Croatian Studies of Zagreb University

Department of Philosophy

Borongajska 86/d

Berkeley's attack on doctrine of abstract ideas

Course: Berkeley: Principles of Human Knowledge Zagreb, 8. 02. 2013

Prof. Dr. Sc. Pavel Gregorić

Student: Mihovil Lukić

1. Introduction

The main purpose of George Berkeley's work is anoted in its title (A Treatise Concerning the

Principles of Human Knowledge, Wherein the Chief Causes of Error and Difficulty in the

Sciences, with the grounds of Scepticism, Atheism, and Irreligion, are inquired into). His goal

is to deal with scepticism, atheism and irreligion. First step in that kind of enquiry is, as he

belives, to explain what are the causes of so much incomprehensibility and skepticism in

philosophy. Berkeley rejects, in his time commonly held, views that “the cause of this is (…)

the obscurity of things, or the natural weakness and imperfection of our understanding”

(Berkeley, §2, 2008). He believes that the problem is in our wrong usage of our capabilities.

The main problem is the process of abstraction.

Although the concept of abstract ideas is a rather old one, Berkeley concentrates his attack on

John Locke’s doctrine, so I will say something about it. Locke defines abstract ideas as

“general representatives of the same sort” (Locke, 1999). We have such ideas thanks to

process of abstraction. Abstraction is a process by which we transform particular ideas that we

get from particular objects to general abstract ideas, which equally stand for all the particular

objects of that sort. The process is mainly striping a particular idea of all “concomitant ideas”

(Locke, 1999), such as color or shape. So, to create a general abstract idea of man, you have

to imagine an idea of particular man, and strip it of all of its qualities that distinguish him

from other man, until all that is left is common to all man. Locke’s doctrine of abstract ideas

is, of course, much more complicated and oblique, but this will be enough to understand what

Berkeley thinks is wrong with this concept.

2. Two kinds of abstraction

As noted before, Berkeley thinks that the main problem in philosophy’s lack of ability to

solve its problems is in our wrong usage of our mental capacities. This is the reason why he

deals with this in introduction, “to prepare the mind of the reader for the easier conceiving

what follows” (Berkeley, §6, 2008). For his idealistic imaterialism to be understood correctly

it is necessary to “destroy” the process of abstraction, and the very notion of the abstract

ideas.

Berkeley identifies two forms of abstraction. The first one, which Dancy, in his introduction

to PHK, calls singular abstraction, considers the qualities of things. Let us consider a green

ball, for example. We do not think that the roundness or the greenness of the ball could in

reality exist separated. In reality there is a ball, which is round and green. But, in our minds

we can consider the same ball being round, without it being green. We can also consider it

being green without being round. “It is agreed on all hands” (Berkeley,§7, 2008) that this is a

process of abstraction, by which we construct abstract ideas. In the next paragraph Berkeley

tells us a story of how we’ve come to having “the most abstract” (Berkeley, §8, 2008) ideas.

His examples are extension, motion, and color, but there are number of ideas that fall under

that category. In our process of abstraction we have stopped at the point where we abstracted

a single quality that in reality could not exist separated from others. Next step is observing

that all objects are somehow alike, but also somehow different. For example, all objects have

color, but not the same color. All objects are extended, but in a different manner. We leave

out all that which is not common to all objects, and we construct an abstract idea of extension,

color or motion.

Second kind of abstraction, which Dancy calls compound abstraction, is basically the same

process, the only difference being that it includes more than one quality. Berkeley’s example

is an abstract idea of man, but out of political correctness mine will be an abstract idea of

woman. We frame that idea by considering all the abstract ideas that construct a particular

woman, and which she shares with all other woman, and merge them to an abstract idea of

woman. In these kind of abstract ideas all particular qualities take equal part. In my example

of a woman, that idea includes all qualities that any woman has. All colors, all sizes, all

shapes, all intelligences.

