Introduction to George Berkeley
Philosophy Showdown
ISAAC: WWWELCOMME back to the philosophy SHOWDOWN! Today we will be facing off against Bishop George Berkeley, an Irish philosopher who made quite a splash in the early 1700s with his ideas on the existence of the material world. I, as always, am your glorious host Isaac, and tonight I am joined by the esteemed expert on Bishop Berkeley, give it up for HOJAE!! How are you doing today Hojae?
HOJAE: I am doing good, I couldn’t sleep because of how excited I was for this podcast.
ISAAC: Sounds great! Now, Hojae, you have been studying George Berkeley for a while now, right?
HOJAE: Oh, as long as I can remember!
ISAAC: Tell me a little about the guy.
HOJAE: Back in 1710, while he was a Lecturer at Trinity College, Berkeley was ordained as a priest in the Anglican church. Later, he established a shelter for abandoned children in London before returning to Ireland when he was appointed Bishop of Cloyne.
ISAAC: Sounds like a pretty cool guy, pretty religious. So what was the guy interested in? What did he write about?
HOJAE: Many of his earlier works build up this idealistic, immaterialistic philosophy, while his later works cover a range of other topics (Like tar water).
ISAAC: Idealistic AND immaterialistic? So he doesn’t believe in a material world at ALL? Is he some kind of skeptic?
HOJAE: Actually, Berkeley is pretty sure that the material world doesn’t exist, and that he knows what does instead. In that sense, he is not a skeptic, since he IS sure, just not in the way we might expect.
ISAAC: I suppose that’s fair enough. So where did he get all these crazy ideas? Who inspired him?
HOJAE: Berkeley’s work is really a response to a bunch of philosophers of his time. Berkeley is critiquing Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke, among others. For example, he draws inspiration from Locke, borrowing many of Locke’s ideas about perception.
ISAAC: Really, he borrows from Locke? So tell me a bit about him, then.
HOJAE: I thought I was invited to talk about Berkeley, not Locke!
ISAAC: You can’t just tease that he borrows his system without explaining the system he borrows! At least give us that much! What system of perception does Locke come up with?
HOJAE: Alright, alright. Locke’s system divides the qualities of objects into primary and secondary qualities. Locke argued that primary qualities were qualities actually IN the object. In this category, he placed attributes like bulk, motion, and figure. Secondary qualities, however, he described as only “powers to produce various sensations in us by their primary qualities.” In other words, they are only subjectively attributed to the object, not really part of the object so much as part of our interpretation of it.
ISAAC: Alright, then, so Locke thinks that secondary qualities aren’t in the object. But even if Berkeley is getting inspiration from this framework, he still has to justify it. How then, does Berkeley separate secondary qualities from the objects themselves? How can you say a banana, for example, ISN’T yellow?
HOJAE: Well, to begin with, when you say a banana is yellow, you don’t directly see the yellow, right? It is not like you could tell the banana was yellow if it was in the dark, for instance.
ISAAC: Right… I suppose the better way to describe it would be that the banana has features about it that cause the light reflected off of it to be what we see as yellow.
HOJAE: But even then, that light isn’t yellow either. It is not as if the light is getting the sensation of yellow, is it? Only conscious minds, after all, can experience the sense perception of yellow. In other words, the light isn’t exactly seeing the yellow.
ISAAC: Sure… I suppose it excites your senses in such a way that they send a message that creates the feeling of yellow in your mind.
HOJAE: But there, you just conceded the fundamental point! At no point, from the banana to your senses to the message, did anything feel the sensation of yellow. The yellowness was only real in your mind, not in anything outside it. In other words, it was purely subjective.
ISAAC: So, if I am understanding you right, the characteristics in the banana that led me to think about it as yellow aren’t really relevant? You are just focused on that end product that I experience, that feeling of yellowness in my mind?
HOJAE: Exactly. We care about the experience of yellowness that can only be felt by conscious beings.
ISAAC: So I guess that jump, where the feeling of the secondary quality is only in your mind, and not in anything inanimate, can be expanded to any other secondary quality? Our banana can’t taste itself either, and so its flavor only becomes real in our minds as well?
HOJAE: I couldn’t have put it better myself.
ISAAC: Alright then, secondary qualities are in the mind. So far, that seems fairly consistent with how Locke describes them. But now Berkeley starts to transition away from Locke’s framework. Locke would say that primary qualities are a whole other issue. Berkeley, on the other hand, claims that primary qualities aren’t in the objects, either. How is Berkeley going to tell me an orange isn’t round?
HOJAE: First, I am going to ask you to imagine an orange.
ISAAC: Alright, I am imagining an orange.
HOJAE: Now, take away all the secondary qualities from that orange. Imagine it without color, for instance.
ISAAC: I… Think I got it…
HOJAE: But do you? I don’t mean a white orange or a transparent orange that shows the color of what is behind it. A completely colorless orange.
ISAAC: I don’t know what you mean… I don’t think I can do that…
HOJAE: And that is exactly the point! The secondary qualities are key to imagining an object. You can’t just strip them away and leave the primary qualities behind. They are ultimately connected to each other.
ISAAC (Talk slower): So now our secondary qualities, which couldn’t exist without a mind to perceive them, are now necessarily linked to any conception we have of the primary qualities.
HOJAE: Exactly! None of the qualities we think of as belonging to objects are actually part of those objects. Fundamentally, the world happens in minds, not in things outside of them.
ISAAC: I don’t know though. Personally, I am not sure about this argument. What kind of thing could Berkeley say to justify why my perceptions can’t come from material things just because I, with my human limitations, can’t conceive of it?
