Berkeley: Metaphysics, Misc

In this paper I have the purpose to analyze George Berkeley’s concept of substance. For this goal, it will be necessary first to track the manner that Berkeley was conceiving that concept, that is, how it was determining in his early philosophy and what kind of role had in it. To make this it must be necessary to review the early notes knowing in Spanish as Philosophical Commentaries; and subsequently it will be required to retake the published work, particularly the (...) Principles, where the concept of substance is already taken as Berkeley definitely used it in his immaterialist philosophy. (shrink)

On Berkeley’s immaterialist ontology, there are only two kinds of created entities: finite spirits and ideas. Ideas are passive, and so there is no genuine idea-idea causation. Finite spirits, by contrast, are truly causally active on Berkeley’s view, in that they can produce ideas through their volitional activity. Some commentators have argued that this account of causation is inconsistent. On their view, the unequal treatment of spirits and ideas is unfounded, for all that can be observed in either case are (...) mere patterns of regularity; Berkeley should therefore adopt a full-blown occasionalism and follow Malebranche in holding that God is the only true cause. Other commentators have argued that Berkeley denies the tenet that causes necessitate their effects – that is, the idea that causation involves necessary connection – and that in this way he can avoid inconsistency. This paper argues that Berkeley can subscribe to the thesis that finite spirits are truly causally active without falling into inconsistency, even if it is granted that Berkeleyan causes necessitate their effects. His differing treatment of spirits and of ideas is well founded, since ideas are transparent in a way our notions of spirits are not. (shrink)

In his post-1720 works, Berkeley focuses his comments about Descartes on mechanism and about Locke on general abstract ideas. He warns against using metaphysical principles to explain observed regularities, and he extends his account to include spiritual substances (including God). Indeed, by calling a substance a spirit, he emphasizes how a person is simply the will that ideas be differentiated and associated in a certain way, not some <i>thing</i> that engages in differentiation. In this sense, a substance cannot be conceived (...) apart from its activity. (shrink)

Berkeley is commonly regarded as an idealist whose system is saved from subjectivism only by the advent of a God more violently ex machina than the God of any other philosopher. I hope to show that this accusation rests on a misunderstanding of his central theory, a misunderstanding which gives God a place both inconsistent with his main premisses and useless in his system. I hope also to display by quotation the real Berkeley, whose theory of God's place and nature (...) is directly supported by argument and consistent with his premisses, and makes a system which, if it is less than a completely coherent philosophy, is more than an episcopal assumption. (shrink)

A plausible reading of Berkeley’s view of voluntary motion is occasionalism; this, however, leads to a specious conclusion against his argument of human action. Differing from an unqualified occasionalist reading, I consider the alternative reading that Berkeley is a conservationist regarding bodily motion by the human mind at will. That is, finite minds (spirits) immediately cause motions in their body parts, albeit under the divine conservation. My argument then comports with the conservationist reading from three perspectives: (i) theodicy that the (...) human mind is held liable for sinful actions; (ii) an account of the human mind influencing other minds; and (iii) an improper but necessary directing principle of the human mind. This article is a stepping stone to grasping why the conservationist reading is more coherent than the occasionalist one. (shrink)

This collection of fourteen essays, dedicated to Edwin B. Allaire, is the result of a conference on Berkeley’s Metaphysics held at the University of Western Ontario in March 1992. The collection includes some of the critical commentaries, but most of these commentaries are contributions in their own right and are well worth reading.

There is a problem regarding God and perception right at the heart of Berkeley ’s metaphysics. With respect to this problem, I will argue for : It is intractable. Berkeley has no solution to this problem, and neither can we hope to offer one on his behalf. However, I will also argue for : The truth of need not be seen as threatening the viability of Berkeley ’s metaphysics. In fact, it may even be seen as speaking in its favor.

Contrary to a popular reading of his modal epistemology, Berkeley does not hold that inconceivability entails impossibility, and he cannot therefore argue the impossibility of mind-independent matter by appealing to facts about what we cannot conceive. Berkeley is explicit about this constraint on his metaphysical argumentation, and, I argue, does respect it in practice. Popular mythology about the ‘master argument’ notwithstanding, the only passages in which he might plausibly seem to employ the principle that inconceivability entails impossibility are those that (...) argue for the inseparability of primary from secondary qualities. However, an alternative reading of these texts is available that is both consistent with Berkeley's express modal epistemology and credible in its own right. (shrink)

: La contribution de Berkeley à l'histoire de la métaphysique n'a que rarement été étudiée par ses commentateurs français ou anglo-saxons. La présente étude se propose de revenir sur la définition berkeleyenne de la métaphysique, sur la place qu'elle occupe dans l'économie de sa pensée, et tente ainsi d'éclairer la contribution de Berkeley à l'histoire de la notion de métaphysique à l'époque moderne. Nous montrons que la critique berkeleyenne de la métaphysique n'empêche pas Berkeley de maintenir sa pertinence théorique, si (...) l'on rapporte sa conception de la métaphysique à la transformation qui affecte celle-ci après Descartes, et qui en fait la science des principes de la connaissance humaine. Cette étude entend donc réévaluer la place de la métaphysique dans l'oeuvre de Berkeley, et, simultanément, de mesurer l'apport de Berkeley à l'histoire de la métaphysique. (shrink)

