I’ve chosen to
look initially at the philosophical outlook of Berkeley through
public criticism by Bertrand Russell.*
He was born in Ireland in 1685, and became a Fellow of Trinity
College, Dublin when he was twenty-two years old. What was peculiar
about his philosophy was that he denied the existence of matter, and
in fact the reality of the objective world. He argued that material
objects had existence only in so far as they are perceived by the viewer.
The obvious
criticism of this theory is that if perception is the only thing
which gives objects their reality, then when we are not looking at
them, they should not exist.
‘To the objection
that, in that case, a tree, for instance, would cease to exist if
no-one was looking at it, he replied that God always perceives
everything; if there were no God, what we take to material objects
would have a jerky life, suddenly leaping into being when we look at
them; but as it is, owing to God’s perceptions, trees and rocks and
stones have an existence as continuous as common sense supposes. This
is, in his opinion, a weighty argument for the existence of God.
His principal
philosophical concerns were expressed in a small number of works
written before he was twenty-eight years old. These concerns resemble
remarkably those of ancient priestly interest which is a focus of the
middle chapters of this book. His works were ‘A New Theory of
Vision’ (1709); ‘The Principles of Human Knowledge’ (1710); and
‘The Dialogues of Hylas and Philonous’ (1713). The last of these
is the one which presents the argument against matter. Russell
considers that the first of these dialogues and the beginning of the
second present the main aspects of the theory, and supplies a useful
summary of the argument. This summary is reproduced here. Russell
feels that Berkeley:
‘advances valid
arguments in favour of a certain important conclusion, though not
quite in favour of the conclusion he thinks he is proving. He thins
he is proving that all reality is mental; what he is proving is that
we perceive qualities, not things, and that qualities are relative to
the percipient.’
There are only two
characters in the dialogue, Hylas and Philonous,*
The former represents educated common sense, and Philonous,
represents Berkeley himself. Shortly after the opening remarks,
‘Hylas says that
he has heard strange reports of the opinions of Philonous, to the
effect that he does not believe in material substance. ‘Can
anything,’ he exclaims, ‘be more fantastical, more repugnant to
Common Sense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe
there is no such thing as matter?’ Philonous replies that he
does not deny the reality of sensible things, i.e. of what is
perceived immediately by the senses, but that we do not see the
causes of colours or hear the causes of sounds. Both agree that the
senses make no inferences. Philonous points out that by sight we
perceive only light, colour, and figure; by hearing, only sounds; and
so on. Consequently, apart from sensible qualities ther is nothing
sensible, and sensible things are nothing but sensible qualities or
combinations of sensible qualities.’
Philonous now sets
to work to prove that ‘the reality of sensible things consists in
being perceived’, as against the opinion of Hylas, that ‘to exist
is one thing, and to be perceived is another’. That
sense-data are mental is a thesis which Philonous supports by a
detailed examination of the various senses. He begins with heat and
cold. Great heat, he says, is a pain, and must be in a mind.
Therefore heat is mental; and a similar argument applies to cold.
This is reinforced by the famous argument about the the lukewarm
water. When one of your hands is hot and the other cold, you put both
into lukewarm water, which feels cold to one hand and hot to the
other; but the water cannot be at once hot and cold. This finishes
Hylas, who acknowledges that ‘heat and cold are only sensations
existing in our minds’. But he points out hopefully that other
sensible qualities remain.
Philonous next takes
up tastes. He points out that a sweet taste is a pleasure and a
bitter taste is a pain, and that pleasure and pain are mental. The
same argument applies to odours, since they are pleasant or
unpleasant.
Hylas makes a
vigourous effort to rescue sound, which, he says, is motion in air,
as may be seen from the fact that are no sounds in a vacuum.*
We must, he says, ‘distinguish between sound as it is perceived by
us, and as it is in itself; or between the sound which we immediately
perceive and that which exists without us’. Philonous points out
that what Hylas calls ‘real’ sound, being a movement, might
possibly be seen or felt, but can certainly not be heard; therefore
it is not sound as we know it in perception. As to this, Hylas now
concedes that ‘sounds too have no real being without the mind’.
