or be actually perceived asunder. But my conceiving or
imagining power does not extend beyond the possibility of real existence or
perception. Hence as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an
actual sensation of that thing, so is it impossible for me to conceive in my
thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception
of it.” (PHK 1.5)
The vulgar idea (PHK 1.4) that houses, trees,
mountains etc. exist unperceived is a semantic deception caused by an
illegitimate abstraction. Applying the Separability Principle, we can correct
the ontological mistake that language commits us to and see clearly and
distinctly that no sensible object can exist unperceived. To exist unperceived
implies a contradiction:
“Philonous: That the colours are really in
the tulip which I see is manifest. Neither can it be denied that this tulip may
exist independent of your mind or mine; but
that any immediate object of the senses—that is any idea, or combination of
ideas—should exist in an unthinking substance, or exterior to all minds, is in
itself an evident contradiction. Nor can I imagine how this follows from what
you said just now, to wit, that the red and yellow were on the tulip you saw,
since you do not pretend to see that unthinking substance.” (First Dialogue)
Premise (1) says that Ideas cannot be
estranged from the mind or the consciousness perceiving it. Their existence
consists in being perceived. The second step in Premise (2) is to reduce
sensible objects to Ideas and argue that being Ideas they cannot be within an
unthinking material substance. To suppose so leads to a contradiction because
Ideas are essentially constituted by the minds that perceive them. But why
think that sensible objects are nothing but Ideas? As we saw PHK 1.5, Berkeley
argues that to conceive them as separate from the mind that thinks them is due
to an illegitimate abstraction or a semantic step conceived to have ontological
consequences. The existence of sensible objects is not different or can be
reduced to the existence of Ideas:
“Ask the gardener, why he thinks yonder
cherry tree exists in the garden, and he shall tell you, because he sees and
feels it; in a word, because he perceives it by his senses. Ask him why he
thinks an orange tree not to be there, and he shall tell you, because he does
not perceive it. What he perceives by sense, that he terms a real being, and
saith it is, or exists; but that which is not perceivable, the same, he saith,
has no being.” (Third Dialogue)
According to Berkeley, Locke takes
‘existence’ to have an equivocal meaning, one as applied to Ideas and another
as applied to the external object that is represented by certain Ideas. On the
other hand he uses the term in a univocal sense as applying only to Ideas. In
PHK 1.3 Berkeley asks us to attend to what is meant by the term ‘exists’ when
it is applied to sensible objects and if we do we shall notice:
“The table I write on, I say, exists, that
is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed,
meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some
other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was
smelled; there was a sound that is to say, it was heard; a colour or figure,
and it was perceived by sight or touch. This is all that I can understand by
these and the like expressions. For as to what is said of the absolute
existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived,
that seems perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible
they should have any existence, out of the minds or thinking things which
perceive them.”
“But say you, surely there is nothing easier
than to imagine trees, for instance, in a park, or books existing in a closet,
and no body by to perceive them. I answer, you may so, there is no difficulty
in it: but what is all this, I beseech you, more than framing in your mind
certain ideas which you call books and trees, and at the same time omitting to
frame the idea of any one that may perceive them? But do not you yourself
perceive or think of them all the while? This therefore is nothing to the
purpose: it only shows you have the power of imagining or forming ideas in your
mind; but it doth not show that you can conceive it possible, the objects of
your thought may exist without the mind: to make out this, it is necessary that
you conceive them existing unconceived or unthought of, which is a manifest
repugnancy. When we do our utmost to conceive the existence of external bodies,
we are all the while only contemplating our own ideas. But the mind taking no
notice of itself, is deluded to think it can and doth conceive bodies existing
unthought of or without the mind; though at the same time they are apprehended
by or exist in itself. (PHK 1.23)
Our conception of existence owes its origin
to the immediate presence within consciousness of an Idea and the psychological
origin of the concept of existence determines the content of the concept and
limits its scope of application. The concept of existence necessarily refers
back to its sensible origin which is where the meaning or the content of the
concept originated. If the genetic account of a concept is also an account of
the genesis of the content of the concept then the reference of the concept is essentially
tied to it sensible origins and if it can be shown that all concept of
understanding have a sensible origin then no concept comes from an a-priori
understanding. Unperceived existence or possible existence can mean nothing
more than when the conscious subject would be in a certain position he would
have certain perceptions as Berkeley argues using the example of the gardener.