Locke believes in the existence of the corporeal substance arguing that qualities and attributes cannot be self-subsistent and, therefore, need such a substance to hang on. Nonetheless, Berkeley stresses that qualities even the so-called 'primary qualities.' are all the same species which depend on the mind of the perceiver. The external existence, Berkeley maintains, is no more than a collection of qualities that are imagained by the perceiver. Locke says that the origin of our perception is an external substance but (...) in view of Berkeley there is a universal soul that emanates such perception and that soul cannot be but God. There is no cause-and-effect relation in Berkeley's philosophy because the sensible world in his opinion is a collection of passive perceptions which annul the existence of any cause. Berkeley states that what is referred to as causality is indication instead. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the problems of relations as worked out in Berkeley's philosophy. ;In chapter one, I deal with Berkeley's life and the intellectual background from which his conception of philosophy is conceived. For Berkeley, the function of philosophy is to teach human beings how to: regulate their conducts, and know God and their duty, so as to promote their happiness, become spiritual beings, and thus restore human dignity. The way of achieving these aims is to obtain human knowledge. In (...) order to go beyond Locke's focus on ideas, Berkeley emphasizes the realm of beings, constituted by minds and their relationships. Human knowledge can be achieved, only if relations are presented to us. Berkeley has extensively discussed relations in his writings. Thus, I specify those of his writings that deal formally with the notions of relations. ;The second chapter starts with a description of Berkeley's quest for certainty of sense. Without this certainty, human knowledge cannot be obtained. Berkeley does not take sense certainty for granted, however, but includes it in his criticism of human faculties. Then I deal with the nature and functions of ideas and spirits, since ideas and spirits are the two main heads of human knowledge. ;Chapter three starts with Berkeley's conception of knowledge, in contrast with the Lockean theory of knowledge. Berkeley's chief epistemological aim is to show how human knowledge of ideas can be obtained through relations. Thus I discuss some selected notions: identity and number, space and time, and causes and laws of nature. For Berkeley, these relations between ideas are not themselves ideas. They are notions instituted by the mind. But human knowledge does not merely consist in knowing those notions. It is a systematic-relational body of propositions. It has a unique methodology for knowing the world. This leads me to investigate the Berkeleyan scientific methodology and its specific contribution to human knowledge. . . . UMI. (shrink)

This paper is divided into two sections. The first aims at showing in a general way that the programme and methods of Berkeley and Professor Ryle are to a large extent similar. The second deals with one problem only. It is an attempt to provide interpretation and commentary on Berkeley's attack on “absolute existence” and on Ryle's attack on the view that there can be different “kinds of existence,” “kinds of status,” or a number of different “worlds.”.

Throughout his mature writings, Berkeley speaks of minds as substances that underlie or support ideas. After initially flirting with a Humean account, according to which minds are nothing but ‘congeries of Perceptions’, Berkeley went on to claim that a mind is a ‘perceiving, active being … entirely distinct’ from its ideas. Despite his immaterialism, Berkeley retains the traditional category of substance and gives it pride of place in his ontology. Ideas, by contrast, are ‘fleeting and dependent beings’ that must be (...) supported by a mental substance. There is no doubt that Berkeley's conception of the relationship between minds and ideas is non-traditional, but that fact does not undercut his commitment to the traditional conception of substance. (shrink)

This note is a reply to some of Giovanni Grandi’s comments on my paper “Berkeley’s Contingent Necessities.”.

This collection of fourteen interpretative essays on the philosophy of George Berkeley focuses specifically on Berkeley’s theory of the nature and variety of existing things. The collection is notable for containing the first four winners of the Turbayne International Berkeley Essay Prize. The seven essays in the first part, entitled “Idealism,” attempt to illuminate Berkeley’s notorious thesis that to be is to be perceived, that the _esse_ of sensible things is _percipi._ Most of the essays in this first part are (...) either direct or indirect responses to an influential interpretation of Berkeley’s idealism advanced thirty years ago by Edwin B. Allaire. The second part, “Volition, Action, and Causation,” contains four essays focusing on Berkeley’s volitionism, on his thesis that only the activities of minds are causally efficacious. “Vision and the Perceptual Objects,” the third part of the volume, deals with Berkeley’s theory of vision and his doctrine that all of the objects of perception depend on God’s will for their existence. (shrink)

In several essays I have argued that Berkeley maintains the same basic notion of spiritual substance throughout his life. Because that notion is not the traditional (Aristotelian, Cartesian, or Lockean) doctrine of substance, critics (e.g., John Roberts, Tom Stoneham, Talia Mae Bettcher, Margaret Atherton, Walter Ott, Marc Hight) claim that on my reading Berkeley either endorses a Humean notion of substance or has no recognizable theory of substance at all. In this essay I point out how my interpretation does not (...) assume that Berkeley adopts a bundle theory of mind, but instead redefines what it means for a simple substance to be the principle by which ideas are perceived. (shrink)

