Introduction to Philosophy Lecture 10 Epistemology #3 (Berkeley) By David Kelsey

Rationalism vs. Empiricism Basic beliefs: Those beliefs not justified by other beliefs. But then how are basic beliefs justified? Rationalists: Descartes was a Rationalist For Rationalists, basic beliefs are self justified. Rationalism is too restrictive: Some philosophers say that the very problem with Rationalism is that it is too restrictive about what can be a basic belief. Empiricists: Berkeley and Locke were Empiricists. For Empiricists, basic beliefs may be either self-justified, or justified directly by experience.

Berkeley George Berkeley lived from 1685-1753. He was one of the ‘British Empiricists’ along with Hume and Locke. He was a bishop of the Anglican church in Ireland and lived in America for a few years (1728-1731). Berkeley, Ca is named after him.

Empiricism More Basic Beliefs: Empiricists such as Berkeley want to grant us more basic beliefs than the Rationalists. This way we won’t have to appeal to God to explain how our knowledge of the external world is justified. According to Empiricists, these are basic beliefs: There is a blue blob in my visual field. It seems to me that I am in a philosophy lecture. And there are many more.

How Empiricists justify the basic beliefs The Empiricist answer to the Evil Demon: According to the Empiricist: Even the evil demon victim cannot be deceived about the content of their experience. Of course, the demon can deceive me. He can trick me into believing false things about the external world. But then I am having experiences… Thus, if it seems to me that there is a blue blob in my visual field, then there really is a blue blob in my visual field. So there’s no such thing as ‘seeming to seem’. If it seems to me that my experiences are such as would be consistent with being in a lecture, then my experiences really are that way. So there’s no gap between belief and experience…

How Empiricists justify the non-basic beliefs Justifying the non-basic beliefs: How do Empiricists like Berkeley justify our beliefs in things other than our experiences? Empiricists hold that such beliefs must be justified by the basic beliefs, I.e. beliefs about sense experience. Classroom example: There are some experiences that go along with being in a classroom, and others that don’t.

Berkeley’s gap Berkeley’s Gap: A difficult question for the Empiricist: Do my beliefs about my visual experiences really justify my beliefs about the external world? Hallucinations and Dreams… The Empiricist will say: you just need to take into account more basic beliefs. But it seems as though no amount of beliefs about my experiences can ever add up to a conclusive reason to believe something about a wholly external reality. This won’t work: beliefs about experience  external world This is called Berkeley’s gap.

Closing Berkeley’s gap No way to Close Berkeley’s Gap: The problem with Empiricism is Berkeley’s gap--there seems to be no way to get from the basic beliefs to the non-basic ones. Closing Berkeley’s gap: Berkeley aims to close the gap. He does so in a surprising way… According to Berkeley: There is an impassible gap between our basic beliefs and any beliefs about the external, non-mental world. In fact, we can have no knowledge at all of the external world. But our ordinary beliefs are not about the external world. They are complex beliefs and expectations about our own experiences. So there are only our own experiences and our own ideas. There is no such thing as an external world!!

Berkeley’s idealism Berkeley’s Idealism: On the face of it, Berkeley’s view seems absurd. What could a classroom or an oak tree be, if not a mind-independent, physical object? But according to Berkeley, an oak tree is just our sense experience of the oak tree and a classroom is just our sense experience of the classroom. Berkeley’s argument for Idealism: First, Berkeley argues that the only things we can directly perceive are our own ideas and experiences. Second, Berkeley argues that it is incoherent to suppose that something exists without being perceived. As Berkeley puts it: ‘esse est percipi’ From this it follows that the only things there are are ideas and experiences. This is his doctrine of Idealism.

Realism vs. Idealism Realism: Anti-realism: Any thoughts on Idealism? Berkeley’s idealism is often contrasted with realism. Realism is the view that some of reality is mind-independent. Anti-realism: the view that none of reality is mind-independent; all of reality is mind-dependent. Any thoughts on Idealism? Of course, it helps Berkeley because it closes the gap between basic beliefs and non-basic beliefs. It does so because, according to Berkeley, there are no non-basic beliefs about the external, non-mental world. But doesn’t Idealism seem absurd? Doesn’t it run counter to all our common sense intuitions that there is an external world?

Berkeley’s argument for Idealism Berkeley’s argument for his Idealism: 1 Nothing is perceived or conceived except mental things, I.e. experiences or ideas. This is called Representationalism. 2. There is nothing which is not perceived (or conceived.) 3. Thus, there is nothing except mental things. Any thoughts about this argument? Is it sound? What about premise two? Is it true?

Representationalism Premise 1: Justification for Premise 1: 1. Nothing is perceived or conceived except mental things--experiences or ideas. Thus, you never perceive external objects. Instead, you only perceive mental representations… Justification for Premise 1: Suppose you stand for a while with your left hand in a bucket of cold water and your right hand in a bucket of hot water. Then you plunge both hands into a bucket of warm water. Your left hand will feel hot, and your right hand will feel cold. But it can’t be the water you are feeling--the water isn’t both hot and cold. What you are feeling is your experience of the water.

Representationalism applies to primary and secondary qualities Represenationalism applies to primary and secondary qualities: So you cannot ever perceive the heat in the object but instead only your feeling of the heat… And Berkeley thinks that this goes not just for secondary qualities like heat or cold, it goes for primary qualities as well. Berkeley: “…figure and extension are not patterns or resemblances of qualities existing in Matter, because to the same eye at different stations, or eyes of a different texture at the same station, they appear various, and cannot therefore be the images of anything settled and determinate without a mind” (Principles, I, 14) For example, place a white piece of paper on the desk in front of you. Move around it… There is nothing in your experience of ‘the paper’ that remains constant… Do you agree? Thus, according to Berkeley, the distinction between primary and secondary qualities breaks down!!