In other words ‘possible perception’ is the limits of sense and we can never go
beyond it. To say that a thing exists unperceived is to say that we do not
currently perceive it but if we did we would be having certain perceptions. But
unperceived existence cannot mean unperceivable existence, it cannot mean that
Ideas can exist in an unthinking substratum. Since their existence lies in
being perceived, they cannot exist where they cannot be perceived. We can see
in this line of reasoning Berkeley is equating existence with actuality and
actuality lies in the liveliness of an Idea which like the sensation of pain
makes its presence felt to us and hence the content of this lively perception
is regarded as giving us access to existence of something. When the same
content is taken up by thought or imagination it loses its liveliness and
allows us to conceive the modality of ‘possibility’ and so the difference of a
certain faculty of consciousness is what grounds the meaning of the concepts of
existence and possible existence.
Sensible objects are nothing over and above
the sensible qualities we perceive within them, the conception that they are
more than that is born from abstraction which has a semantic value but not an
ontological one; wherein a certain aggregation of sensible qualities is taken
to be a single object. The sensible qualities on the other hand are completely
particular and cannot be denoted by any word because words are based on mind’s
combining and dividing Ideas based on the relation of resemblance. But this relation
is not intrinsic to the Ideas themselves. Hence we see Berkeley was a thorough
going nominalist. There is nothing really signified by the words at all; there
is no object of thought; the only object of thought is the object of perception
and there is nothing that is really thought at all. This is what the second
premise comes to.
It is here that we run into certain problems
both with Waxman’s interpretation on which the above presentation is based and
with Berkeley’s Idealism. What exactly is meant by ‘outside the mind’, an oft
used phrase of Berkeley’s? What is being denied in denying that anything exists
outside the mind? What after all is the conclusion of the argument? Waxman
interprets Berkeley’s Idealism as a psychological idealism rather than an
ontological one. On the basis of some passages in the Third Dialogue, he says
that Berkeley never denied that there could be a ‘third nature’ apart from the
spirit or perceptions. Such a nature would be unthinkable since it could not be
perceived; if it is perceived it would necessarily belong to the mind. So the
problem is, does Berkeley affirm:
(A)
For sensible things esse is percipi
Or
(B)
For everything that outside the mind, esse is percipi
The question pertains to the scope of his
Idealism. (A), implies that Idealism is a thesis that holds only for sensible
things and a non-mental reality may exist. (B), implies that nothing different
from Mind exists and Mind is the sole reality. But the problem is if (A) is the
correct interpretation of Berkeley’s Idealism then how do we make sense of a
possible existence when existence can be predicated only of what is perceived. If
existence consists of being sensed; then there cannot be a possible existent
that can exist unperceived. It is not possible in Berkeley’s system to
countenance an existence which is not sensible and hence no sense can be made
of this ‘third nature’; how should we regard it as possible at all? If we do
then Berkeley’s own psychologism in determining the meaning of the concept of
existence and restricting its scope to perception would be violated. The point
can be made in this way, when Berkeley says that there is nothing outside the
mind, what is it that he is denying or what is the object of negation here?
Whatever it is, it should be thinkable in order to be denied. The criteria of
thinkability is that a conception must not violate the law of
non-contradiction. But then the meaning of the term ‘existence’ depends not on
sensible perception but is derived from PNC. What is thinkable is possible and
what is possible can or cannot exist. So we have widened the scope of
application for the concept of existence on the basis of PNC and the source of
such a concept cannot lie in sense-perception but in an understanding a-priori.