They now come to
colours, and here Hylas begins confidently: ‘Pardon me: the case of
colours is very different. Can anything be plainer than that we see
them on the objects?’ Substances existing without the mind, he
maintains, have the colours we see on them. But Philonous has no
difficulty in disposing of this view. He begins with the sunset
clouds, which are red and golden, and points out that a cloud, when
you are close to it, has no such colours. He goes on to the
difference made by a microscope, and to the yellowness of everything
to a man who has jaundice. And very small insects, he says, must be
able to see much smaller objects than we can see. Hylas thereupon
says that colour is not in the objects, but in the light; it is, he
says, a thin fluid substance. Philonous points out, as in the case of
sound, that, according to Hylas, ‘real’ colours are something
different from the red and blue that we see, and that this won’t
do.
Hereupon Hylas gives
way about all secondary qualities, but continues to say that primary
qualities, notable figure and motion, are inherent in external
unthinking substances. To this Philonous replies that things look big
when we are near them and small when we are far off, and that a
movement may seem quick to one man and slow to another.
At this point Hylas
attempts a new departure. He made a mistake, he says, in not
distinguishing the object from the sensation; the act of perceiving
he admits to be mental, but not what is perceived; colours, for
example, ‘have a real existence without the mind, in some
unthinking substance’. To this Philonous replies: ‘That any
immediate object of the senses – that is, any idea or combination
of ideas – should exist in an unthinking substance, or exterior to
all minds, is in itself an evident contradiction.’
At this point
Russell points out that the argument has become a logical one, and is
no longer empirical in nature. Berkeley has moved on to a discussion
involving ideas, as expressed by Philonous a few pages later, where
he says, ‘whatever is immediately perceived is an idea; and can any
idea exist out of the mind?’.
After a metaphysical
discussion of substance, Hylas returns to the discussion of visual
sensations, with the argument that he sees things at a distance. To
this Philonous replies that this is equally true of things seen in
dreams, which everyone admits to be mental; further, that distance is
not perceived by sight, but judged as the result of experience, and
that, to a man born blind but now for the first time able to see,
visual objects would not appear distant.
At the beginning of
the second Dialogue, Hylas urges that certain traces in the brain are
the causes of sensations, but Philonous retorts that ‘the brain,
being a sensible thing, exists only in the mind’.
Russell ends his
summary of the argument here, and divides Philonous’ argument into
two parts. The first is the argument that we do not perceive material
things, but only their secondary qualities, such as colours, sounds,
etc. These secondary qualities exist in the mind, and are mental in
nature. Russell thinks that Berkeley’s reasoning is ‘completely
cogent as to the first point,’ but as to the second, ‘it suffers
from the absence of any definition of the word ‘mental’. He
relies… upon the received view that everything must be either
material or mental, and that nothing is both’.
“When he says that
we perceive qualities, not ‘things’ or ‘material substances’,
and that there is no reason to suppose that the different qualities
which common sense regards as all belonging to one ‘thing’ inhere
in a substance distinct from each and all of them, his reasoning may
be accepted. But when he goes on to say that sensible qualities –
including primary qualities – are ‘mental’, the arguments are
of very different kinds, and of very different degrees of validity.
There are some attempting to prove logical necessity, while others
are more empirical.” [p626]
Russell is not
interested in Berkeley’s argument after this, as he explained. This
is because he has exposed the same looseness of language which we saw
employed by the most celebrated exponents of the ontological argument
(and consequently the weakness of the argumentation), and the rest of
Berkeley’s argument concerns a theological understanding of the
world. We however shall press on, since Berkeley’s theological
understanding is relevant to the subject of this book, and it also
presents an alternative form of ontological argument, which Berkeley
claims shows the reality of God.
