A History of Philosophy | 45 Berkeley Replies to Objections

okay turning back to George Burkley I would hope that after last time the philosophical position that he develops comes into focus rather readily along with his argument for it you may have thought initially that the thing he was trying to establish was pretty implausible but by the time you see how he does it I think the plausibility rating improves almost a hundred percent that is to say if he can support those three basic philosophical positions that are involved then his denial of the existence of matter sub stratum independently of any mind that denial seems to be sustainable insofar as the concept of matter is an abstract idea rather than an empirical notion and as a nominalist he maintains that we just don't have abstract ideas the word matter has no reference you see so when you're talking of the reality of matter you no idea what he's what people are talking about Locke himself and said matter is something I know not what music now one similarly with his mentalism because if it is the case that all we know about material objects derives from our ideas of primary and secondary qualities and if it is the case that we never have primary quality ideas independently of secondary qualities or vice-versa and the both primary and secondary qualities are relative to all sorts of observation conditions then it seems to follow that both primary and secondary quality is in the same condition namely those subjective there are simply equalities of our ideas and we've no evidence for any unchanging qualities or if not unchanging qualities at least objective qualities in hearing in material substrate are out there so his conclusion there seems to be that as far as the empirical evidence is concerned all that we know is minds and their ideas then our ideas of material objects adjust that ideas compound it out of primary and secondary qualities with no notion of matter so mentalism well of course if he stopped there there would be an immediate objection how do you account for the ordered uniformity of nature particularly in the Newtonian age where nature was understood in such ordered fashion fixed laws fixed forces so forth this perfect machine how do you account for that in addition to the question how do you account for the ideas you have if they're not caused by external material things well his line of thought here is I think very simple the starting point is essentially that of descartes I think and what I think is ideas ideas are the object of thought what we think about I think I think ideas but then it goes this way among our ideas we have to distinguish between active and passive ideas if you like voluntary and involuntary ideas because there are some ideas that I have that I choose to have my idea of a fairy giraffe with butterfly wings it's a voluntary idea because I thought it up I put it together on the other hand there are other ideas that are involuntary namely most of the sense impressions which come to us simply register uninvited on the consciousness involuntary ideas and while it's plain enough that I can be the cause of active ideas voluntary ideas it's not at all evident that I could be the cause of passive ideas because oftentimes I get such ideas not only uninvited unwanted ideas of pain for instance so there must be some other cause than my mind for these involuntary or passive ideas no ideas of mental things they must have mental causes so this other cause must be some other mind now he doesn't entertain the idea of mental telepathy particularly that you would be giving me all sorts of ideas no the the next step in his thinking though is to take note of the uniformity x' of nature that is to say the uniform it is of our experience the fact that there are predictability x' within the experience that we have made up of our ideas the fact that everybody in this room is hearing roughly the same things at this juncture the fact that we live in a world of common sense experience common order common predictability public evidence so forth so there must be as the cause of this sort of uniformity there must be some some greater mind some supreme intelligence some infinite spirit and God so that God is the other mind that's needed in the case of passive ideas God not only causes our passive ideas but he gives us an ordered world of experience with all of its predict abilities he is not only the creator of our finite minds he is the one who informs our finite minds so that our sensations are a kind of divine language God's language to us by which we grasp the order of things to which we have to adjust into which we have to fit and in this way we participate in God's ideas it's sort of an empiricists equivalent of saying that the human Lagos participates in the divine Lagos the human mind participates in the divine mind in as much as our experience is the ordered world of ideas which God has and gives to us so God then it turns out is the sufficient cause not only the necessary cause but the sufficient cause of not only all that is one of all ideas that occur to that occur passively two minds that exist so God then is in that very real sense creator of the world of nature ex nihilo as well as creator of finite minds well that's clear enough I take it and it's in the light of that that you hopefully have read that little poem that Kaufman poem if it could be graced with that that Kaufman inserts on 237 just before the selection begins did you read that there was a young man who said God was thinking exceedingly odd if he finds that this tree continues to be when there's no one around on the quad there's the tree that falls in the forest when there's nobody around to hear it does it make a noise this is the tree that's on the quad when there's nobody around to see it God must think it exceedingly odd if he finds that this tree continues to beam and there's no one around on the quad dear sir your astonishment sod I'm always about in the quad and that's why the tree will continue to be since observed by yours faithfully God it's not that the world pops in and out of existence no it he cysts endlessly in God's mind from the moment he first thought it up okay now doubtless you've thought of all sorts of objections Kaufman gives us Sun but let's pick yours up first or when you see optical illusions