But it could still be urged that the concept of existence we get using PNC is
about Being in general whereas the modality Berkeley is interested in is
actuality. That is correct but the modality that is here the subject of
discussion is possibility; is the content of this concept determined by sense
experience of reason a-priori? Or else Berkeley could say that ‘outside the
mind’ is an empty non-referring phrase which would imply that mind is all that
is and there is nothing ‘outside the mind’. This would run against Waxman’s
interpretation.
Let us take a look at one of the passages
Waxman cites as evidence for his interpretation:
“I say in the first place, that I do not deny
the existence of material substance, merely because I have no notion of it, but
because the notion of it is inconsistent, or in other words, because it is
repugnant that there should be a notion of it. Many things, for ought I know, may exist, whereof neither I nor any
other man hath or can have any idea or notion whatsoever. But then those things
must be possible, that is, nothing inconsistent must be included in their
definition. I say secondly, that although we believe things to exist which we
do not perceive; yet we may not believe that any particular thing exists,
without some reason for such belief: but I have no reason for believing the
existence of matter. I have no immediate intuition thereof: neither can I
mediately from my sensations, ideas, notions, actions or passions, infer an
unthinking, unperceiving, inactive substance, either by probable deduction, or
necessary consequence. Whereas the being of myself, that is, my own soul, mind
or thinking principle, I evidently know by reflexion. You will forgive me if I
repeat the same things in answer to the same objections. In the very notion or
definition of material substance, there is included a manifest repugnance and
inconsistency.” (Third Dialogue)
In this passage Berkeley says that anything
that does not contain any inconsistencies within its definition may exist. The
criteria seems to be that any conception that does not contain a contradiction
is possible. But the first part of the passage shows that he rejects the
existence of material substances because their very notion contains a
contradiction. At the end of the second dialogue Berkeley clearly denies
possibility that a material substance may exist. By a material substance
Berkeley understands a coloured, extended, solid thing which is also the
substratum of these sensible qualities. So the basis of deriving a contradiction
is that an unthinking substance cannot be the substratum of sensible qualities
that necessarily inhere in a mind. So here Berkeley seems to conflate between
the possibility that an unthinking substance may exist and the possibility that
sensible qualities may exist in an unthinking substance; accordingly is it the
case that we have a contradictory concept of matter or do we lack an Idea at
all? In the passage above he says it is not that he denies matter because he
lacks an Idea or a notion of matter but because he finds it repugnant. Now
consider the second passage that Waxman cites from the Third Dialogue. In this
Berkeley’s interlocutor proposes to call in a ‘third nature’ distinct from
spirit and matter and Berkeley entertains the notion for argument’s sake (or
whether he admits that such a third nature is possible is not clear from this
passage). Then Berkeley replies that his perceptions, volitions can exist only
in an active being and the only active being he is aware of from his own volitions
is of spirit which excludes both matter and ‘third nature’ as the repository of
sensible qualities. These dialogues reveal certain unclarities within
Berkeley’s philosophy. He is adamant to deny the possibility that matter could
exist yet he defines matter as “extended, solid, figured, movable substance
existing without the mind”, this is what he believes the layman takes matter to
be and he says he denies this because such a conception contains a ‘manifest
repugnancy’ or else by this concept ‘you mean nothing’, both of which are
sufficient to show the impossibility of matter. But this concept of matter is
not a simple concept; it is composed of atleast (ignoring relation) two
elements – sensible qualities and unthinking substance. Now what may be impossible
is the relation of inherence or identity between the two but what is not clear
is why an unthinking substance should be impossible if sensible qualities
cannot inhere within it? Ayers in his bid to defend Locke against Berkeley
argues that he conflates a bare particular with the bare idea of a particular.
