Berkeley on ImmaterialismPRINTED

Berkeley on ImmaterialismPH312 HISTORY OF MODERN PHILOSOPHYLECTURE 15, 2016

‘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. (Principles, §3)

Dr. Johnson: ‘I refute it thus!’

Review of Berkeley’s arguments against abstract ideas:

Against ‘generalizing’ abstraction: G1. The content of a particular idea is determined by the image one has in

mind when one has that idea. G2. We can only form mental images of particular things, or limited groups

of particular things. G3. Such mental images are already used to represent the particular things,

or limited groups of particular things, they depict. G4. They cannot, then, be used to stand for general kinds of particular

things. G5. A general abstract idea would be an idea standing for a general kind of

things. GC. Thus general abstract ideas cannot be formed. Generalizing abstraction

is impossible.

Review of Berkeley’s arguments against abstract ideas:

Against ‘singling’ abstraction:

S1. In reality, a property of a thing cannot exist without all the other properties of the thing together.

S2. Singling abstraction is imagining one of a thing’s properties existing without the others.

S3. What is impossible cannot be conceived/imagined. SC. Therefore we cannot perform acts of singling abstraction.

Assimilation and Master Arguments

We have seen that the argument against generalizing abstraction seems more powerful than that against singling abstraction.

Unfortunately, Berkeley’s arguments for immaterialism seem to draw upon the latter.

Berkeley presents two main arguments for his immaterialist thesis: that nothing exists except minds and their ideas. These are the master argument and the assimilation argument. But there are actually two versions of the master argument.

The Master Argument 1

Given the name ‘master argument’ by Andre Gallois in his 1974 paper (on Helios).

Gallois looks at the argument as presented in Berkeley’s first of three very readable Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous.

Hylas’ argument

H1. Hylas imagines U existing unperceived.

H2. What someone imagines must be possible.

HC. Therefore it is possible for U to exist unperceived.

Philonous’s reply

P1. Hylas imagines U.

P2. To imagine something is, in a way, to perceive it.

P3. So U is perceived.

PC. So Hylas does not imagine U existing unperceived.

Master Argument 1

Hylas can’t have his first premise – H1 – his argument doesn’t go through.

If we can’t even imagine how something could exist unperceived (as matter would), this should give us serious pause before accepting materialism.

Problem: Berkeley seems to confuse imagining something possibly being the case with imagining that it is the case.

Revised Hylas Argument

H1. Hylas imagines U possibly existing unperceived.

H2. What someone imagines (consistently) must be possible.

HC. Therefore it is possible for U to exist unperceived.

Revised Philonous argument

P1. Hylas imagines U.

P2. To imagine something is, in a way, to perceive it.

P3. So U is perceived.

PC. So Hylas does not imagine U possibly existing unperceived.

Imagism

Berkeley was too clever to have gotten things so obviously wrong.

There must be, again, some hidden reasoning at work.

Gallois supposes that Berkeley’s hidden reasoning must have something to do with his imagistic theory.

ImagismThe content of an idea is the image one has in mind when one has that idea.

Gallois: ‘…if Hylas thinks that [something] might exist unperceived – say, a table – then it follows that Hylas has the concept of an unperceived [table]; and if he has this concept then he can image appropriately with respect to it.’

Images of Perceived vs. Unperceived Objects…

What distinct images do we use to imagine:

1. A perceived table.

2. An unperceived table.

??


Couldn’t you run the argument inversely to say that any image that would form the content of an idea of a perceived table is already in use as the image that forms the content of an idea of an unperceived table?

I think Berkeley would reject this on empiricist grounds.


Could we form the idea of an unperceived table by abstraction?

Start with the mental image of a perceived table, and abstract away whatever specific qualities make it the image of something perceived (P-qualities).

But Berkeley has argued against abstraction.


We’ve found Berkeley’s argument against singling abstraction to be invalid.

May not be relevant here.

The problem we found was that S2, in the anti-singling argument is implausibly strong: one need not imagine a quality existing by itself in order to simply imagine the quality by itself.

But in the case of imagining unperceived things, that’s exactly what we are doing.

Against singling abstraction

S1. In reality, a property of a thing cannot exist without all the other properties of the thing together.

S2. Singling abstraction is imagining one of a thing’s properties existing without the others.

S3. What is impossible cannot be conceived/imagined.

SC. Therefore we cannot perform acts of singling abstraction.


Still, while S2 works in this case, S1 does not.

Somebody who thinks that there can be unperceived things obviously thinks that the non-P-qualities of a table can exist without its P-qualities. Thus she will simply reject S1.

Margaret Atherton reads Berkeley as taking the impossibility of non-P-qualities existing without P-qualities for granted, and using this impossibility to argue for the inconceivability of such a situation.

This is in line with the structure of the argument S1-SC above. But it leaves the crucial premise S1 un-argued for.