hallucinating yeah yeah and you want to say really hallucinations are things we cause but they're not voluntary you see is that an exception to his way of distinguishing the voluntary and the involuntary and I think you'd have to say yes I don't know that he discusses it I think you'd have to say yes there is some mental malfunction by virtue of which we if you like imagine ideas like a person who has an overly active imagination and is haunted by you could say like dreams unless he would explain dreams as all given by God would you mind yeah yeah I think most objections you come up with you can always see immediately how he would respond yeah yeah he deals with the problem of evil at some lengths and unfortunately Kaufman didn't include that material but I think it's towards the end of this work on the principles of natural knowledge that he deals with it as follows Oh incidentally that's a very pertinent question because I think one of the major problems for metaphysical idealism is the problem of evil at least from a theistic standpoint for the obvious reason that if there is no real materiality no real physical forces then all of the things the part of the problem of evil physical pain cancers and tornados all the rest of it including death yes they don't have the kind of explanation that has traditionally been given namely that they are caused by physical processes which are part of the physical environment in which God has put if we run afoul of its processes we break our necks well if you don't have physical causes to explain physical evils you've got a problem and in as much as those things come to us as passive experiences you have to say God causes it directly so our idealism often has a problem with that and so there are idealists who try to handle it by affirming a finite God that while he has all the power there is it's not infinite power that there is a limit to what is conceivable in terms of a world without evil Yesi so that even God could not come up with that sort of an idea to share with us granted what he was after in finite human beings yeah other idealists will argue that physical evils are illusory where you get closer to the hallucination the sort of thing find somewhere in that ballgame you'll find the attitudes of Christian science which is an idealist metaphysic in fact some years ago I had a student who had come from a Christian science background and when we were talking about Berkeley he said he said something like you know that's the way I was brought up to think now how does Billy himself handle it well his emphasis of course is going to be that the world of nature is as Newton has depicted it a world with a fixed order that isn't arbitrarily interrupted by God it's a fixed order this general order of nature he maintains that this general order of nature is essential for the guidance of ordinary life the environment has to be predictable it's essential if we're going to be able to understand nature's processes and you could add do science use nature's resources must be orderly and predictable in other words it's essential for all human planning all human purposes all mental activities and these advantages a outweigh what he calls particular inconveniences so that he's using what to historically was known as the greater good argument evils are permitted for a greater good they are built into the ordinance of things for a greater good now the term particular inconveniences seems to under ate the problem but he he wants to say that problems of this sort natural evils are necessary in bringing out the contrasts accenting Beauty shading the fit the picture so that we can really see what's good and pursue it in other words the fact that there is pleasure and pain involved in human experience serves as God's pedagogue schoolmaster in teaching us how he wants us to live teaching us how to behave which of course is one of the things that John Locke sent in talking about ethics the pleasure and pain provide sort of reward and Punishment provide a kind of building discipline in learning what's right and wrong so that in that sense pain fear necessary to our well-being when seen in larger perspective so his is a greater good kind of argument which of course is essentially the same as Christian theists have used throughout the centuries for natural evils the greater good argument so that while you might say that this is particularly a problem for an idealist all right if an idealist can use a great a good argument he's in no worse case than anybody else now when it comes to human sin he's very explicit this is our active ideas yes and the consequences of that on other people well God orders their experience consistently with the effects of your intentions towards those other people so combination of freewill argument and great a good argument takes care of yeah he seems to yes that wouldn't necessarily follow it could be that the experience of death is something which God gave subsequent to before now I don't think he discusses that particular question at least I don't recall it oh yes yes but you see whatever you say about the question you raise is natural evil due to the fall the fact is that any finite physical being is very contingent for existence and what happens into the environment Adam could have fallen out of a legitimate tree and broken his stupid neck you know I'm not inclined to buy the notion that natural evil began with the fall I think it's pretty obvious unless the floor of the garden was sterile that bugs were squashed every time people walked around in it and if animal death is part of the problem of natural evil then all right David now think how do you suppose get some active ideas going how do you suppose Berkeley would respond on the Incarnation let's start with an easier one first how do you suppose he would react to the question well you mean that God didn't create the heavens of the earth well but would Wilkie say or he could just like have a spirit being and just automatically just shove all these perceptions into you say God created the heavens and the earth now how would you translate that into Berkeley ears you'll see there may be easier to say Berkeley's how would you translate it well it would be something like this that at a certain time God brought into being finite minds and began giving them