1. Introduction.
Berkeley asks whether philosophy solves
or creates problems. And he is of the opinion that it creates more problems
than it solves. Berkley’s aim is not philosophical at all but rather the
removal of philosophical obstacles to correct living. We have a few faculties
and we being finite are left baffled and surprised by the infinites uncovered
by our sense and reason. We tend to blame our confusion on our faculties where
it is how we deploy our faculties that cause trouble. Berkley thus aims to
uncover the principles that led to philosophical confusion. Our confusion is
not derived from our faculties or the objects that we consider but from our
using of wrong principles.[1] He
tries to explain this in his ‘A treatise concerning the principles of human
knowledge.’
2. Abstract
ideas.
Berkeley emphasis the danger, that the
mind can frame abstract ideas. Any one new to philosophy might think that logic
and metaphysics are all about the study of abstract ideas, when in fact no such
abstract ideas exist. The properties that something possesses cannot exist
separately or in isolation. Qualities are always found mixed and blended
together. However some philosophers claim that mind can consider qualities
separately and isolated from others.[2]
The doctrine of abstract ideas has been prone to create metaphysical confusion.
Believing in the abstract ideas is perhaps the philosophical mistake, and
Berkeley finds it remarkably that so much scientific and mathematical progress
could have been made while their exponents remained in such philosophical
confusion over fundamentals like the nature of abstraction.[3]
3. Language.
Language is a set of artificial relations between
ideas, although Berkeley expressly states that language can have other functions
besides reflecting associations of ideas. Berkeley thinks that a key
philosophical error is assuming that all language exists to communicate ideas,
and that every meaningful symbol must stand in for a determinate idea.[4]
Some of the difficulties that follow from mistakes about language might be
avoided if we attended more to our ideas and less to words. Words have a bad
habit of misleading, or imposing upon, our understanding. We can have benefits
from throwing off philosophical error derived from language. The first benefit
will be a reduced susceptibility to the doctrine of abstract ideas. Secondly,
we would then have a reduced risk of getting involved in purely verbal
disputes, rather than philosophical debate.[5]
4. Human
Knowing.
Berkeley defines the object of human
knowing are ideas and ideas in turn can be of only three kinds: ideas imprinted
on the senses, ideas acquired through attending to ‘the passions and operations
of the mind’ and lastly ideas formed by the help of memory and imagination.[6]
The sense of sight yields ideas of light and colour. The sense of smell yields
ideas of odour. The sense of touch yields ideas of hardness and softness, etc.
Thus, for example, a certain collection of colour, taste, smell, shape and
texture we call ‘an apple’, while other collections of ideas constitute a
stone, a tree, a book, and the like sensible things.[7]
Besides all the ideas or objects of knowledge, there is likewise something
which knows or perceives them, and exercises diverse operations as willing,
imagining, and remembering about them. This perceiving, active being is what
Berkeley calls mind, spirit, soul or myself.[8]
Berkeley always talks of mind or spirits but never of persons. This mind, soul
or spirit is an active thing that is able to perceive ideas and operate on
them. The mind is not identical with any of its ideas but is rather the thing
wherein they exist, or, which is the same thing, whereby they are perceived.
Berkeley held that it is true that physical objects really are the things that
we directly perceive and it is true that the objects of our immediate awareness
really are mind-dependent entities. In Berkeley's system, real objects are
those whose perceptions are more vivid, continuous and steadfast and less
subject to our voluntary control, than perceptions of illusory objects.
Berkeley held that physical objects are collection of sensible ideas and that
sensible ideas must be directly perceptible. He denies that sensible objects
can possess absolute existence, that is, their existence in a way is not related
to perception but ‘out of minds of spirits or distinct from being perceived.’
Berkeley upheld the real existence of physical things but rejected utterly the
absolute existence of material things.[9]
Mental objects or processes like ideas,
thought or passions cannot possibly exist outside the mind.[10] It
seems equally obvious that combination of ideas cannot exist outside of being
perceived by some mind. We can acquire ‘an intuitive knowledge’ of this truth
simply by reflecting on what the existence of sensible objects means. For
example if I say a table exists I can say this if only I can see and feel it.
Berkeley further states that it is impossible to form an idea of existence that
is completely independent of any notion of perception[11]. For
all objects that are present to the senses, existence is the same thing as
being perceived. All sensible objects are simply combinations of ideas and
ideas cannot exist unperceived, so no sensible object can exist unperceived.[12]
One of the greatest errors of
abstraction is thinking existence can be abstracted away from perception.
Light, colour, heat, etc., are merely ideas and can have no existence outside
the mind. Dividing ideas from their being perceived is completely impossible.[13]
5. Primary and Secondary qualities.
Some philosophers distinguish between primary and secondary
qualities. Primary qualities includes extension, solidity, shape, motion, etc.
and secondary qualities involve colour taste sound, etc. they say that our
ideas of secondary qualities don’t resemble anything existing outside the mind
but they insist that our ideas of primary qualities are patterns or images of
things that exist outside the mind in an unthinking substance which they call
it matter. By matter we understand that it is an inert, senseless substance in
which extension shape and motion exist. But Berkeley says that extension shape and
motion are clearly nothing but ideas existing in the mind and ideas can’t be
like anything but other idea and that consequently neither nor things from
which they are copied can exist in unperceiving substance. So the notion of
matter involves a contradiction.[14]Many
believe that primary qualities exist in matter and secondary qualities reside
in the mind and that secondary qualities depend on the purely corporeal
qualities of matter. Berkeley claims that such separability of primary and
secondary qualities will not do as the primary and secondary qualities are
inextricably intermingled. Berkeley says primary qualities cannot be conceived
in isolation. Since ideas of colour must reside in the mind and primary and
secondary qualities cannot reside in separate substances, it follows then that
primary qualities can only exist in the mind.[15]
Large and small, and
fast and slow (form a part of motion and extension), are generally agreed to
exist only in the mind. That is because they are entirely relative: whether
something is large or small, and whether it moves quickly or slowly, depends on
sense-organs of the perceiver. So if there is extension outside the mind, it
must be neither large nor small. This leads him to conclude that there is no
such extension or motion.[16]
Berkeley says number also is an inevitably mind dependent and numerical
properties vary according to the acts of the mind.[17]
He talks of ‘unity’ as an abstract idea.[18]
6.
