Berkeley, Misc

En este trabajo realizo un examen crítico del reciente libro de Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo sobre la crítica de Aristóteles a la teoría platónica de las Ideas. El libro de Di Camillo es un trabajo muy serio cuya lectura recomiendo ampliamente. Sin embargo, considero que cuatro de las principales tesis que la autora defiende tienen varias dificultades y mi objetivo aquí es presentar argumentos detallados en contra de ellas: la interpretación de la distinción entre argumentos más y menos rigurosos del (...) tratado Sobre las Ideas; la tesis de que la separación es el blanco esencial de las críticas aristotélicas a las Ideas; la interpretación de las opciones que Platón tiene para responder al argumento del tercer hombre, y la tesis de que la separación de las Ideas debe entenderse como homonimia. In this paper I examine Silvana Gabriela Di Camillo's recent book on Aristotle's criticisms of Plato's theory of Ideas. Di Camillo's book is a very serious work that I highly recommend. Nevertheless, I consider that four of the main theses that the author defends face several difficulties and my aim here is to offer detailed arguments against them: the interpretation of the distinction between more and less accurate arguments of the treatise On Ideas; the thesis that separation is the essential target of Aristotle's criticisms against Plato's Ideas; the interpretation of the options available to Plato to reply to the third man argument; and the thesis that the separation of Ideas should be understood as homonymy. (shrink)

Review of Flage's book "Berkeley".

In this essay, the author analyses Berkeley’s conformity and inference argument against Locke’s theory of percep tion. Both arguments are not as decisive as traditionally has been perceived and fail to engage in Locke’s actual position. The main reason for this is that Berkeley does not see that Locke’s position is compatible with the non-inferential nature of perceptual knowledge.

In the early 1730s George Berkeley began to explore the conceptual field between ideas and spirits that he previously claimed to be empty. In this field he found a rich set of concepts including “notions,” “principles,” “beliefs,” “opinions,” and even “prejudices.” Elsewhere I have referred to this phase in Berkeley’s thought as his “second conceptual revolution.”2 I believe that it was motivated by his increasing need to develop a language to discuss the social, moral and theological concerns vital to him (...) and his circle. This second conceptual revolution made possible two of his most important contributions to 18th century thought: The Analyst and The Querist . Even though they were written almost simultaneously, these texts are rarely discussed together, since the former is categorized as a critique of the foundations of the calculus, while the latter is taken a tract advocating the development of a specie-less economy in Ireland. Using new textual and contextual evidence, however, I will show with that these two texts have a common basis in Berkeley’s second conceptual revolution, in that the rejection of intrinsic values and the revaluation of notions, principles, and prejudices are crucial to the critique of both Newtonian mathematics in The Analystand Newtonian monetary theory and policy in The Querist. Specifically, I will argue that Berkeley’s famous demonstration of the absurdities of Newton’s method of fluxions devalued geometric reasoning and gave a new pride of place to algebraic reasoning. On the basis of this revaluation in mathematics, Berkeley more confidently undermined the concept of intrinsic monetary value and suggested the development of a monetary system based on “tickets, tokens and counters” . The issues posed by the transition from a specie-based to a specie-less currency were clearly some of the most important and controversial in the Age of Enlightenment. Berkeley’s contributions to understanding the significance and feasibility of such atransition and its benefits for Ireland certainly add support the claim that he was “the most engaging and useful man in Ireland in the eighteenth century.”. (shrink)

A reavaliação das contribuições de Berkeley à história do pensamento econômico tem-se concentrado em três questões: sua discordância com as idéias mercantilistas, as precoces contribuições à teoria do desenvolvimento e as posições de vanguarda em economia monetária. Neste último campo, Berkeley é tanto visto como o sucessor de Locke quanto como um pioneiro defensor de um padrão monetário não metálico. O artigo revisa as principais idéias econômicas de Berkeley e busca efetuar um balanço de suas contribuições aos diversos campos da (...) economia, em particular à economia monetária. Por meio de comparações com Locke e Hume, dá-se ênfase ao papel do moralista e ao peso dos argumentos morais na visão econômica de Berkeley. (shrink)

Well chosen selections from the works of idealists from Berkeley to Blanshard. Four critical articles--including Moore's "refutation of Idealism"--give the other side of the story. Ewing contributes a balanced and illuminating introduction.--A. C. P.

Sir Thomas Berkeley has scarcely more than a liminal status among literary scholars and historians, even those who study fourteenth-century England. We may rather dimly remember him as an aristocratic spear carrier in Shakespeare's Richard II, a reflection of real activities known to historians. Or we may recall that he sponsored an extraordinarily prolific and important translator, the Cornishman John Trevisa.