HOJAE: The point that you are making is really part of a larger debate over conceivability arguments. The idea is that because I can’t conceive of something, it must not exist. Philosophers throughout the ages have gone back and forth over whether conceivability arguments are good or not.
ISAAC: It seems like it puts too much weight on what we as humans can conceive of.
HOJAE: Well, Berkeley might approach it in a slightly different way. For Berkeley, something inconceivable is illogical. If I can’t conceive of it, that means that my rational picture of the world doesn’t fit all together nicely. Therefore, I must have got something wrong in my reasoning.
ISAAC: So, from this perspective, my mind is my only rational tool for trying to make the puzzle all fit together, and if something doesn’t fit, I must be getting something wrong?
HOJAE: That is true.
ISAAC: All right then, let’s explore what it would mean for the material world to not exist and for the world to just be made up of our ideas. If I am not mistaken, there is this debate between realism and idealism, right? I am curious, where do you think Berkeley would fit in?
HOJAE: Before getting into that, let’s define those terms. Realism suggests that our perception in some way connects to the material world. Idealism, on the other hand, says that ideas are the fundamental thing. There isn’t a material world that defines what is real and what isn’t. Reality is a mental construct that is indistinguishable from perception and understanding.
ISAAC: Interesting, and just to clarify, under realism, there is a material world. Under idealism, there is not.
HOJAE: Yes! Under idealism, perception is existence. Berkeley phrases this principle as “esse est percipi,” or, “to be is to be perceived.” In other words, when something is perceived it is defined into existence!
ISAAC: Ah, I gotcha. But, don’t perceptions need something to cause them though? How does that even work? Where are our perceptions coming from?
HOJAE: Let me walk you through what Berkeley thought when answering this question. Supposing that matter does not exist, from the argument before, the three options that could give us perception would be:
1.
Other Ideas
2.
Myself
3.
Some other spirit
ISAAC: Ok…what made it reasonable to choose the latter?
HOJAE: Think about how our mind works, the ideas we have in our mind can only have the characteristics that our mind perceives. This means that they’re completely dependent on the person perceiving. Basically, the things we already know and understand can't change on their own. There is a conscious voluntary effort on our part to make them.
ISAAC: Right, because if our preexisting ideas were causing our perceptions we wouldn’t be able to come up with anything new.
HOJAE: Exactly!
ISAAC: Alright, so we have ruled out other ideas. What about me? Can’t I be providing my own perceptions?
HOJAE: Well, since you are receiving other ideas without your consent, how would it be possible to be the one creating what is being perceived? We simply do not have the power to do so. You couldn’t explain your perceptions with this.
ISAAC: Then that would leave a spirit, which would be God?
HOJAE: Correct.
ISAAC: But, if there isn’t a material world, why does it seem like things exist even when we can’t perceive them? If to be is to be perceived, why is it that when I light a candle and leave the room, the candle is burned down, as if it was burning while I was gone?
HOJAE: This is where Berkeley’s ideas of God come in. Throughout the whole time you were gone, God was still perceiving everything, including that candle.
ISAAC: Okay, so, the candle still existed under God’s watchful eye, and continued to burn even when I wasn’t looking at it.
HOJAE: Yes!
ISAAC: Okay, so then when I went back into the room, I saw the candle that God had been looking at when I was away.
HOJAE: Well, you create your own idea of the candle when you perceive it that is distinct from the one that God has. But yes, you are getting that idea from God.
ISAAC: Okay, so I get an indirect view of what God perceives, but I don’t get direct access myself.
HOJAE: Right, God is the only one giving stability and objectivity in the world! We perceive the world God defines, filtered through our own minds.
ISAAC: All right then, Hojae, as we wind down, give us the overview of where Berkeley has brought us. What is the big picture?
HOJAE: In the end, Berkeley claims to have proven that the material world doesn’t exist. Instead, we are just disembodied spirits with perceptions. The things we see, are real only so far as they are perceived by God. Since God sees everything though, the world maintains consistency. So all in all, not too different from the way we might expect the world to work.
ISAAC: Except for the whole no material world bit, though.
HOJAE: Right, sure, except that.
OUTRO: (Queue Music)
ISAAC: All righty, that is all we have time for tonight, folks! Thanks again for joining me, Hojae!
HOJAE: Thank you for having me!
ISAAC: Thank you all for joining us for this week’s PHILOSOPHY SHOWDOWN! Join us next week where we will be facing off against God himself to ask “What the fuck are we doing here?” I have been your oh-so-humble host, the magnificent Isaac, signing off.
References
[1] Berkeley, George. “A Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge.” Edited by David R Wilkins. Trinity College Dublin. The University of Dublin, 2002. https://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/HumanKnowledge/.
[2] Berkeley, George, “Three Dialogues Between Hylas and Philonous,” in Early Modern Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Lisa Shapiro and Marcy P. Lascano. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2022.
[3] Downing, Lisa. 2021. “George Berkeley.” In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta, Fall 2021. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/berkeley/.
[4] George, Jeevan T. n.d. “A Critical Glance into George Berkeley's Philosophy of Immaterialism.” Legal Service India. Accessed May 5, 2023. https://doi.org/978-81-928510-0-6.
[5] Green, Hank. "Locke, Berkeley, & Empiricism: Crash Course Philosophy #6." YouTube video. Posted by “CrashCourse,” March 15, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C-s4JrymKM.
[6] Locke, John, “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” in Early Modern Philosophy: An Anthology, ed. Lisa Shapiro and Marcy P. Lascano. Peterborough, Ontario, Canada: Broadview Press, 2022.