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Common Sense and the Natural Light in George Berkeley’s Philosophy

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Abstract

It is argued that George Berkeley’s term ‘common sense’ does not indicate shared conviction, but the shared capacity of reasonable judgement, and is therefore to be classed as a mental ability, not a belief-system. Common sense is to be distinguished from theoretical understanding which, in Berkeley’s view, is frequently corrupted either by learned prejudice, or by language that lacks meaning or camouflages contradiction. It is also to be distinguished from the deliverances of divine revelation, which—however enlightening Berkeley supposed them to be—are not necessarily available to all people. This interpretation of common sense is supported both by attention to Berkeley’s own texts, including his sermons, letters and philosophical writings, and by attention to the views of John Locke and René Descartes, who also understand ‘common sense’ as susceptibility to the ‘natural light’. In addition, this interpretation renders Berkeley’s appeal to common sense in support of his immaterialism a straightforward appeal to the reader’s native reason. No longer, then, are we forced to see Berkeley as improbably maintaining that the denial of matter is really the view of ‘the common people’, but rather that those who have least attachment to theory and doctrine will be best able to grasp the case for immaterialism.

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Notes

  1. Moore (1959), 32–59.

  2. Moore (1959), 50–51.

  3. Moore (1959), 36.

  4. Warnock ([1953] 1969), 17.

  5. Tipton ([1974] 1994), 54 and 18.

  6. See Warnock ([1953] 1969), 117–8 and Tipton ([1974] 1994), 56. For Warnock, Berkeley departs from common sense when he argues that God is ‘intimately present’ to our minds in directly producing the ideas of sense that continually affect us; for Tipton, Berkeley’s claim that the real things we perceive are ideas is the offending tenet.

  7. Urmson (1982), 35.

  8. Russell ([1912] 1980), 19.

  9. Winkler (1989), 306.

  10. Winkler (1989), 305.

  11. Siris §263, Works 5, 124.

  12. Bennett (2001), 131.

  13. Bennett (2001), 135.

  14. Pappas (2000), 209.

  15. Pappas (1986), 299.

  16. Pappas (1986), 299.

  17. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP, Works 2, 244. We shall argue that the vindication of common sense is to be understood as the vindication of our faculty of common sense in the face of general sceptical doubts about our mental capacities and their ability to comprehend the world.

  18. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP, Works 2, 168.

  19. Roberts (2007), 142.

  20. Roberts (2007), 142.

  21. Roberts (2007), 144.

  22. Roberts (2007), 143.

  23. As emphasised by Seth Bordner (2011), 315–338. It is true that Berkeley laments the fact that people ‘in a Christian country’ should find it singular that an unthinking being cannot exist without being perceived by a mind (Berkeley (1948–57) DHP, Works 2, 244). This, however, is not to tacitly assume that Christianity is part of common sense, but only to invoke the Christian worldview to offset the seeming extravagance of the esse est percipi principle.

  24. Berkeley (1948–57), PHK §148, Works 2, 108. We shall return to Berkeley’s view about the prevalence of religious scepticism in the final section of this article.

  25. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP Works, 2, 237.

  26. Bordner (2011), 315–338, quoting 318.

  27. Bordner (2011), 322–23, note.

  28. Holtzman (2013), 3–21.

  29. Holtzman (2013), 18–20.

  30. Pearce (2017), 560 (our italics).

  31. The characterisation is Holtzman’s (2013), 21. We agree with Holtzman in his stress on the importance of cultivation, but we believe it is equally worth stressing that the cultivation in question is negatively aimed at freeing the mind from acquired habits and prejudices, rather than positively aimed at achieving new concepts or method.

  32. The analogy of prejudices and false opinions with ‘weeds’, and corresponding talk of a need to ‘weed out’ such opinions, is found in several places in Alciphron: see Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 39; 3, 103; 3, 194–5; 3, 197.

  33. Berkeley, Letter to Percival, 20 December 1710, Works 8, 43; Hight (2013), 50.

  34. Berkeley, Letter to Percival, 29 July 1710, Works 8, 35; Hight (2013), 41.

  35. Percival, Letter to Berkeley, 26 August 1710, Hight (2013), 42.

  36. Percival, Letter to Berkeley, 30 October 1710, Hight (2013), 47.

  37. Berkeley, Letter to Percival, 27 November 1710, Works 8, 41; Hight (2013), 48.

  38. Berkeley, Letter to Percival, 6 September 1710, Works 8, 36; Hight (2013), 45.

  39. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP, Works 2, 168.

  40. Berkeley, Works 7, 41, our italics.

  41. The full treatment of the matter is beyond the scope of this article, but let us mention two scholastic authorities, both of whom were familiar to Berkeley (see Works 3, 168). The first is Thomas Aquinas, who carefully distinguishes between the lumen naturalis rationi and the lumen divini revelationis, cf. Summa Theologiae, I, 1, 1, ad 2 and ‘Respondeo dicendum’. On matters in theology that transcend the natural light the reader might consult Aquinas’ Summa contra Gentiles, I, 3, 2 and 3. On the distinction of lumen naturale or lumen naturalis rationis from lumen fidei, a good source is Aquinas’ Super Boetium De Trinitate, I, 2, 3, 1 and 2. The connection of natural light with theology is thoroughly set forth in Francisco Suarez’s Disputationes metaphysicae, I, ‘Varia’ metaphysicae nomina, where Suarez discusses the natural light in the context of the universal agreement among people. See also ibid. 30, 17, 27 for the distinction of lumen naturale from lumen fidei.

