MC Philosophy

Berkeley and the Immediate God

This is the fourth and final entry on Berkeley's "Principles of Human Knowledge."  The first is George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge, the second Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction, the third Berkeley and Matter.

- In the previous entries, we have seen how Berkeley goes about his project of changing the way we think about our world.  By disproving the idea of abstraction, he is able to show that once abstraction goes, the notion of a substratum of matter goes with it.  If we can only know the world through individual sensory experience, then we cannot logically know that there is some consistent thing termed "matter" of which things consist.  The next step is to determine how all these sensory experiences get received by perceiving beings, for if there is no matter, then there must be another something that supplies us with these perceptions. 

Definitions

Skepticism - the critical examination of whether knowledge and perceptions are actually true and whether we can achieve absolute knowledge.  (wikipedia)

Where Ideas Come From

- Once Berkeley establishes that there are only two substances in the world, Spirits and Ideas, he must give a logical explanation for how the Spirits receive Ideas.  As was noted in the last entry, these two substances are completely different from each other. 

If we are dealing with apples and oranges (spirits and ideas) then surely the apple tree cannot produce the oranges, just as spirits cannot produce ideas.  Spirits, or those who perceive, can be thought of as receptacles for sensory stimuli.  They can only think, perceive, and have a sketchy form of will (that unfortunately we will not address).  So if it is not the spirits who are producing the ideas, where do they come from?  It can't come from things that are similar to ideas that exist out in the world, providing us with ideas.

"But, you say, though the ideas themselves do not exist without the mind, yet there may be things like them, whereof they are copies or resemblances, which things exist without the mind in an unthinking substance.  I answer, an idea can be like nothing but an idea; a colour or figure can be like nothing but another colour or figure.  If we look but never so little into our thoughts we shall find it impossible for us to conceive a likeness except between our ideas." 

So things we perceive to be different cannot be anything alike.  But wait!  What if we take say light and sound, and compare that they are alike in that they are both made of waves (or maybe they are actually quanta - not to be discussed here), then aren't we taking two things that seem different to our senses, but are not completely different?  Ah, but if you recall, Berkeley has already headed this off with his disproof of abstraction.  If we can't have an absolute thing "light" or "sound", but only individual perceptions, then how can they in any way be the same? 

"insomuch that it is impossible for an idea to do anything, or strictly speaking, to be the cause of anything: neither can it be the resemblance or pattern of any active being...Whence it plainly follows that extension, figure, and motion cannot be the cause of our sensations." 

Lets take our frat-daddy from Berkeley (a school named for a man he's never thought of, heard of, or cared to inquire about). If he goes out an has a raging good time at one of his huge parties with sweet looking chicks, it is normal for him to think that the alcohol that he consumes is the reason for his drunkeness, and probably the reason he was able to shove his tongue down a girl's throat who he had never met. 

In the morning when he wakes up (mysteriously alone) it is normal for him to think that a substance called alcohol made him directly feel this way.  But as we have seen, this can't possibly be the case.  So what caused these ideas of pain, and scarce recollections of his honey pie from the night before?  It wasn't another perceiving spirit and it wasn't some other idea. 

- In fact, these perceptions are from an immediate God.  Its so simple!  God did it.   A God who not only saw everything he did the night before, but actually provided him with all those sinful perceptions of the actions his spirit willed.

"I find the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like dependence on my will.  When in broad daylight I open my eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or no, or to determine what particular objects shall present themselves to my view; and so likewise as to the hearing and other senses; the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of my will.  There is therefore some other  Will or Spirit that produces them." 

- Berkeley is here able to create a God that is not just a Great Creator, a Grand Planner, a Prime Mover, instead, by disproving abstraction and matter, he can implement a God that is so intimate with each and every one of our lives that every single sense we have is directly from His origin.  We have been fooled by scientists and philosophers to think there is something out there, some substratum, but in reality, it is only His providing of immaterial ideas directly into our minds.  As stated in earlier entries, this notion from Berkeley comes at an integral time in history.  A time when God's providence in the world was being diminished by other supposed "Christians", especially Newton, who had relegated God to a Grand Planner, a Being whose divinity created the perfect order of the universe and let it go on its course.  Berkeley reintroduced the immediate and immensely personal God.