Berkeley takes it a few steps further. When we have an abstract idea of a woman, we than

notice that there is something alike in all the creatures, and by the same process abstract an

idea of animal. After that, we realize there is something alike in all the bodies. Naturally, an

abstract idea of body is born. (Berkeley, §9, 2008) Although Berkeley does not say that here,

the next step in that process is obvious. We notice that all bodies are built of something, of

matter.

3. Is Berkeley’s analysis of abstraction correct?

It is now clear why Berkeley’s attack on doctrine of abstract ideas is placed in Introduction of

his main work. To even suggest any kind of immaterialism, he must have first explained why

we think that there is matter. Not only that we think that, but it is somehow evidently true that

there is matter, everything we experience is by matter. That is why he had to have a strong

weapon against the very notion of matter. He believed that his attack on the doctrine of

abstract ideas was as best as weapon that he could have. But was he right?

His argument could be called argument from imagination. Laconically said, he argues that

abstract ideas are impossible because we cannot imagine such ideas.(Berkeley, §10, 2008)

Can you imagine an idea of a woman that has a color, but its neither black, nor brown, nor

gray, that has a size but its neither big nor small? I think that the answer to that question

depends on what you mean by “imagine”. If by “imagine” you mean to have a visual image in

one’s mind, than you have a problem with time. Berkeley probably thinks that you cannot

imagine all that qualities together in one moment in time. But what should be considered one

moment in time? Our mind works pretty fast, and we can imagine large number of pictures

very fast. Perhaps such an idea would resemble a video with flashing pictures of all the

qualities that make an abstract idea of a woman. But then again, we could argue that only one

of those pictures counts as a moment in time. In that case abstract ideas such as this are

impossible. But even if they are impossible that they exist in such a manner, that may turn out

to be trivial.

I do not think that visual imaging is the only possible way we can understand a phrase “to

imagine something”. Let us suppose that we cannot have a visual image of an abstract idea of

a woman. Even then we can construct sentences like: “A woman is a human being.” , and we

can understand them well. Although we don’t have a visual image of “a woman” or “a human

being” we can understand and use those ides, as well as ones that we can visually imagine.

What is important is that not only we understand our own sentences of that type, but we

understand each other’s sentences of that type. I think that our, constantly improving,

understanding of each other’s sentences containing abstract ideas is a proof that there is a way

in which we “imagine”, or represent to ourselves abstract ideas. The first way that comes to

mind is by the means of logic. We can easily use abstract ideas, even including their

semantics. For example:

(i) A human being is mortal

(ii) A woman is a human being

(iii) A woman is mortal

I think that logical use of abstract ideas is a proof of their existence, but I also believe there

are other ways in which such ideas are “imaginable”.

Berkeley’s counter argument is laid out in §18. His idea is that names, or words do not have

“precise and definite signification” (Berkeley, §18, 2008). All word signifies large number of

ideas. So the word “a woman” signifies every particular idea of woman that we have, and not

an abstract idea. If this were true, I don’t see a reason why we could not say that we can

imagine an abstract idea in aforesaid way, to imagine consecutive pictures of particular ideas

“at the same moment”.

4. Conclusion

Attack on the doctrine was an ingenious path to shatter our belief in matter. It is clever not to

attack a notion of such universal acceptance head on, but to take the side way, and try to

dismantle much more unstable doctrine of abstract ideas. It was very insightful of him to see

the path of abstraction by which we could have come to the notion of matter. But my personal

opinion is that it is a “just so story”. It could have happened that way, but someone could tell

us numerous stories with the same ending.

Arguments with which he supports his claims are, in my opinion, either false, either trivial.

They are false if there is a way in which we can visually imagine abstract ideas (continuous

flashing images). They are trivial if we can “imagine” them in some other way, e.g. logically.

I think that the problem with Berkeley is a problem shared by many classical and

contemporary philosophers. They often disregard obvious objections in purpose of

constructing an original and interesting theory.

Bibliography:

1. Berkeley, George, A treaties concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge,

Philosophical Writings, Desmond M. Clark (ed.), 2009

2. Locke, John, The Pennsylvania state Univesity, 1999

3. Dancy, Johnatan, Berkeley: An Introduction, Oxford: Blackwell, 1987