The Second Dialogue
opens with a discussion which functions to clarify whether the
essentially skeptical view of Hylas is the correct response to
Philonous’ argument. Philonous [p 166] asks to know ‘whether I
rightly understand your hypothesis. You make certain traces in the
brain to be the causes or occasions of our ideas. Pray tell me,
whether by the brain you mean any sensible thing?’ Hylas confirms
that this is his view, and that he cannot imagine what else Philonous
thought he might mean. Philonous responds by defining that ‘sensible
things are all immediately perceivable, are ideas; and these exist
only in the mind.’ They both agree that Hylas has agreed to this
much earlier in the argument.
Philonous then
argues that, since the brain, being itself a sensible thing, ‘exists
only in the mind’, and asks if Hylas would agree whether or not it
is reasonable to suppose that ‘one idea or thing existing,
occasions all other ideas.’ And that if this is his view, how does
he account ‘for the origin of that primary idea of the brain
itself?’ Hylas replies that he does not explain the origin of our
ideas by a ‘brain which is perceptible to sense; rather he
understands the brain being ‘only a combination of sensible ideas’,
and that the explanation is by means of another brain which he
imagines.
Philonous responds
by suggesting that things imagined are as truly in the mind as things
which are perceived. Hylas agrees. Philonous points out that Hylas
has been ‘all this while accounting for ideas, by certain motions
or impressions in the brain’ by means of ‘some alterations in an
idea, whether sensible or imaginable,’ and that it does not matter
which. Hylas is a little shaken by this, and says that he begins to
suspect his own hypothesis.
A clue is presented
as to where Philonous is going with this argument, since he says that
‘all we know or conceive are own ideas,’ with the exception of
‘spirits.’ And if we do not conceive it, then we ‘talk
unintelligibly,’ instead of forming a reasonable hypothesis’.
Hylas now crumbles, and says that he ‘now clearly see it was a mere
dream’ to argue in terms of motions or impressions in the brain.
Philonous responds by saying that ‘this way of explaining things…
could never have satisfied any reasonable man’ since ‘what
connexion is there between a motion in the nerves and the sensations
of sound or colour in the mind?’ He agrees with Philonous that he
is satisfied that no sensible things have a real existence. He also
agrees the he is clearly a skeptic.
Philolaus then
embarks on a long paean to the glories of the sensible world and its
orderliness:
‘Raise now your
thoughts from this ball of earth, to all those glorious luminaries
that adorn the high arch of heaven. The motion and situation of the
planet, are they not admirable for use and order? Were those
(miscalled erratic) globes ever known to stray, in their
repeated journeys through the pathless void? Do they not measure
areas around the sun ever proportioned to the times? So fixed, so
immutable are the laws by which the unseen Author of Nature actuates
the universe. How vivid and radiant is the lustre of the fixed stars!
How magnificent and rich that negligent profusion, with which they
appear to be scattered throughout the whole azure vault!’
Philonous is
appealing here to the heavens as a representation of the divine,
whose uniformities point to something beyond the appearance. He says
to Hylas that he ‘must call imagination to his aid,’ since ‘the
feeble narrow sense cannot descry innumberable worlds revolving round
the central fires [the stars]; and in those worlds the energy of an
all-perfect mind displayed in endless forms.’
This is not a
metaphorical appeal. Berkeley has introduced the notion that reality
as it is represented to us is not simply the more or less complex
response of the human brain to sensory data, but is a series of
representations which are associated with cosmic ‘all-perfect’
mind:
‘Neither sense
nor imagination are big enough to comprehend the boundless extent
with all its glittering furniture. Though labouring mind exert and
strain each power to its utmost reach, there still stands out
ungrasped a surplusage immeasurable. Yet all the vast bodies that
compose this mighty frame, how distant and remote soever, are by some
secret mechanism, some divine art and force linked in a mutual
dependence and intercourse with each other, even with this earth,
which was almost slipped from my thoughts, and lost in the crowd of
worlds. Is not the whole system immense, beautiful, glorious beyond
expression and beyond thought!’