ordered experience of natural world well alright what would he say about incarnation the incarnation yes he namely that Christ appeared among us God in the flesh and what his flesh flesh in Berkeley is yes he is certain ideas certain experience passively received so that Christ was as fully human in that regard as anyone else born of a woman yes as really as you are because he's not denying anything that is experienced all that he's doing is making us think twice about the ultimate reality underlying what is experienced yes yes this would be part of his humaneness in the incarnation if he is fully human as well as fully divine this is the way we've always understood the Incarnation you see in the history of the church if he's fully human he will experience things as we experience them yeah so you don't have to adjust your thinking about Christ's earthly experience any more than you have to adjust your thinking about your experience you still experience just the same thing as you do and so did so did he okay you're talking about a knowledge of other minds okay yeah Descartes Locke and Berkeley have roughly similar view of how we know other persons okay now go back to Descartes because there it's the obvious one what you're having Descartes is a combination of mind and body right and so with the other person you have combination of mind and body now we intake heart what occurs is that a physical change in the appearance or action of body two has a causal influence produces changed physical States brain states sensory stimuli in body one which because of mind-body interaction produces mental states okay so I have ideas about body to which are analogous to my own experience of myself body one so by analogy I come to think that mind two has mental states correlated with bodily states analogous to the way in which my mental states are correlated with my bodily states okay so it's an argument by analogy as m1 is to body 1 so into is to body 2 now I know this by immediate experience I know this likewise I know this likewise and so by analogy I can infer that now John Locke's the same John lockers as I've said it's not as definite about our mind substance or substance as Descartes ons but in any case in terms of the empirical it's the same know when Berkeley comes along why should it be any different yes a if I have experience of body - thanks to God okay if God gives me experience of quote body - and experience of body one then insofar as there are analogies I can have some idea of what's going on in mine - now particularly since some of the bodily activities sign of making or word sounding so that when I hear you say I'm puzzled by see if I know and if I recognize those words as words that I use then I know by analogy what's going on you are not just language other bodily behaviors as well yeah that's standard wherever you have this representational theory of knowledge yes that's what it's gonna be after all it is sort of a tough one at first glance how do I get inside you and understand what's going on inside you the thing that I had problems with in this particular way of putting it is that we Corning's lists would only know what's going on in somebody else's mind if we're able to argue by analogy they say it seems to me that most of our recognition of what other people are thinking is not the result of an argument it's an immediate recognition it is that the bodily appearance evoke recognition rather than providing a premise for an inference see so I think it's more an analogical recognition rather than an illogical inference it's involved but even that is not enough for some in the more Continental tradition coming out of the 19th century that will begin to get out as we get into Hegel Yesi who wants to say that I don't even have self-awareness except in some sort of a dialectic with another self my alter ego yes so that the master knows himself as master only in the face of the slave and the slave knows himself as slave only in the face of the master you think and so for all kind of humans self understanding so that they initial experience the basic basis in experience is in that case not de cartes I think it's not the first person singular which is prior to the experience of AI now that's the way it develops in the 19th century narrative that comes Martin boobers I thou yes a I though he says is the primitive basic would not I not thou I though we and what they're doing is breaking but the individualism of the 18th century that made us all atoms social atoms no I am a mind and I'm a real mind my mind is not just an idea my mind is real all that exists is minds and ideas he's not saying all that exists is ideas minds just got control your mind my mind the answer is yes insofar as I voluntarily and trying to communicate something to you I and voluntarily doing it I do it but insofar as you're hearing sounds you see is God's doing God doesn't you see that's like that occasional ism we were talking about my wanting to utter words is the occasion on which God causes you to hear not just wanting to be choosing to acting to okay No immaterial entity mind soul Descartes a synonymous terms mind soul is an immaterial entity now that's not true necessarily for the middie evils of the Ancients because the word soul had a much wider use in the Greeks and the many evils nice but what are the many evils and ancients was called rational soul that's capable of independent existence by Descartes got labeled simply mind and that's the way it's used in Locke that's the way it's used in Berkeley not the way it's used in contemporary psychology where it simply refers to consciousness not a conscious no not all of them are yeah you see active ideas are ideas that I initiate you see now whether you say the eye is mind spirit so will okay oh that's I I do it yeah mind yeah this emphasizes the the conscious rational being spirit undefined word really about all it means in this sort of context is something that isn't material it has no positive meaning actually for some that we met for semester you remember for that matter for people like Hobbes all it means is some rarefied physical gaseous soul and the ancients meant life here its equivalent with rational so mind that immaterial part okay and we'll of course is one of the faculties of the mind will intellect faculties of the night