2010-02-10
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Berkeley and the Passivity of Ideas
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Richard BrookBloomsburg University
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True; we can't observe necessary connections in nature if by n.c. we mean something like an analytic connection. If A making B happen requires that, then the game is up.Michotte recognized that about Hume.[Is this your point about Hume's objection?] But that notion of necessary connection is too strong. If we allow natural necessity--why can't we represent in perception that the brick hitting the window made it break. Moreover, Hume's (and Malebranche's and Berkeley's) view of the etiology of beliefs that we perceive causal connections--we observe B following A a number of times and then strongly expect B to follow A---is, if the results of current experiments developing Michotte's work are correct, mistaken. Early moderns make assumptions about human psychology which are open to empirical challenge. Best regards, Dick
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