Both Philonous and
Hylas by this point share the view that sensible things exist in mind
only. Up to this point however, the view of Hylas has been a profound
skepticism about reality, and our capacity to know it. By contrast,
here Philonous shows, on the basis of the same evidence, that a quite
different conclusion can be drawn, if the intellectual frame is
changed. Philonous then attacks the skeptical position in general:
‘What treatment
then do those philosophers deserve, who would deprive these noble and
delightful scenes of all reality? How should those priciples be
entertained, that lead us to think all the visible beauty of the
creation a false imaginary glare? To be plain, can you expect this
skepticism of yours will not be thought extravagantly absurd by all
men of sense?’ Hylas is not impressed, and is not converted to
Philonous’s outlook. He says that his comfort is that Philonous is
‘as much a sceptic as I am’. Philonous disagrees, which strikes
Hylas as meaning that Philonous agreed all along to the premises of
the argument, but is now denying the conclusion, leaving Hylas ‘to
maintain those paradoxes’ which Philonous led him into.
Argument and
evidence however do not by themselves lead to single and unambiguous
conclusions. We arrive at conclusions only by the properties and
processes of mind, and on the basis our notions and expectations.
Philonous denies that he agreed with Hylas ‘in those notions that
led to skepticism.’ He argues that Hylas ‘indeed said, the
reality of sensible things consisted in an absolute existence
out of the minds of spirits, or distinct from their being perceived.’
And, consequent to this vue, Hylas is ‘obliged deny sensible things
any real existence’. And that, according to his own definition, he
is therefore a professed sceptic. But Philonous says that he ‘neither
said nor thought the reality of sensible things was to be defined
after that manner.’ Instead he says that to him it is evident, for
the reasons that Hylas allows, ‘that sensible things cannot exist
otherwise than in a mind or spirit.’ And so he concludes that it is
not the case that they have no real existence, ‘but that seeing
they depend not on my thought, and have an existence distinct from
being perceived by me, there must be some other mind wherein they
exist’ [Berkeley’s emphasis]. As sure therefore as the
sensible world really exists, so sure is there an infinite
omnipresent spirit who contains and supports it.’
This is an
interesting proof of the reality of divine Being, which differs from
the other arguments we have looked at. Berkeley clarifies that this
is not the Christian notion that God knows and comprehends all
things. He argues (as Philonous) that ‘men commonly believe that
all things are known or perceived by God, because they believe the
being of a God, whereas I on the other side, immediately and
necessarily conclude the being of a God, because all sensible things
must be perceived by him.’[p 168]
Hylas objects that
this is a footling distinction, saying ‘so long as we all believe
the same thing, what matter is it how we come by that belief? To
which Philonous replies that they don’t believe the same thing.
‘For philosophers, though they acknowledge all corporeal beings to
be perceived by God, yet they attribute to them an absolute
subsistence distinct from their being perceived by any mind whatever,
which I do not.’ He asks, ‘is there no difference between saying,
there is a God, therefore he perceives all things: and saying,
sensible things do really exist; and if they really exist, they are
necessarily perceived by an infinite mind: therefore there is an
infinite mind, or God. This furnishes you with a direct and
immediate demonstration, from a most evident principle, of the being
of a God.’
Again Berkeley
returns to the judgement that men make about sense data, which is not
always the same, though the evidence is the same. As Philonous he
says that ‘Divines and philosophers had proved beyond all
controvery, from the beauty and usefulness of the several parts of
the creation, that it was the workmanship of God. But that setting
aside all help of astronomy and natural philosophy, all contemplation
of the contrivance, order, and adjustment of things, and infinite
mind should be necessarily inferred from the bare existence of the
sensible world, is an advantage peculiar to them only who have made
this easy reflexion: that the sensible world is that which we
perceive by our several senses; and that nothing is perceived by the
senses beside ideas; and that no idea or archetype of an idea can
exist otherwise than in a mind.’