well will is simply acting voluntarily yeah so will is the active agent so that if I will to to do something to to one of you I'm really gonna get my own back Christine here I am going to I'm gonna get an examination if I do something malicious malicious of that sort yes well that's an act of well is involved there it's not just entertaining the idea but it's willing no not the same the the different emphases mind is the classic term in talking of mind body problem take hearts dualism or whatever spirit is a word that introduced much more in the nineteenth century because it implies something more dynamic used occasionally here for just an immaterial being so yeah I used in this period synonymously with mind the emphasis is on immortality and will is a functional term it's a faculty term not an entity term yes a these three are entities entity terms the immaterial part of you got it yes sir yeah well there are several lines of thought number one going back to nominalism the word matter doesn't refer to anything it has no empirical meaning haven't we say it exists if we don't know what it is you see why does he say it doesn't refer to anything well matter is an abstraction there's redness this squareness this smoothness this roundness there's noisiness but what's matter does it look like hello Lockwood see that we abstract the idea of matter in general from all of these other physical things physical experiences what do you extract you know if it's not bread and it's not blue if it's not square and it's not round if it's not noisy and it's not quiet it's not anything oh sure he's not claiming for knowledge but I think that if you affirm matter he would say you're claiming something you don't know you're trespassing on unknown ground much more than person who denies it come again oh he thinks that it's possible to demonstrate the existence of God but you can't demonstrate the existence of matter remember the setup you see from day card on this is the setup the mind which we know directly has ideas ideas purportedly of matter in the material world other minds and God and according to Descartes we have to prove all of those three exist well you see Descartes thought we could prove all three all that Berkeley is saying is no we can't prove that still prove the rest got it now you wanted what's his argument one about abstract ideas second about primary and secondary qualities she's jumping from that that's what like what about like that the witch possibility how would he respond to that I think I'm trying to answer this in the context of his time I think he would say that the order of nature its abundant provision for human need etc etc is plenty evidence that the creator is wise powerful good yeah yeah that's the that's the standard line of argument say what does the causal argument for the existence of God suggest about God now keep in mind that the concept of God is good also as a history that goes back through the Middle Ages to Plato God as V good what is the good well the good in that sense is is the ideal that we all that all nature yearns for yeah and so I suppose you'd say that Berkeley might well be saying God is good because that by definition is what the term God entails well concept of God is of the good to speak of a malevolent God is not to speak of God yes it's the speak of an armed guard yeah yeah except it's not brains in of that it's Minds in a vacuum yeah yeah you just have difficulty getting out of your customary way of thinking yeah good yeah sometimes the the history of scientific thought through the 19th century into the 20th is captioned like this the dematerialization of matter the dematerialization of matter and you can see the change that's gone on because back in the 18th century matter was composed of atoms atoms a little pellets of manner of indivisible stuff well that changed as we began to talk about the structure of the atom as we began to see that e equals MC squared that matter is not an ultimate the principle of the conservation of matter that it cannot be created and cannot be destroyed of Newtonian physics gave way to the principle of the conservation of energy so I think it's fair to say that contemporary physics does not have the concept of matter that they had in the 18th century now having said that a lot may hinge on how you handle theory of sub molecular particles they solid indivisible pellets or are they spurts of energy that have pellet like behaviors yes so so no I I think this and that this is another side of the the thing that Berkeley is doing that I think is much more far-reaching than anything he's said I think the question is whether the Newtonian conception of matter has any empirical basis any scientific basis now we've been concentrating on what he says about madame but in his reply to objections that you've been reading you may notice he speaks not only about matter but about force and space and time now if all four of these key Newtonian concepts are without empirical basis what happens to Newton's claim to be doing empirical science yes is there any empirical basis for Newtonian science Berkeley says no David Hume says no Immanuel Kant says no which means when post-newtonian science began to develop the ground was ready for it now there's another room that's gonna say cook that's too narrow to use at this juncture there's another little tidbit that comes into this which is the question of whether matter itself is conceived of as being passive inert or having some some power some potentiality that's in process whether it's active or passive you'll see and it seems pretty plain that in Berkeley the emphasis is on passive yeah very passive some of the Continental thinkers it became more active and of course in line it's the activity is there such that matter is not the basic forces but their conception of matter as passive devoid of any potency that has capacity to do something these alien conceptions of matter in the Platonic Aristotelian tradition yes a oh you find it in Democritus the Greek animist and Sarah miles and history of science were saying yesterday afternoon that at the time you get to Lucretia s-- who's the Roman equivalent of Democritus in Lucretius matter is active okay but for Plato and Aristotle and the middie evils in that tradition matter is potency now drop the why off the end and