Commentators have not said much regarding Berkeley and Stoicism. Even when they do, they generally limit their remarks to Berkeley’s Siris (1744) where he invokes characteristically Stoic themes about the World Soul, “seminal reasons,” and the animating fire of the universe. The Stoic heritage of other Berkeleian doctrines (e.g., about mind or the semiotic character of nature) is seldom recognized, and when it is, little is made of it in explaining his other doctrines (e.g., immaterialism). None of this is surprising, (...) considering how Stoics are considered arch-materialists and determinists. My aim is to suggest that our understanding of Berkeley’s philosophy is improved significantly by acknowledging its underlying Stoic character. I argue that Berkeley proposes not only a semantic ontology based on assumptions of Stoic logic but also a doctrine in which perceptions or ideas are intelligible precisely because they are always embedded in the propositions of a discourse or language. (shrink)

Determinism is the view that any event is determined by previous events and the laws of nature. My claim is that Plotinus's, Leibniz's and Berkeley's rejection of determinism is structurally similar. Indeed, while determinism holds that phenomenal changes (ontologically) depend only on the way the laws of Nature apply to the previous conditions of the states of the world, the three philosophers all argues for the claim that the laws of Nature are not independent on the mind (the Hypostasis of (...) Soul or the Divine Mind). That is to say: laws of nature are not mechanisms producing the succeeding of one event to the others, namely are not properties of a non mental substance. Rather, they are regularities (ontologically dependent on the mind, since) established by a Mind. Plotinus, Leibniz and Berkeley hold a two steps argument: a) laws of nature aren't properties of a material substance accounting for phenomenal changes, since undifferentiated matter doesn't exist; b) even if regularities in phenomenal changes could be refer to properties of a substance, these regularities couldn't be construed as non mental mechanisms, because any transition from, say, event A to event B, lacks causal power. (shrink)

In two important articles Denis Grey has argued that Berkeley’s philosophy develops in “two incompatible ways.” Grey calls these the “limerick view” and the “strict interpretation”—which he thinks is feasible. In the first, he finds Berkeley arguing that.

For Berkeley, a thing's existence 'esse' is nothing more than its being perceived 'as that thing'. It makes no sense to ask (with Samuel Johnson) about the 'esse' of the mind or the specific act of perception, for that would be like asking what it means for existence to exist. Berkeley's "existere is percipi or percipere" (NB 429) thus carefully adopts the scholastic distinction between 'esse' and 'existere' ignored by Locke and others committed to a substantialist notion of mind. Following (...) the Stoics, Berkeley proposes that, 'as' the existence of ideas, minds "subsist" rather than "exist" and, accordingly, cannot be identified as independently existing things. (shrink)

According to Daniel Flage, Berkeley thinks that all necessary truths are founded on acts of will that assign meanings to words. After briefly commenting on the air of paradox contained in the title of Flage’s paper, and on the historical accuracy of Berkeley’s understanding of the abstractionist tradition, I make some remarks on two points made by Flage. Firstly, I discuss Flage’s distinction between the ontological ground of a necessary truth and our knowledge of a necessary truth. Secondly, I discuss (...) Flage’s attempt to show that, according to Berkeley, the resemblance relation does not constitute a necessary connection. (shrink)

The paper provides an account of necessary truths in Berkeley based upon his divine language model. If the thesis of the paper is correct, not all Berkeleian necessary truths can be known a priori.

George Berkeley's Siris (1744) has been a neglected work, for many reasons. Some of them are good and some bad. The book is difficult to decipher, mainly because of its ancient metaphysics. He talks about the world as an animal or plant. He speculates about man as a microcosm which is analogous to the universe as a macrocosm. He recommends tar-water as a universal medicine. This was understandable in his own time. But Siris is also a Newtonian treatise which both (...) criticizes and develops important physical and chemical theories. Berkeley's own contribution is formulated in terms of light and fire. I study these arguments in detail. It is also clear that Siris is no longer an immaterialist treatise. The doctrine of ideas is not so important to him any more. However, he never changed his doctrine of causality. I analyze several versions of it. This looks like his lasting main contribution to the philosophy of science. And causality is also theologically crucial, as I try to show. We must keep in mind the fact that Berkeley might have been interesting in the contemporary science, but he insisted that science must ultimately be ruled by religion. Science is never an autonomous or sovereign field of human enterprise. (shrink)

While De Motu, Berkeley's treatise on the philosophical foundations of mechanics, has frequently been cited for the surprisingly modern ring of certain of its passages, it has not often been taken as seriously as Berkeley hoped it would be. Even A.A. Luce, in his editor's introduction to De Motu, describes it as a modest work, of limited scope. Luce writes: The De Motu is written in good, correct Latin, but in construction and balance the workmanship falls below Berkeley's usual standards. (...) The title is ambitious for so brief a tract, and may lead the reader to expect a more sustained argument than he will find. A more modest title, say Motion without Matter, would fitly describe its scope and content. Regarded as a treatise on motion in general, it is a slight and disappointing work; but viewed from a narrower angle, it is of absorbing interest and high importance. It is the application of immaterialism to contemporary problems of motion, and should be read as such. ...apart from the Principles the De Motu would be nonsense.1.. (shrink)