Waxman (2005: 305) counters this charge on grounds that Berkeley does not imply
that the substratum of extension and solidity is a bare substratum, devoid of
any qualities, it is just that those qualities cannot be sensible qualities. So
he takes this ‘unthinking substance’ to be the ‘third nature’ of the Third
Dialogues which still survives the charge of impossibility laid out by Berkeley
at the end of the Second Dialogue. The confusion arises because Berkeley says
that what the layman considers to be ‘matter’ is preserved in his philosophy by
subtracting the concept of ‘unthinking substance’ from it and taking matter to
be nothing else but a congregation of sensible qualities. In the Third Dialogue
where this ‘third nature’ is discussed, Berkeley adds that this third nature is
‘I know not what’ or anyone else for that matter of fact. So his conclusion
comes to this – a) We do not have any Idea of an unthinking substance and b) it
is impossible that sensible qualities may exist within an unthinking
substratum. The phrase ‘unthinking substance’, ‘outside the mind’, are empty
phrases – there is nothing that is being excluded by the use of these phrases
because they refer to nothing. Notice again in the passage above, Berkeley says
that in order to affirm the existence of something we need a reason for belief
and in case of material substance such a reason is not forthcoming. But just
earlier he said that the notion of a material substance contains a contradiction,
so how can there ever be a reason for belief in such a substance at all whose
definition involves a contradiction? But there can be no reason to believe in
the existence of something if we have no Idea about it at all.
Further what reading of ontological idealism
should we apply to Berkeley?
(I)
It is not possible that the mind does not exist and if anything exists,
only mind can exist and nothing different from it can exist.
OR
(II)
It is possible that the mind could not exist but if anything does
exist, only the mind and nothing different from it exists.
The first reading is a conjunction of two
propositions: Mind Exists and Necessarily only the Mind Exists. The Second
Reading is a precarious one because it is a conjunction of two propositions –
It is possible that the mind does not exist and if anything exists then only
the mind or spirit could exist. But certainly there has to be something
different from Mind in this case if the possibility of the Mind’s existence has
to be converted into an actuality or else nothing would exist and the second
proposition would be meaningless. But in the first reading there is nothing to
suggest in Berkeley’s philosophy that we can infer ‘Necessarily only the mind
exists’ from ‘Mind’s existence’. But if something other than the Mind can exist
then his empiricism (as I have argued above) cannot make sense of the
possibility ‘that something other than the mind exists’ and so we need to look
somewhere else than ‘sensible experience’ for determining the meaning of this
possibility. If however such a possibility is regarded as illegitimate given
Berkeley’s psychologism about the concept of existence then no possibility of
unperceived existence should arise and then saying that Berkeley’s Idealism is
psychological rather than ontological is a euphemism because he would be
committed to a stronger ontological reading chartered above, but clearly there
is no way to make sense of the necessity that nothing other than the mind can
exist.
To sum up, in order to prove that for
sensible qualities esse est percipi, Berkeley needs to show ‘Necessarily
sensible qualities like heat, cold, colours, extension, solidity are Ideas’
(and so to say that sensible qualities can inhere is matter is to say that one
thing can be another or that there can be a square circle), but in order to get
the conclusion he is really after that matter cannot possibly exist he needs to
argue that ‘Necessarily only the mind exists’. But he has based the
impossibility of matter on the former and hence has given us no reason for the
latter conclusion. He thinks arguing for the former leads us to the conclusion
of impossibility of matter because he confuses the concept of matter as the
repository of sensible qualities with matter as an unthinking substance, he has
given an argument against the first but not against the second conception of
matter. Against the latter the best he can say is that we have no reason to
believe that it exists but not that the concept involves a contradiction.
And now the final strand for the proof of
idealism is this that without the premise ‘Necessarily only the mind exists’,
which Berkeley wrongly thought he gets to by showing the impossibility of
matter, is essential for proving the ‘Esse est pericipi’ holds for sensible
qualities. Note that this conclusion depends on the truth of the proposition
‘it is impossible for sensible qualities to exist without the mind’. It is not
enough as some commentators have done to hold against Berkeley that he does not
distinguish between the way sensible qualities appear to the mind and what
those sensible qualities themselves are. This is the bone of contention and we
cannot hold it against Berkeley because he seeks to repudiate this distinction
in order to prove his version of Idealism. That an ontological idealism was
what Berkeley was after, contra Waxman, can be seen from his arguments against
scepticism which hardly have been taken seriously by anyone. At the beginning
of the Third Dialogue responding to Hylas’s worries that in Berkeley’s
philosophy there is no chance we can know the real nature of things because we
can know only appearances and so scepticism seems inevitable, Berkeley says:
“….and is it not evident you are led into all
these extravagancies by the belief of
material substance? These make you dream of those unknown natures in
everything. It is this occasions your distinguishing between the reality and
sensible appearances of things.”