Berkeley regarded
this as a powerful argument against atheism. Hylas says that ‘some
eminent moderns’ entertain a notion of ‘seeing all things in
God’, (a reference in particular to the French scholar Malebranche)
and gives detail in response to questioning by Philonous. Hylas says
that these men conceive that the soul being immaterial, ‘is
incapable of being united with material things, so as to perceive
them in themselves, but that she (the soul) by her union with the
substance of God, which being spiritual is therefore purely
intelligible, or capable of being the immediate object of a spirit’s
thought. Besides, the divine essence contains in it perfections
correspondent to each created being; and which are for that reason
proper to exhibit or represent them to the mind.’
Philonous is not
impressed with this argument, in that he argues it makes a created
world ‘exist otherwise than in the mind of a spirit’. This is
because, as he has said, ‘nothing is perceived by the senses
besides ideas.’ He does not share the view with Malebranche that
there is an absolute external world. According to Philonous,
Malebranche ‘maintains that we are deceived by our senses, and know
not the real natures or the true forms and figures of extended
beings, of all which I hold the direct contrary.’ Hylas thinks
however that what Philonous proposes comes near to ‘seeing all
things in God’. The response of Philonous is that ‘few men think,
yet all will have opinions. Hence men’s opinions are superficial
and confused. It is nothing strange that tenets, which in themselves
are ever so different, should nevertheless be confounded with each
other by those who do not consider them attentively’ [p169]. He
says he is very remote from the view of Malebranche, because
Malebranche builds on the most abstract general ideas…though he
(Philonous) agrees with holy Scripture, in ‘that in God we live,
and move, and have our being’. He explains briefly the difference
between his view and that of Malebranche:
‘It is evident
that the things I perceive are my own ideas, and that no idea can
exist unless it be in a mind. Nor is it less plain that these ideas
or things by me perceived, either themselves or their archetypes,
exist independently of my mind, since I know myself not to be their
author, it being out of my power to determine at pleasure, what
particular idea I shall be effected with upon opening my eyes or
ears. They must therefore exist in some other mind, whose will it is
they should be exhibited to me. The things, I say, immediately
perceived, are ideas or sensations, call them what you will. But how
can any idea or sensation exist in, or be produced by, anything but a
mind or spirit? This indeed is inconceivable; and to assert that
which is inconceivable, is to talk nonsense….’
It may be that the
objection to the notion put forward by Malebranche is that it depicts
reality as something which is perceived as outside the human mind by
the human mind, whereas Berkeley does not make this distinction. For
Berkeley it is as if his mind is a subset of the divine cosmic mind,
perceiving a subset of the ideas in that mind. If he perceives
ideas, it is because the cosmic mind wills it.
The ideas which
present themselves to Philonous, he argues, ‘it is very conceivable
that they should exist in, and be produced by, a spirit; since this
is no more than I daily experience in myself, inasmuch as I perceive
numberless ideas; and by an act of my Will can form a great variety
of them, and raise them up in my imagination: though it must be
confessed, these creatures of the fancy are not altogether so
distinct, so strong, vivid, and permanent, as those perceived by my
senses, which latter are called real things. From all which I
conclude, there is a mind which affects me every moment with all
the sensible impressions I perceive. And from the variety, order,
and manner of these, I conclude the Author of them to be wise,
powerful, and good, beyond comprehension.
Philonous emphasizes
here that he is not saying that he sees ‘things by perceiving that
which represents in the intelligible substance of God. This I do not
understand; but I say, the things by me perceived are known by the
understanding, and produced by the will, of an infinite spirit.’ So
his objection is as I suggested, and he is not simply seeing what is
‘in’ God.
Beyond this, the
Second Dialogue deals with Malebranche’s occasionalism, which sees
the physical world as a place where God has the occasion to create
motion and change, and also deals with ideas of substance.