Idealism, which gradually dominated nineteenth century philosophy through its insistence upon the superiority of spiritual values above material forces and its sophisticated objections against the immediate instinct of common-sense realism in knowledge, is moribund to-day and difficult to render intelligible to to-day’s down-to-earth student. Yet its problems still constitute a capital part of epistemology, in whose courses it is often presented in a summary and harsh light. Histories of philosophy are not large enough normally to follow systematically one line of (...) development of thought without distraction and tend naturally, like textbooks of epistemology, to aim at topical discussion. Hence a systematic presentation of texts illustrating the movement of Idealist thought from Bishop Berkeley to the contemporary Professor Brand Blanshard is a very practical aid to the epistemological novice, ordering the confusion of his scattered ideas and clarifying a set of influential principles, which have still an important, if indirect influence upon professional philosophizing. Dr. Ewing states its relation to the current English scene thus. (shrink)

No Tratado, Hume procura investigar as causas da crença nos objetos exteriores, admitindo ser impossível provar se os mesmos existem ou náo. Sua análise consistirá na investigaçáo da origem da inteligibilidade das noções de continuidade e distinçáo dos objetos sensíveis, em última instância, a crença do senso comum na continuidade e distinçáo das próprias percepções. Este texto pretende mostrar como essa discussáo humeana é um diálogo direto com a filosofia berkeleyana, a defesa humeana da crença na matéria implicando inicialmente uma (...) certa aceitaçáo da filosofia de Berkeley, para, na seqüência, representar uma dissensáo direta com o seu princípio fundamental: ser é ser percebido . Tais colocações têm, entre outras, a finalidade de argumentar que Berkeley exerce um papel central na filosofia humeana, nesse caso como seu interlocutor direto, e que a compreensáo desse papel é parte obrigatória de um melhor esclarecimento do problema da objetividade em Hume. (shrink)

This has been a great century for logic and the foundations of mathematics. Ewald's excellent sourcebook is a welcome addition to the literature on the exciting developments of this and the past two centuries. The richness of the material on which Ewald is drawing is shown by the fact that he has assembled a broad and representative selection without once duplicating anything to be found in the famous sourcebooks of van Heijenoort and Benacerraf/Putnam.

According to Kant, there is some doctrine, which he sometimes calls 'empirical realism,' such that it was doubted by Descartes, denied by Berkeley, and endorsed by Kant himself. It may be doubted whether there really is such a doctrine or, if there is, whether it takes the form Kant seems to say it does. For instance, if empirical realism is taken as the assertion that familiar objects like tables and chairs exist, then this doctrine was neither seriously doubted by Descartes, (...) nor denied by Berkeley. If empirical realism is the view that such objects are mind-independent, then it was clearly denied by Berkeley, but was neither seriously doubted by Descartes, nor straightforwardly endorsed by Kant. Kant's assertion thus presents us with a puzzle: what might empirical realism be? The primary aim of this paper will be to reconstruct Kant's own narrative of the historical relationship between Descartes, Berkeley, and himself, in order to identify the doctrine Kant calls 'empirical realism.' I argue that the empirical realism which Descartes doubted, Berkeley denied, and Kant endorsed is the doctrine that the concept of extended substance has legitimate application. (shrink)

En su Tratado sobre los principios del conocimiento humano, George Berkeley ofrece una serie de argumentos cuyo objetivo es criticar la tesis materialista. Mi propósito en este artículo es reconstruir y analizar en detalle estos argumentos. Dado que la crítica de Berkeley al materialismo es, fundamentalmente, una crítica al materialismo representacionalista de John Locke, empezaré este artículo explicando cuáles son las ideas básicas de la propuesta de Locke.

Embodiment is a fact of human existence which philosophers should not ignore. They may differ to a great extent in what they have to say about our bodies, but they have to take into account that for each of us our body has a special status, it is not merely one amongst the physical objects, but a physical object to which we have a unique relation. While Descartes approached the issue of embodiment through consideration of sensation and imagination, it is (...) more directly reached by consideration of action and agency: whenever we act upon the world, we act by moving our bodies. So if we can understand what an immaterialist such as Berkeley thinks about agency, we will have gone a fair way to understanding what he thinks about embodiment. §1 discusses a recent flurry of articles on the subject of Berkeley’s account of action. I choose to present Berkeley as a causal-volitional theorist not because I think it is the uniquely correct interpretation of the texts, but because I find it more philosophically interesting as a version of immaterialism. In particular, it raises the possibility of a substantive account of human embodiment which is completely unavailable to the occasionalist. §2 articulates an apparent philosophical problem for Berkeley qua causal-volitional theorist and show that Locke was aware of a related problem and had a solution of which Berkeley would have known. §3 distinguishes two interpretations of Berkeley’s famous denial of blind agency – as the assertion of a weak representational condition or a strong epistemic one – and provide evidence that there was a well-established debate about blind powers in the seventeenth century which took the metaphor of blindness as indicating an epistemic rather than merely representational failing. What remains to do in §4 is to consider whether Berkeley, with his own peculiar commitments, could in fact accept this account of agency. (shrink)