Master Argument 2

‘It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men, that houses, mountains, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects have an existence natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding. But with however great an assurance and acquiescence this principle may be entertained in the world; yet whoever shall find in his heart to call it in question, may, if I mistake not, perceive it to involve a manifest contradiction. For what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense, and what do we perceive besides our own ideas or sensations; and is it not plainly repugnant that any one of these or any combination of them should exist unperceived?’

Master Argument 2

M1. Anything you can think of is perceived by you.

M2. What is perceived by you is an idea.

M3. An idea cannot exist without being perceived.

MC. Whatever you can think of, it cannot exist without being perceived (except the mind itself).

Master Argument 2

M2 seems to be the weakest premise here.

It is, perhaps, a statement of the kind of indirect realism we discussed in relation to Locke.

But even most indirect realists would qualify M2: all we directly perceive are our ideas, but through them we indirectly perceive many things that aren’t ideas.

This would block Berkeley’s argument at the first step.

Master Argument 2

Berkeley attempts to reply to this kind of reasoning at §8.

Suppose we ask the indirect realist how we are meant to perceive things indirectly by way of our ideas?

One standard (Lockean) reply is that we do so because our ideas resemble the objects we indirectly perceive.

Berkeley’s reply is that ‘an idea can be like nothing but an idea’.

Master Argument 2

Why does Berkeley think that an idea can only resemble another idea?

As he puts it: ‘I appeal to anyone whether it be sense to assert a colour is like something which is invisible; hard or soft, like something which is intangible, and so of the rest.’ (§8)

What about Locke’s primary qualities? If my idea of a door is of a rectangular door, couldn’t something exist that resembles it in respect of being rectangular?

Berkeley’s reply comes in his next argument.

The Assimilation Argument

(Involves Berkeley assimilating the category of primary qualities into that of secondary qualities. Since the latter are mind-dependent, so must the former be.)

‘I desire anyone to reflect and try, whether he can be any abstraction of thought, conceive the extension and motion of a body, without all other sensible qualities. For my own part, I see evidently that it is not in my power to frame and idea of a body extended and moved, but I must also give it some colour or other sensible quality which is acknowledged to exist only in the mind. In short, extension, figure, and motion, abstracted from all other qualities, are inconceivable. Where therefore the other sensible qualities are, there must these be also, that is, in the mind and nowhere else.’ (Principles, §10)


A1. We can’t conceive of primary qualities without secondary qualities.

A2. So primary qualities can’t exist except with secondary qualities.

A3. Secondary qualities can only exist in the mind.

AC. So primary qualities can only exist in the mind.


A3 is supposed to have been demonstrated by Locke’s various arguments that colour, taste, and the like vary from seer and taster to seer and taster, and must therefore exist in the minds of those subjects rather than in things themselves.

(Berkeley argues later that the same arguments apply to what Locke regards as primary qualities (§14), but this is a fairly weak point and not relevant to his main argument).

But here is one problem: The fact that we can’t conceive of something doesn’t prove it impossible. So A2 doesn’t follow from A1 at all.


Again, imagism helps here.

To make the judgment that a thing with only primary qualities might exist, I need to form the concept: thing with only primary qualities.

If the content of a concept must be determined by a mental image, I must, then, form a mental image of something with only primary qualities (abstracting away the ‘P-qualities / ‘secondary qualities’). I find I cannot do this.

Imagism

Berkeley seems to put too much weight on imagism.

Maybe I can’t form the image of a thing with no secondary qualities. But should we really say I can’t form the concept?

Think of a thing, with all its perceived qualities, and work out what would be true of it if it had only extension, bulk, figure, etc.

Is this really impossible? Isn’t it what scientists do all the time? And isn’t it akin to how Berkeley thinks we can prove general geometrical propositions (as discussed last week)?

Imagism But Berkeley is quite right to say that we can’t get to

the idea of an unperceived thing simply by abstracting features away from some mental image of the thing, even were abstraction possible.

Take the mental image of a tree you’re looking at. Which qualities should you abstract away to get to the idea of an unperceived tree?

Every quality that the image of the tree has depends on its being an image of a tree that you perceive.

If you start stripping away viewer-dependent qualities from the image you’ll end up with nothing at all, not with the image of an unperceived thing.

Imagism

But this doesn’t prove immaterialism true; it proves imagism false.

While we can conceive of what something we perceive would be like without certain of its qualities, we don’t do this simply by having the perceptual image and attending only to a limited set of its features.

Locke’s ‘ideas of sensation’ seem to be identical with mental images. If that is so, then Berkeley has proven that Locke must be wrong in saying that any complex idea (like that of an unperceived thing) can be formed simply by combining, comparing, or abstracting from ideas of sensation. (Essay, II.xii.1)

Berkeley hasn’t proven immaterialism, but what he has proven is still quite useful to know.

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Berkeley on ImmaterialismPRINTED