1. Introduction to Philosophy Lecture 7 Berkeley
By David Kelsey

2. Rationalism vs. Empiricism
Rationalists vs. Empiricists
Views on how knowledge is obtained

3. Berkeley George Berkeley lived from 1685-1753.
He was one of the ‘British Empiricists’ along with Hume and Locke.
He was a bishop of the Anglican church in Ireland and lived in America for a few years ( ).
Berkeley, Ca is named after him.

4. How Empiricists justify the basic beliefs
The Empiricist answer to the Evil Demon:
According to the Empiricist:
Even if the evil demon is tricking me, he can trick me into believing false things about the external world. But then I am having those experiences…
Thus, if it seems to me that there is a blue blob in my visual field, then there really is a blue blob in my visual field.
So there’s no such thing as ‘seeming to seem’.

5. Berkeley’s gap Berkeley’s Gap: The gap between perception and reality
It seems as though no amount of beliefs about my experiences can ever add up to a conclusive reason to believe something about a wholly external reality.
There is no valid argument from beliefs about experiences to beliefs about an external reality…
This won’t work: beliefs about experience  external world

6. Closing Berkeley’s gap
According to Berkeley:
There is an impassible gap between our basic beliefs and any beliefs about the external, non-mental world.
In fact, we can have no knowledge at all of the external world.
But our ordinary beliefs are not about the external world. They are complex beliefs and expectations about our own experiences.
So there are only our own experiences and our own ideas.
There is no such thing as an external world!!

7. Berkeley’s idealism Berkeley’s Idealism:
On the face of it, Berkeley’s view seems absurd. What could a classroom or an oak tree be, if not a mind-independent, physical object?
But according to Berkeley, an oak tree is just our sense experience of the oak tree and a classroom is just our sense experience of the classroom.

8. Realism vs. Idealism
Realism: the view that some of reality is mind-independent.
Berkeley’s idealism is often contrasted with realism.
Anti-realism: the view that all of reality is mind-dependent.
Any thoughts on Idealism?
Of course, it helps Berkeley because it closes the gap between perception reality.
But doesn’t Idealism seem absurd?
What about the idea that we sometimes hear that perception determines reality?

9. Berkeley’s argument for Idealism
Berkeley’s argument for his Idealism:
1 Nothing is perceived or conceived except mental things, I.e. experiences or ideas.
This is called Representationalism.
2. There is nothing which is not perceived (or conceived.)
3. Thus, there is nothing except mental things.
Any thoughts about this argument?

10. Representationalism
Premise 1: Nothing is perceived or conceived except mental things--experiences or ideas.
Thus, you never perceive external objects. Instead, you only perceive mental representations…
Justification for Premise 1:
Suppose you stand for a while with your left hand in a bucket of cold water and your right hand in a bucket of hot water.
Then you plunge both hands into a bucket of warm water.
Your left hand will feel hot, and your right hand will feel cold.
But it can’t be the water you are feeling--the water isn’t both hot and cold.
What you are feeling is your experience of the water.

11. Conceiving the Unconceived
Premise 2: There is nothing which is not perceived (or conceived).
Esse est percipi: to be is to be perceived
So Berkeley here is arguing for a specific analysis of existence: to exist is to be experienced.
So there is no abstract notion of existence.
Existence is relative…

12. Conceiving the Un-conceived
Berkeley thinks the idea of something existing without being perceived or thought of is just incoherent--unimaginable.
It certainly seems as though I can imagine something that is not being seen, heard, thought of etc. pretty easily. I just think of a tree standing in a clearing with nobody around.
Berkeley’s response: But that tree you are imagining is being thought of, for you are thinking of it.

13. So how does Berkeley answer the skeptic?
Remember the skeptic: Asks you to consider the scenario in which you have the very same experiences you are having now but you are being deceived by an evil demon.
Berkeley’s response to the skeptic: There is no external reality on my view so what is it you are being deceived about?

14. How is error possible 1. How is error possible:
On Berkeley’s view, how can I be mistaken about my perceptions, after all perception is reality on his view. So how can we tell between a hallucination or an illusion and real perception?

15. Continued existence Disappearing objects:
It seems to follow from Berkeley’s view that objects just go out of existence when there is nobody around to perceive them. For to exist is to be perceived.
Berkeley’s response:
“it is evident to every one that those things which are called the Works of Nature--that is, the far greater part of the ideas or sensations perceived by us--are not produced by, or dependent on, the wills of men. There is therefore some other Spirit that causes them; since it is repugnant that they should subsist by themselves…But, if we attentively consider the constant regularity, order, and concatenation of natural things, the surprising magnificence, beauty and perfection of the larger, and the exquisite contrivance of the smaller parts, together with the exact harmony of the and correspondence of the whole…and at the same time attend to the meaning and import of the attributes One, Eternal, Infinitely Wise, Good, and Perfect, we shall clearly perceive that they belong to the aforesaid Spirit, “who works all in all,” and “by whom all things consist.” (Principles, I, 146)

16. God’s existence God’s existence: Common sense:
So Berkeley held that God, being omnipresent, is always perceiving everything.
Common sense:
Thus, our common sense intuition that things have a reality independent of our perceiving them, on Berkeley’s view, is cashed out as a reality they have as perceived by an Infinite spirit…
A proof of God’s existence:
So since “we are not in control of the course of the ideas we call the world and yet they must exist in a spirit, and only a spirit could cause these ideas in our minds, it follows that there must be a spirit in which these ideas exist and which produces them in us.”

17. How do we answer the skeptic?
Which answer to the skeptic is best?
Descartes has to justify God’s existence and Berkeley’s idealism runs so counter to common sense.
Maybe we needn’t be so worried about the skeptical arguments…
Any thoughts?