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  1. Why Can An Idea Be Like Nothing But Another Idea? A Conceptual Interpretation of Berkeley's Likeness Principle.Peter West - 2021 - Journal of the American Philosophical Association (First View):1-19.
    Berkeley’s likeness principle is the claim that “an idea can be like nothing but an idea”. The likeness principle is intended to undermine representationalism: the view (that Berkeley attributes to thinkers like Descartes and Locke) that all human knowledge is mediated by ideas in the mind which represent material objects. Yet, Berkeley appears to leave the likeness principle unargued for. This has led to several attempts to explain why Berkeley accepts it. In contrast to ‘metaphysical’ and ‘epistemological’ interpretations available in (...)
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  • The Irish Context of Berkeley's 'Resemblance Thesis'.Peter West & Manuel Fasko - 2020 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 88:7-31.
    In this paper, we focus on Berkeley's reasons for accepting the ‘resemblance thesis’ which entails that for one thing to represent another those two things must resemble one another. The resemblance thesis is a crucial premise in Berkeley's argument from the ‘likeness principle’ in §8 of the Principles. Yet, like the ‘likeness principle’, the resemblance thesis remains unargued for and is never explicitly defended. This has led several commentators to provide explanations as to why Berkeley accepts the resemblance thesis and (...)
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  • The Bishop’s Church: Berkeley’s Master Argument and the Paradox of Knowability.Stephen Kearns - 2021 - Canadian Journal of Philosophy 51 (3):175-190.
    We can find in the passages that set out the Master Argument a precursor to the paradox of knowability. That paradox shows that if all truths are knowable, all truths are known. Similarly, Berkeley might be read as proposing that if all sensible objects are (distinctly) conceivable, then all sensible objects are conceived.
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  • How Berkeley corrupted his capacity to conceive.Michael Jacovides - 2008 - Philosophia 37 (3):415-429.
    Berkeley’s capacity to conceive of mind-independent bodies was corrupted by his theory of representation. He thought that representation of things outside the mind depended on resemblance. Since ideas can resemble nothing than ideas, and all ideas are mind dependent, he concluded that we couldn’t form ideas of mind-independent bodies. More generally, he thought that we had no inner resembling proxies for mind-independent bodies, and so we couldn’t even form a notion of such things. Because conception is a suggestible faculty, Berkeley’s (...)
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  • Something-we-know-not-what, something-we-know-not-why: Berkeley, meaning and minds.Melissa Frankel - 2009 - Philosophia 37 (3):381-402.
    It is sometimes suggested that Berkeley adheres to an empirical criterion of meaning, on which a term is meaningful just in case it signifies an idea (i.e., an immediate object of perceptual experience). This criterion is thought to underlie his rejection of the term ‘matter’ as meaningless. As is well known, Berkeley thinks that it is impossible to perceive matter. If one cannot perceive matter, then, per Berkeley, one can have no idea of it; if one can have no idea (...)
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  • Berkeley on the “Twofold state of things”.Melissa Frankel - 2016 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 80 (1):43-60.
    Berkeley writes in his ThreeDialogues Between Hylas and Philonous that he “acknowledge[s] a twofold state of things, the one ectypal or natural, the other archetypal and eternal[.] The former was created in time; the latter existed from everlasting in the mind of God”. On a straightforward reading of this passage, it looks as though Berkeley is an indirect perception theorist, who thinks that our sensory ideas are copies or resemblances of archetypal divine ideas. But this is problematic because Berkeley’s rejection (...)
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  • Resemblance, Representation and Scepticism: The Metaphysical Role of Berkeley’s Likeness Principle.David Bartha - 2022 - Journal of Modern Philosophy 4 (1):1.
    Berkeley’s likeness principle states that only an idea can be like an idea. In this paper, I argue that the principle should be read as a premise only in a metaphysical argument showing that matter cannot instantiate anything like the sensory properties we perceive. It goes against those interpretations that take it to serve also, if not primarily, an epistemological purpose, featuring in Berkeley’s alleged Representation Argument to the effect that we cannot reach beyond the veil of our ideas. First, (...)
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