Oxford: Oxford University Press (2017)
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Abstract |
Berkeley's philosophy is meant to be a defense of commonsense. However, Berkeley's claim that the ultimate constituents of physical reality are fleeting, causally passive ideas appears to be radically at odds with commonsense. In particular, such a theory seems unable to account for the robust structure which commonsense (and Newtonian physics) takes the world to exhibit. The problem of structure, as I understand it, includes the problem of how qualities can be grouped by their co-occurrence in a single enduring object and how these enduring objects can bear spatiotemporal, causal, and other relations to one another. I argue that Berkeley's solution to these problems lies in his views about language. At one level, human language allows us to exploit patterns in our perceptions to construct a highly structured representation of the physical world which allows us to make accurate predictions at minimal cognitive expense. At a deeper level, these patterns occur in perception because our perceptions themselves form a language in which God speaks to us.
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Keywords | George Berkeley idealism language metaphysics |
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Reprint years | 2017 |
Buy this book | $62.45 used (16% off) $70.00 new (5% off) Amazon page |
ISBN(s) | 9780198790334 0198790333 |
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Berkeley’s Attack on Meanings
Most of Berkeley’s predecessors assumed that words get to be meaningful by having meanings, where a meaning is understood as a special intrinsically representational entity such as a Platonic form, an Aristotelian universal, or an abstract idea. Berkeley’s arguments in the Introduction to ... see more
Berkeley’s Early Thoughts on Language
Berkeley’s rejection of meanings (intrinsically representational entities) requires a complete rethinking of the philosophy of mind and language. This chapter addresses Berkeley’s remarks on these subjects from the 1708 Manuscript Introduction to the 1721 essay De Motu. In these works, Ber... see more
Rules and Rule‐Following
Rules and rule-following play a foundational role in Berkeley’s philosophy, yet Berkeley never offers an explicit theory of these phenomena. This chapter pulls together Berkeley’s scattered remarks on these topics to explain how Berkeley thinks about them. In particular, it is argued that ... see more
Reference and Quasi‐Reference
In De Motu, Berkeley distinguishes between two uses of language, which we may call ‘genuine reference’ and ‘quasi-reference.’ Genuine referring expressions, like ‘red,’ are used to label language-independent objects. Quasi-referring expressions function syntactically, and hence inferential... see more
Quasi‐Referring to Bodies
It is widely held that, in Berkeley’s view, bodies (ordinary macro-physical objects) are either ideas or collections of ideas. This interpretation underestimates just how radical Berkeley’s claims in metaphysics and philosophy of language are. Berkeley’s fundamental criticism of materialis... see more
Referring to Spirits and Their Actions
According to Berkeley, we may genuinely refer only to things that resemble the objects of our immediate awareness. Immediate awareness is, however, of two types: perception and reflection. By perception we are aware of our ideas, and by reflection we are aware of ourselves and our actions.... see more
The Linguistic Structure of Berkeley’s World
Berkeley holds that the perceived world is “a most coherent, entertaining and instructive discourse” which is ‘spoken’ by God. Berkeley intends this claim literally and holds that this discourse exhibits linguistic structure: it has a lexicography, a syntax, and a semantics. Interpreting B... see more
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Citations of this work BETA
Locke, Arnauld, and Abstract Ideas.Kenneth L. Pearce - 2019 - British Journal for the History of Philosophy 27 (1):75-94.
How Berkeley's Gardener Knows His Cherry Tree.Kenneth L. Pearce - 2017 - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (S1):553-576.
Can the Berkeleyan Idealist Resist Spinozist Panpsychism?Graham Clay & Michael Rauschenbach - 2021 - History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis 24:296-325.
Berkeley on Unperceived Objects and the Publicity of Language.Kenneth L. Pearce - 2017 - History of Philosophy Quarterly 34 (3):231-250.
Language, Truth, and Logic and the Anglophone Reception of the Vienna Circle.Andreas Vrahimis - 2020 - In Adam Tamas Tuboly (ed.), The Historical and Philosophical Significance of Ayer’s Language, Truth and Logic. Hampshire: Palgrave. pp. 41-68.
View all 8 citations / Add more citations
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