Berkeley's idealism

Primary and Secondary Qualities

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Secondary qualities = mind-dependent

Attack on primary-secondary quality distinction

C1. Therefore, all colours are appearances, not properties of physical objects

P1.A cloud from a distance appears pink, but up close it loses its colour

P1. What looks small to us looks big to a mite

C4. Therefore, the primary qualities of objects are just as mind-dependent as secondary

Indirect Realist Reply

P1. The apparent size shape and motion of an object varies

C1. Therefore, the apparent size, shape and motion cannot be objective properties of material objects. But a material object can still have some specific size, shape and motion independent of the mind

The immediate objects of perception are mind-dependent objects

P1. Everything we perceive is either a primary or secondary quality

C1. Therefore, nothing that we perceive exists independently of the mind: the objects of perception are entirely mind-dependent

3 arguments against M-I objects

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"material substratum"

P1. Everything we perceive is a primary or secondary quality

C5. Therefore, mind-dependent physical objects do not exist

"We perceive physical objects"

P1. All we perceive are primary or secondary qualities, not mind-independent objects

C1. Therefore, our experience supports idealism, not realism

Master Argument

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P1. Try to conceive of a tree which exists independently of any mind

C1. Therefore, the tree is in your mind and not independent of any mind after all

The cause of my perceptions

C3. Given the complexity and systematicity of our perceptions, that mind must be God

P1. As physical objects are mind-dependent there are three possible causes of my perceptions: ideas, my mind and another mind

Problems with the role played by God in Berkeley's idealism

P1. My perceptions and sensations are part of my mind. What I perceive and feel is in my mind, not God's mind

C1. Therefore, what I perceive and feel can't be part of God's mind

Berkeley Response

  1. What I perceive is a copy of the idea in God's mind
  1. The ideas of physical objects exist in God's mind not as perceptions, but as parts of God's understanding. The same is true of sensations. So while God doesn't feel pain, he knows what it is for us to undergo these experiences
  1. What I perceive, which changes is, what God wills me to perceive. The whole of creation exists in God's understanding eternally; things may begin their existence when God decrees they should become perceptible to intelligent creatures.

Illusion and Hallucination

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How can idealism explain illusions?

Reply- in illusions we aren't misperceiving- what we perceive in the case of the half-submerged pencil in the case of the half-submerged pencil is crooked

Since we perceive ideas

This is misleading if we infer that the pencil would be crooked if we touched it or pulled it out of the water

Reply- there is no appearance-reality distinction- the reason we regard it as illusory is because it allows us to make false inferences

How can idealism explain hallucinations?

Berkeley

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Hallucinations = products of imagination

2 criteria mark off

dim , irregular and confused

Involuntary unlike imagination

Not coherently connected with the rest of our perceptual experience

Objection- these criteria mark off a difference in degree but hallucinations mark a difference in kind

Idealism leads to Solipsism

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Experience gives me no reason to believe that anything exists

If all I perceive are ideas, I have no reason to think that other mind's exist

Berkeley Response

C4. The complexity, regularity, etc. of my experience indicates that this mind is God

P1. The mind is that which (actively) perceives, thinks and wills, while ideas are passive