And further he says:
“That a thing should be really perceived by
my senses and at the same time not really exist, is to me a plain
contradiction; since I cannot prescind
or abstract, even in thought, the existence of a sensible thing from its being
perceived. Wood, stones, fire, water, flesh, iron and the like things I
name and discourse of, are things I know. And I should not have known them, but
that I perceived them by my senses; and things perceived by the senses are
immediately perceived; when therefore they are actually perceived, there can be
no doubt of their existence. Away then with all that scepticism, all those
ridiculous philosophical doubts……I might as well doubt my own being, as of the
being of those things I actually see and feel.”
Further again Hylas expresses a doubt, if you
ceased to exist then “cannot you conceive it possible that things perceivable
by sense may still exist?” and Philonous responds by saying, “when I deny
sensible things in existence out of the mind, I do not mean my mind in
particular, but all mind.” These other minds he points out have an existence
exterior to his mind and so there must be some other mind wherein they exist,
which is God’s Mind.
From these passages we learn: a) scepticism
arises because we assume there is a distinction between appearance and reality,
b) this assumption depends on assuming that a material substance exists which
is the real nature of things, but c) what our senses tell is the real nature of
things, there is nothing more to know since to exist is to be perceived. Note
that in these passages Berkeley is going after the stronger conclusion, there
is nothing else to know except what the senses reveal. He is implicitly denying
here the very possibility of a material substance or a third nature and basing
his argument against scepticism on the presumption that they are possible
because without getting rid of this possibility he can never eliminate the
doubt that there is more to know about than what simply appears to the senses.
One can probably come up with weaker readings of these passages, but they won’t
do justice to the Berkeley’s confidence that nothing ‘unknown’ remains to be
known in order to have knowledge contra scepticism.
Compare this with Descartes
argument for a 2-way separability test to prove a real distinction exists between
mind and matter. We saw that invoking a 2-way separability test implies the
violation of the transparency principle - mind knows everything what transpires
within it because its nature or essence is an open book to itself. Clearly
Berkeley too subscribes to this principle and more so than Descartes because
for him what is sensed or perceived has to be necessarily within the mind, so the
relation between mind and Idea is a necessary one, on the strongest reading a
necessity due to identity. So if we put up the question – Is it possible that
sensible qualities can exist unperceived, we would get the reply “the existence
of the sensible thing consists in its being perceived.” Note Berkeley moves
from ‘x is perceived’ which is a fact to ‘Necessarily, if any x exists then it
is perceived’, which is a stronger conclusion and he can make that transition
only by showing that the existence of the object of perception cannot exclude
perception at the cost of excluding its own existence. So the existence of the
object of perception can necessarily include perception if there is no possible
world where it can exist unperceived (and only then can we prove identity of
Idea and Mind or consciousness) and so if the possibility of the existence of
matter remains open, the possibility of unperceived existence of the object of
perception i.e. sensible qualities remains open too because necessity excludes
all possibilities; in no possible world could a square be a circle.