matter is potent it has natural potentialities there is an inherent teleology in matter itself an inherent tell us so the loss of the teleological view of nature that came with the Scientific Revolution introducing mechanistic science because he changed the conception of matter to something bear path substrate and Berkeley is seeing the problems okay anything more about problems resurrection of the Dead well he addresses that yeah easy enough you know if you saw someone resurrected from the dead what would you say Oh Mowgli says yes that's what God provides what's the difference if you were resurrected from the dead what would you experience well that's what God provides let's dance you see some matter changes nothing empirically in other words what Berkeley is trying to do is to maintain a position that confines itself to what is supportable by empirical evidence remember Locke's evidentialism that we should proportion our beliefs to the evidence and Berkeley's taking his advice proportioning belief to the evidence well okay I hope you read carefully that Ray reply to objections that he has from 255 onwards you've got about 20 pages of it and if you want the reply to theological objections that he faces go look up the full edition of his principles of natural knowledge they're all there any theological problem you have Berkeley at least you have with his view Berkeley responds now a few minutes let me make some introductory comments about David Humes so that you can get off to a running start in that regard now of course the the three great british empiricists Locke Berkeley and Hume and it might help to try and identify quickly what distinguishes them Locke seems to be metaphysical duelist that is to say mind and body both though not as definite about bad as Descartes Berkeley was a Mentalist not mind and body both but only mind and its ideas humor is a sceptic about all metaphysical knowledge so he does not argue for any metaphysical position he does not argue for mind-body dualism he does not argue for materialism he does not argue for idealism he maintains that we we know no matters of fact that is to say nothing about reality as it is no matters of fact beyond present experience in other words if the model is that the mind has its ideas its experience which represent to us external things you see now Hume who says we no mo matters of fact beyond experience he's going to say we know nothing about external things and further that we know nothing about mind which would be a reality beyond our experience so all we know is experience he's skeptical about knowing that he's skeptical about knowing that oh he may have certain beliefs they're not knowledge so by virtue of the fact that all we know is experience Hume also as we indicated before is a phenomenal astir as to say all we know is the phenomena appearances but not reality now having said that and put it in this framework of the representational theory you can anticipate what his argument is going to be namely it's going to be very very much like Berkeley humor follows Berkeley's argument about our knowledge of matter and our knowledge of causal power and he has an analogous argument about our knowledge of mind and our knowledge of God namely that the causal inferences that are involved are inadequate they don't prove it now that has further implications because the ethic which Locke developed as you recall was a kind of ethic which he thought was demonstrable from our knowledge of the nature of the human self from human nature no if we don't have knowledge of human nature what can we do with that you see so John Locke's kind of natural law ethic is also ruled out by him and in as far as he still wants to be an empiricist what is he going to turn to not empirically derived knowledge of human nature metaphysically speaking but only experience of our Moral Sentiments moral feelings so in ethics he becomes what we call an ethical subjectivist that is to say the basis for our moral judgments is in our moral feelings yeah when I say something's unjust I mean when I see the similarity between me and you and see the way you were being treated I feel pain because I know it would hurt me and so I cry out just what that means is it hurts ethical subjectivist because in the development of a phenomenalism that makes no metaphysical judgments you have no metaphysical basis for an ethic so ethics has got to find a new direction and there are strains in Hobbes and Locke that are picked up you notice how they both refer to pleasure and pain that has some role in our moral knowledge yes and so those empirical ingredients of moral experience are picked up and made in effect the total basis for an ethic in somebody like him so think of this in reading Hume the fact that he claims not to know was skeptic as one who says I don't know and I don't know how to find out he's not one who denies something says we don't know the fact he doesn't know still allows him to believe certain things for other reasons he believes in the existence of matter Berkeley didn't he believes in nuisance matter he doesn't believe that Minds Souls exist at least he doesn't see any reality to that it seems he's sort of ambivalent on God depending how you understand his writings how you interpret them but on what basis does one belief belief is the result not of logical process or empirical evidence but of psychological process and he turns our attention to the psychology of belief instead of the logic of evidence so as you read Hume in the first chapter you'll find he says be a philosopher but amidst all your philosophy be still a man a woman well he doesn't say woman I had that he says be still man woman in other words there's something about human nature that doesn't let us and let us away without believing even though there's something about philosophy that reminds you deal and have logical proof so he tries to balance these two well okay we'll start talking more specifically about David

Channel: wheatoncollege

Views: 11,158

Rating: 4.8125 out of 5

Keywords: wheaton, college, illinois, Wheaton College (College/University), A History Of Philosophy, History (TV Genre), George Berkeley (Author), Arthur Holmes, Philosophy (Field Of Study)

Id: _P6nNM0aLWo

Length: 64min 16sec (3856 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 16 2015