Ideas.
Berkley
says that all our ideas, sensation or things that we perceive are visibly
inactive and they do not possess any power or agency in them. Our ideas or
object of thought cannot produce or affect another. To be convinced of this we
need to attend to our ideas which are wholly contained in our mind, so whatever
is in them must be perceived. Attending to the properties of our ideas we will
not perceive any power or activity in them so it follows that ideas are passive
and torpid. An idea can’t do anything or be the cause of anything nor can it
resemble anything that is active. From this it’s clear that extension, shape
and motion can’t be the cause of our sensation.[19] We
perceive a continual stream of ideas: with new ones arising, some changing and
old ones disappearing totally. This process goes on at all times. Then
something evidently should be the cause which produces these ideas, but this
something just can’t be another idea, since ideas are passive and inactive. So
he says that it must be therefore be some substance but he rejects material
substance. He concludes by saying that the cause of ideas is an immaterial
active substance which he calls ‘spirit.’[20] A spirit is an active being. It is simple,
undivided, active being: as it perceives ideas it is called the ‘understanding’
and when thought as producing ideas or doing things with it is called ‘the
will.’ Understanding and will are different powers that a spirit has; they
aren’t parts of it. Hence there can be no ideas formed of a spirit, for all
ideas are passive and inert, therefore they can’t represent any active thing.
It is impossible to have an idea that that is like an active cause of the
change of ideas. The nature of spirit is such that it cannot be perceived; all
that we can do is perceive the effects it produces. To perceive a spirit would
be to have an idea of it, which means to have an idea that resembles it; and
this is not possible because the ideas are passive and inactive.[21]
Berkeley says that one can have power over ones thoughts, however the ideas
that one gets through the senses don’t depend on ones will. In the same way in
broad daylight one may open his eyes, and it’s not in one’s power to choose
whether to see anything or to choose particular objects to see, the same holds
in hearing and the other senses. Ones will is not responsible for the ideas
that come to one’s mind through any of his/her senses. So there must be some
other will or spirit that produces them.[22]
The ideas of sense are stronger,
livelier, and clearer than those of the imagination; and they are also steady,
orderly and coherent. Ideas that people bring into their own minds at will are
often random, but the ideas of sense aren’t like that: they come in regular
series, and are inter-related in admirable ways.[23]
Berkeley holds that the laws of nature are thus the rules whereby the external
spirit produces and regulates our ideas.[24]
This stability of natural law allows us to make plans for the future and to
regulate our expectations for the benefit of life, hence provide more evidence
of the wisdom and benevolence of the Great Spirit that regulates the world of
sensible things.[25] The ideas imprinted on
the sensed by the other of nature are called ‘real things’ and those that are
caused by our imagination, being less vivid, and constant, are more properly
called ‘ideas’ or ‘images’ of things that they copy and represent. But our sensations,
however vivid and distinct they may be, are nevertheless ideas; that is they
exist in the mind, or are perceived by it, as truly as the ideas that mind
itself makes. The ideas of sense are agreed to have more reality in them, than
ideas made by the mind; but this doesn’t show that they exist outside the mind.
They are less dependent on the spirit that perceives them, for they are caused
by the will of another more powerful spirit (God) but still they are ideas and
certainly no idea whether faint or strong can exist otherwise than in a mind
perceiving it.[26]
7. Spirits.
Berkeley considers our knowledge of
spirits is generally incomplete and imperfect. However, it’s not the defect in
our understanding that we cannot form an idea of spirit. An idea is impossible;
our failure to form an idea cannot be held against us. Perhaps, another kind of
sense could yield ideas of spirit, just as we have ideas of triangles by using
our sight. The doctrine that spirits could be apprehended via ideas has had
unfortunate philosophical and religious consequences. Berkeley speculates that
many may have been led to skepticism about the existence of the soul through
trying and failing to find any idea of it. Berkley seems puzzled at why such
attempts have been made, since the truth is an idea cannot resemble a spirit.[27] Berkeley
says clearly that what we can know of other spirits in through what they do, that
is, they arouse ideas in us. Some of the changes that we perceive among our
ideas inform us that there is a certain particular agent like myself, which
accompany those ideas and concur in their production in my mind. About our own
ideas we know immediately but the knowledge of other spirits is not immediate,
it depends on the intervention of ideas that we take to be effects or signs of
agents other than myself.[28]
8. Conclusion.
After going through this text ‘A treatise concerning
the principles of human knowledge’ by Berkeley. I have come to the conclusion
that the thing that he tries to explain is that ideas are just passive and
torpid. And our ideas can’t produce or affect others. And it’s the spirit that
causes the ideas; this spirit is not material but an immaterial substance. We
can’t perceive the spirit but we can only perceive the effects the spirit
produces. He talks of the Great Spirit who regulates the world of sensible
things, this Great Spirit is God.
[1] Talia Mae Bettcher, Berkeley: A Guide for the Perplexed,
(London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2008) 14-15.
[2] Alasdair
Richmond, Berkeley's Principle of Human
Knowledge, (London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2009) 24.
[6] George
Berkeley, A Treatise concerning the
Principle of Human Knowledge, ed. Kenneth Winkler (Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, 1995) 23.