  42. Berkeley paid attention to the Locke-Stillingfleet Controversy, and he would have been well-aware of the use of ‘common sense’ by Edward Stillingfleet, the Anglican bishop, to represent the natural light or inborn faculty of reason. See Carroll (1975) for a thorough treatment of Stillingfleet’s approach to common-sense in theology. On the relation of Berkeley to Stillingfleet on this issue see also Holtzman (2013), 6–9, and Fourny-Etchegaray (2010). Also, Locke, who like Stillingfleet was thoroughly Protestant, and openly dismissive of the Scholastics, made copious use of the light of nature doctrine in his Essays on the Law of Nature ([1663–4] 2002), and also endorsed it in his Essay (see our section 7 below).

  43. See Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 299–301 for a representative statement of his anti-scholastic approach to theology.

  44. ‘Berkeley’s Primary Visitation’, Works 7, 163, our italics. This passage, seeking to appeal to Catholic and Protestant alike, is further evidence that the theology of both traditions respected the ‘light of nature’ doctrine.

  45. Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 172, our italics.

  46. Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 221.

  47. Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 36. Cf. his use of the term ‘light of nature’: ‘I may be willing to follow, so far as common sense and the light of nature lead’ (Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 221). See also Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 36; Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 53; Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 168; and Berkeley (1948–57) ALC Works 3, 325.

  48. See Fourny-Etchegaray (2010).

  49. Berkeley (1948–57), PHK §4, Works 2, 42. Incidentally, we agree with many scholars, including Bennett (2001), 135 in treating the word ‘strangely’ as intensifying the verb ‘prevailing’ (i.e. ‘widely and strongly prevailing’).

  50. See Berkeley’s letters to Percival of 6 September 1710, Works 8, 36; Hight (2013), 43–46; and 20 December 1710, Works 8, 43; Hight (2013), 49–50. See also our discussion of them in section 4 above.

  51. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP Works, 2, 237.

  52. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP Works, 2, 237.

  53. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP, Works, 2, 244.

  54. Berkeley (1948–57) DHP, Works 2, 234. Samuel Rickless (2013), 66-67n is surely right in arguing that when Berkeley writes ‘the vulgar [are] of opinion, that those things they immediately perceive are the real things’ (Berkeley (1948–57) DHP III, 262), this statement is not meant de dicto, claiming that they hold a general philosophical opinion about ‘immediate perception’ and ‘reality’. Instead a de re reading is more natural, according to which ‘vulgar people’, when confronted with what a philosopher would call ‘immediately perceived things’, judge them to be ‘real’ things.

  55. See ‘Berkeley’s Primary Visitation’, Works 7, 163, and our discussion of it in section 5 above.

  56. Holtzman takes a broader view of Berkeley’s cultivation project, finding common ground with Malebranche. See his (2013), 19.

  57. Locke (1975), E. 1.3.4.

  58. Locke (1975), E. 4.8.2.

  59. Locke (1975), E 2.33.18.

  60. ‘Berkeley’s Primary Visitation’, Works 7, 163.

  61. Locke ([1692] 1824, 1975), 521. See also E 4.18.11.

  62. Locke (1975), E 1.3.13. See also Locke’s frequent use of the expression ‘light of nature’ in his Essays on the Law of Nature ([1663–4] 2002)

  63. René Descartes (1985, 1996), A Discourse on the Method AT VI 1–2; CSM I 111.

  64. René Descartes (1985, 1996; Locke (1975), Discourse AT VI 10; CSM 1115; see also Discourse AT VI 77; CSM I 150

  65. René Descartes (1985, 1996), ‘[E]lle corrompt le bon sens plustost qu’elle ne augmente’ (Principles of Philosophy, Preface to the French Edition, AT IX-2 13; CSM I 186).

  66. A full treatment of the question of common sense in Berkeley would also need to examine his use of the concept in the polemical writings on mathematics. Such a task lies beyond the scope of this paper. Nevertheless we note that in the ‘Defence of Free-thinking in Mathematics’ Berkeley treats the Newtonian doctrine of ‘fluxions’ as an exemplary case of the corrupting power of abstraction and learned jargon and he repeatedly challenges the proponents of Newton’s method to clarify what they mean by ‘fluxions’ so as ‘to be consistent with’, or ‘reconciled to’, ‘common sense’ (See Berkeley (1948–57) DFM, §36: Works 4, 127; and Berkeley (1948–57) DFM, Appendix §4: Works 4, 141). In this context it would be strained indeed to equate common sense with the beliefs or opinions of ordinary people, who would hardly be party to a dispute in mathematical theory. Proper treatment of this question must, however, await another occasion.

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Funding

This paper is part of the projects The Limits of Reason in the Age of Reason (17-06904S) and Overcoming Dualism (19-07384S), both supported by the Grant Agency of Czech Republic (GAČR).

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  1. Philosophy Institute, The Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czechia

    Petr Glombíček

  2. The Philosophy Faculty, Charles University, Prague, Czechia

    James Hill

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Glombíček, P., Hill, J. Common Sense and the Natural Light in George Berkeley’s Philosophy. Philosophia 49, 651–665 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-020-00238-x

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