So we saw Descartes on the one hand he needs
a 2-way separability, to show that sensible qualities inhere in a mind and on
the other hand to show that they cannot inhere in an unthinking substance and
if he proves that, then he cannot hold onto the transparency of mind which
means he cannot exclude the possibility that a sensible quality may exist in
matter despite consulting his Ideas. Berkeley is in practically the same
predicament, he needs to show that matter is impossible in order to validate
his ess est percipi idealism – sensible qualities exist in being perceived and
so no possibility of their unperceived existence arises. But how should he go
about proving that esse est percipi is a necessary truth? The testimony of
consciousness is insufficient to determine what the esse of sensible qualities
is and so from ‘x is perceived’ he cannot prove ‘existence of x consists in
being perceived’ merely from the testimony of consciousness (i.e. from his
version of transparency principle) without excluding certain possibilities or
the possibility that a material substance exists. Like Descartes he would
ideally want to prove from the testimony of consciousness that the existence of
sensible qualities necessarily imply the mind but like Descartes he feels the
need to demonstrate the impossibility of any alternative scenarios and hence
adduce additional proof of the impossibility of matter. The moral of the story
is that the testimony of consciousness is insufficient to establish the
ontological status of the objects of consciousness.
This conclusion will be clear in context of
Waxman’s interpretation. Following his exegesis we can say that the reason
Berkeley excluded the possibility of the existence of sensible qualities within
unthinking substance was because the scope of possibilities was limited by
Berkeley in accordance with possibility of perception and so an unthinking
substance cannot be conceived or thought but from this we cannot derive the
ontological conclusion that such a substance cannot exist, however Waxman
believes Berkeley did not want to go that far and hence the idealism Waxman
attributed to Berkeley was psychological idealism and not ontological idealism.
But in order for psychologism about the concept of existence to go through,
there should be no possibility left of an unperceived existence. To recall
Leibniz, Berkeley like Locke does not distinguish between Idea and actual
thoughts and these actual thoughts essentially constitute the concept of
existence because they are responsible for the content the concept has. And so
a successful psychological explication of the concept of existence must exhaust
all possibilities and the possibility of an unperceived existence must be
denied. This leads to ontological idealism rather than a mere psychological
one. But if the possibility of unperceived existence is leftover then
psychologism about the concept is also proved wrong since the concept has a
certain content or certain possibilities that are not exhausted by actual
thoughts.
Berkeley does clearly want to restrict the
limits of thought to the limits of sense and to this end he has to show that
the content of thought essentially refers back to sense, this is where his
nominalism comes in. The challenge is to distinguish between the psychological
conditions of the acquisition of a concept from the sensible origins of the
content of the concept itself. It is the latter that Berkeley is after. Waxman
correctly believes that at the heart of this issue is the separability
principle which he takes to lead to the esse is percipi conclusion. But Waxman
construes the use of the principle as a psychological principle and not an
ontological principle and the resulting idealism too therefore is a
psychological one. I think where he is wrong is in holding that Berkeley is not
after the stronger conclusion – an ontological idealism and if the
impossibility of matter remains to be proved then even the psychologistic
conclusion is under threat. The reason is simple, SP says that we cannot
conceive an x without y because they cannot be perceived asunder, sensible
objects cannot be conceived without Ideas and Ideas without consciousness. From
this the conclusion that would follow is – the psychological conditions for
thinking one kind of thought depends on another. Clearly Berkeley cannot use
this principle to show that sensible qualities cannot reside within an
unthinking substance. His argument is based on showing that the essence of
Ideas involves the mind and so if we take away one, we take away another. This
is how he means to use the SP, as an ontological principle, not just a
psychological principle and the psychologistic conclusion itself depends on
this stronger ontological reading that the Idea cannot exist without the Mind,
even the possibility does not arise. Berkeley strives for the stronger
ontological idealism but he cannot get there because hidden within his
paradoxes is an ambivalence in the use of the term ‘matter’, on the one hand it
means ‘repository of sensible qualities’ and on the other ‘unthinking
substance’. The challenge before him is to show that it is impossible that
sensible qualities can exist unperceived. On the one hand he argues that we
cannot conceive the existence of sensible qualities in insensible substances,
but like Descartes it troubles him why someone cannot say that unknown to him,
sensible qualities do exist unperceived in matter. The testimony of
consciousness is restricted to the presence of sensible qualities within
consciousness, from this he cannot derive conclusions about the possibility of
existence of sensible qualities somewhere outside the mind. So now he is in a
predicament, the testimony of consciousness fails him, the conceivability test
fails him because the existence of matter is not precluded and so finally he
comes to demonstrating the impossibility of matter on grounds that its very
conception involves a ‘manifest repugnancy’, which repugnancy lies in inherence
of sensible qualities in an unthinking substance but not in the unthinking
substance itself. Even if it is admitted that we have no Idea of an unthinking
substance, we cannot move to the stronger conclusion that such a ‘third nature’
cannot exist and till such a nature is possible, the existence of sensible
qualities unperceived is possible because Berkeley has given no grounds what so
ever to preclude this possibility.