Conceiving the Unconceived Premise 2: 2. There is nothing which is not perceived (or conceived). Esse is percipi: to be is to be perceived So Berkeley here is arguing for a specific analysis of existence: to exist is to be experienced. So there is no abstract notion of existence. Existence is relative…

The argument for premise 2 1. Ideas exist only as perceived 2. External objects, like tables, are ideas Thus, 3. All objects exist only as perceived. Thus, 4. There is nothing which is not perceived. Premise 1: Ideas exist only as perceived. Berkeley thinks it unintelligible to claim that an idea or sensation could exist on its own without a knower. “The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed--meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it. There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch…” (Principles, I, 3)

The end of the argument for premise 2 The rest of the argument: 2. External objects, like tables, are ideas. An external object is a complex of ideas presented to the various senses. If the term ‘table’ is to be meaningful, it must be defined in terms of experience…And of course we experience a table as an idea. “It is indeed an opinion strangely prevailing amongst men that houses, rivers, and in a word all sensible objects, have an existence, natural or real, distinct from their being perceived by the understanding…But…what are the forementioned objects but the things we perceive by sense?” (Principles, I, 4) Thus, 3. All objects exist only as perceived. (from 1 & 2) “For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.” (Principles, I, 3) Thus, 4. There is nothing which is not perceived. (from 3)

Conceiving the Un-conceived A thought experiment: Conceiving the Un-conceived Berkeley thinks the idea of something existing without being perceived or thought of is just incoherent--unimaginable. It certainly seems as though I can imagine something that is not being seen, heard, thought of etc. pretty easily. I just think of a tree standing in a clearing with nobody around. Berkeley’s response: But that tree you are imagining is being thought of, for you are thinking of it.

So how does Berkeley answer the skeptic? Remember the skeptic: Asks you to consider the scenario in which you have the very same experiences you are having now but you are being deceived by an evil demon. You don’t know for sure that you aren’t being deceived by an evil demon, so you don’t know for sure that you are in class right now. Berkeley’s response to the skeptic: What is happening in the skeptical scenario? I can’t be perceiving the evil demon because my experiences would be different than they are. But if I’m not perceiving the demon there is nothing for me to be perceived about since on my view there is no external world. So according to Berkeley, skeptical scenarios are impossible.

Objection 1: How is error possible? On Berkeley’s view, how can I be mistaken about anything? There’s no room for mistakes about my own ideas and experience; and Berkeley thinks that all my beliefs are beliefs about ideas and experiences. Surely we do make mistakes sometimes! Even if the evil demon is not possible, dreams and hallucinations are. Berkeley’s response: You can’t be mistaken about experiences you are currently having for your experiences are just your experiences, but you can be mistaken in your expectations of future experiences. Example… But isn’t the intuition that we can be mistaken in other ways also?

Objection 2: continued existence Disappearing objects: It seems to follow from Berkeley’s view that objects just go out of existence when there is nobody around to perceive them. For to exist is to be perceived. But this seems really contrary to common sense. Berkeley’s response: “it is evident to every one that those things which are called the Works of Nature--that is, the far greater part of the ideas or sensations perceived by us--are not produced by, or dependent on, the wills of men. There is therefore some other Spirit that causes them; since it is repugnant that they should subsist by themselves…But, if we attentively consider the constant regularity, order, and concatenation of natural things, the surprising magnificence, beauty and perfection of the larger, and the exquisite contrivance of the smaller parts, together with the exact harmony of the and correspondence of the whole…and at the same time attend to the meaning and import of the attributes One, Eternal, Infinitely Wise, Good, and Perfect, we shall clearly perceive that they belong to the aforesaid Spirit, “who works all in all,” and “by whom all things consist.” (Principles, I, 146)

God’s existence God’s existence: Common sense: So Berkeley held that God, being omnipresent, is always perceiving everything. So it is God’s perceiving everything all the time that keeps real things from popping in and out of existence. Common sense: Thus, our common sense intuition that things have a reality independent of our perceiving them, on Berkeley’s view, is cashed out as a reality they have as perceived by an Infinite spirit… A proof of God’s existence: So for Berkeley it is the regularity we observe in nature together with his argument that there are only mental things which leads him to conclude that God must exist. So since “we are not in control of the course of the ideas we call the world,and yet they must exist in a spirit, and only a spirit could cause these ideas in our minds, it follows that there must be a spirit in which these ideas exist and which produces them in us.” (Melchert, 397)

The Problem of the Criterion again For Berkeley, just as for Locke, all our knowledge is gained through sense experience. But again we must ask: how do we know that sensation in particular is the correct criterion by which to judge truth? Descartes and the skeptical arguments… Well, Berkeley would say, Descartes and the skeptics are wrong. But again we must ask that although the evil demon and the skeptics may be wrong, it still may be incorrect to suppose that our senses are the criteria for truth. But of course Berkeley would say my senses always bring about truth… Maybe rationality is a better criteria though?

Final thoughts on skepticism The skeptical argument again: 1. If I don’t know that I’m not dreaming (or a victim of the evil demon) then I don’t know that I’m in a lecture. 2. I don’t know that I’m not dreaming (or a victim of the evil demon). 3. Thus, I don’t know that I’m in a lecture. Descartes reply to this argument: He denied premise 2. He thinks he knows he isn’t in a skeptical scenario because he knows God wouldn’t allow it. Berkeley’s reply to this argument: He also denied premise 2. But for Berkeley, skeptical scenarios are impossible.

How do we answer the skeptic? Which answer to the skeptic is best? It seems really that both have problems: Descartes has to justify God’s existence and Berkeley’s idealism runs so counter to common sense. Maybe we needn’t be so worried about the skeptical arguments… Any thoughts?