Below I will discuss some insightful remarks of Robert Adamson (1881 (Fichte): 112-124) in his monograph on Fichte.
Berkeley more than Locke deserves the credit
for anticipating the Transcendental Method but his own philosophy often
conflates the difference between introspective psychological method of Locke
and his own innovations which were unclear to him:
On the other hand, it is equally beyond doubt
that Berkeley, under the influence of Locke's philosophy, accepted as the
criterion of the possibility of entrance into the conscious experience of a
subject, the possibility of forming one fact of observation in the observed sum
of states making up conscious experience. In his view, as in that of Locke,
existence for a self-conscious subject meant individual or particular existence
as an object of internal observation. Thus from the outset he united in one
system the transcendental and the psychological methods, and the history of the
development of his thoughts is an instructive record of the struggle between the
two principles. The manifold inconsistencies which criticism discloses in his
doctrine are natural results of the attempt, however unconscious, to combine
two radically incompatible views.”
What is it to be a possible object of an
experience? For Rationalists it is an Idea that determines the possibility but
for Berkeley this possibility is the possibility of being perceived. The object
of perception is a particular fact; but a fact for whom? How does that fact
mean something for the conscious subject and under what conditions? For the
Transcendental Method this question is important because no fact that is not a
fact for the subject has to be countenanced in that philosophy. But then the
conscious subject cannot be a fact because then the explanation would be
circular – for whom is a conscious subject a fact for? Berkeley reaches this
insight only thereafter to abandon it since he is still working under the
shadows of Locke’s empirical psychology, where there is plenty of room for
facts but none for meaning and it is meaning that Berkeley is after and he is
searching it in the wrong place.
“Berkeley's earliest reflections, those
contained in the 'Commonplace Book,' discovered and published by Professor
Eraser, are dominated throughout by the individualist notion which is part of
the psychological method. He is even disposed at times to reject his underlying
doctrine of the necessary implication of subject and object, and to regard mind
itself as but a collection of particular ideas, as, indeed, mind necessarily
is, for internal observation. In the first formal stage of his philosophy, the
stage represented by the 'Principles,' the most characteristic features are due
to the steady application of the individualist criterion. It seems evident to
him that to the observer, regarded as standing apart from conscious experience,
nothing can be presented but isolated, single states, connected externally or contingently,
containing in themselves no reference to underlying substance or cause, and
existing only as facts for an observer. The result is one aspect, unfortunately
almost the only aspect known, of the Berkeleian idealism. Existence is the sum
of states making up the experience of the individual; there is nothing beyond
the mind and its own phenomena. From such a mere subjective fancy no
philosophical aid is to be found for resolving any of the harder
problems of thought.”
Thereafter Adamson quotes Stirling's insightfully remarks:
“In short, the slightest reflection enables
one to see that the most airy subjective idealism and the crassest materialism
are one and the same. In both cases we are left with the mere statement that things
are what they are, and it matters not whether we call them ideas or forms of
matter.”
All empiricists,
Hume including as shall see, countenance an ontology of ‘bare particulars’,
none of which have any relation to another whatsoever. Relations between these
particulars are forged by the mind, a finite one wanting, an infinite mind is
called for. But those particulars are related to this infinite mind and even
though it is not clear how, the fact that they call out for an explanation as a
whole implies, they cannot be so unrelated to each other after all. Unless this
demand to refer to God or an Infinite Mind is made clear what Berkeley
essentially has done is to substitute God for Matter. Everything else literally
remains the same and it makes no difference to call one set of facts as
‘mental’ or ‘physical’. The philosophy comes down to be the same either way but
with different names:
“The psychological method, starting from the
point of view of ordinary consciousness, in which the individual subject is
confronted with two
dissimilar series of facts, inner and outer
experience, and in which each series, as it presents itself separately, is
viewed from the same quasi external position, proceeds to treat these facts by
the help of the familiar category or notion of the thing and its relations to
other things. The world of external experience appears as a totality of existing
things, reciprocally determining and being determined, each of which is what it
is because the others are what they are. It matters not that, by the introduction
of some subjective analysis, we reduce the supposed things to more or less
permanent groups or series of sensations: the essential fact is, that they are
thought as making up a mechanical whole.”
And so,
“The psychological method has simply thrown out
of account or neglected the fundamental fact, that of self-consciousness.
Mechanical or dogmatic explanations of mental phenomena may be adequate as
statements of the conditions under which these phenomena come to be, but they
are utterly inadequate as explanations of what these phenomena are for the
conscious subject.”
Berkeley struggled to make sense of the
relation between Mind and Idea. Clearly the relation has to be a necessary one
and since causality is a relation between two separate existents, this relation
cannot exist between Mind and Idea and so the relation had to be identity. This
is needed for the proof of idealism to go through, why else would the existence
of sensible qualities that necessarily depend on mind would be impossible
within an unthinking substance? But if Mind and Idea are identical it becomes unclear
how those Ideas qua facts acquire meaning at all; since all meaning is meaning
for a conscious subject if the subject is eliminated, meaning too goes with it.
Hence Berkeley’s more considered opinion in PHK was to regard them as different
but he cannot do that without violating his own Separability Principle as
Waxman (2005: 314) shows and worst still it becomes difficult to do justice to
the notion of unity of spirit:
“Descartes viewed the unity of pure
intellect/will with the senses as a consequence of the contingent joining of
the mind to a human body, and so as an essentially dissoluble union. Although
Berkeley rejected the latter together with Descartes’s materialism, it is by no
means clear how he could justify treating the union of pure intellect/will with
the senses as essentially indissoluble. Since reflexion and sensation are
incommensurate with one another, the separability principle does not seem to
prevent us from distinguishing their objects—respectively, notions and ideas—in
thought and supposing one to exist without the other: without an
intellect/will, the senses can still be supposed to yield ideas, and without senses
the intellect/will might still occupy itself with reflexive actions and
passions, notions of other spirits together with their actions and passions, as
well as notions of the relations between spirits. Indeed, it is not immediately
clear whether Berkeley was in a position to explain how it is possible for
sensations and reflexions to belong to the same entity at all.”
And so from the point of view of
Transcendental Philosophy, Berkeley’s philosophy counts as dogmatic, as Adamson
makes it clear:
“Thus the psychological idealism, reached by application
of the one method, was transformed by application of the other into a species
of objective or theological idealism. The conception of a mere flux of
conscious states was converted into the more complex notion of an intelligible
system a world of free and independent spirits, whose modes of action and
passion are the several modifications of actual experience as known to us.
Finite minds are related to one another and to the Infinite Mind by mutual
action and reaction. The course of nature is the result of the operation of the
Divine Mind on finite intelligences. A notion like this is essentially what
Kant and Fichte call "dogmatic." It implies or starts from the
assumption of an absolute opposition between two orders of real existences, the
finite and the infinite mind, and endeavours to explain their reconciliation or
conjunction by means of a conception which has validity only for the diverse
objects of one conscious subject. A conscious subject can only think the
objects which make up his experience as mutually determining, for only so do
they compose one experience. To transfer this notion to the possible relations
of infinite and finite intelligences, which by supposition are not mere objects
for mind, is to make an invalid, or technically, a transcendent use of it. No
ingenuity can render a finite and relative notion like that of causal action,
or of mutual determination, adequate to express the possible connection between
experience and the ground of all possible experience. God and the world are not
to be thought as respectively cause and effect.”
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