Consistency

- Many a rejection to this notion of the immediate God circles around the idea of consistency in the world.  If when I leave the desk I'm at, and nobody else is there to perceive it, does it still exist? 

Furthermore, when our Berkeley frat daddy's are partying, why is it that they all experience the same thing?  And what about when one of them passes out in a lonely bathroom, does it still exist while he's dead asleep? 

- The direct answer is that they do not exist when not being perceived, for there is nothing there to actually be perceived, "yet it will unavoidably follow, from the principles which are now generally admitted, that the particular bodies, of what kind soever, do none of them exist whilst they are not perceived."  This doesn't actually mean that everything vanishes when we close our eyes, for 2 reasons.  1) there is no matter to actually vanish  2) the perfection of God assures that he supplies consistency in the world (this is why supposed "natural laws" like Newtons seem to work so well, cause God is perfect and what else would you expect?).  Through this consistency, we can also assert that the ideas still exist because there is a witness to them - God.  He keeps the whole engine running and therefore there is no reason to assume that he would let the ideas dissipate just because you closed your eyes. 

The Perfect God and All You Skeptics

- Many people have proclaimed Berkeley the ultimate skeptic for these views, mostly because they view it as nothing actually existing.  He counters that his views are the height of empiricism, and the belief in matter is the real route to skepticism. 

"for, so long as men through that real things subsisted without the mind, and that their knowledge was only so far forth real as it was comformable to real things, it follows they could not be certain they had any real knowledge at all.  For how can it be known that the things which are perceived are conformable to those which are not perceived, or exist without the mind?" 

- If we are to believe as Descartes did, that our perceptions are never to be trusted, then the notion of skepticism is open to run ramped.  It is a slippery slope from saying that our inabilities to find truth are based on ill-informed perceptions to the belief that we have no way to know true knowledge.  Under Berkeley, we know true knowledge - God gives us perceptions.  There can be no Grand Deceiver, as in Descartes, for how could God deceive us and be anything but perfect?

Furthermore, for all you people who think that matter does exist, and use it to your advantage through that thing called "abstaction", not only are you wrong, but you're a heretic.  So fuck you Darwin - you've been fucking the good name of God for too long, and its time to set the record straight.

"How great a friend material substance has been to Atheists in all ages were needless to relate.  All their monstrous systems have so visible and necessary a dependence on it that, when this corner-stone is once removed, the whole fabric cannot choose but fall to the ground, insomuch that it is no longer worth whole to bestow a particular consideration on the absurdities of every wretched sect of Atheists." 

-Thankfully for us all, the ideas of Berkeley have persisted on through the ages, while those Aetheist heretics Darwin, Newton, Einstein and the like have become only a footnote in the history of thought. 

(this entry brought to you directly from God Himself)

Berkeley and Matter

This is the third entry on Berkeley's "Principles of Human Knowledge".  The first entry is George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge, the second is Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction.

- In the previous entries, we saw how Berkeley sets the stage for his destruction of the notion of matter.  His first attack is on the idea of abstraction, which he deems unfathomable because our minds can only think of particulars.  Scholars like Locke and Newton had attempted to fill people's heads with nonsensical notions of abstraction, like gravity or liberty.  Investigating further, Berkeley determined the root for this commonly held misconception - language.  It is through the deception of words that the notion of abstraction gets spread.  Once we can rid our discourse of abstracted terms and focus on legitimate words, we can begin to address the main thesis of Berkeley's work - that matter doesn't exist. 

Definitions

Substratum - The substance that supports attributes of reality

Sensory Perception

- If abstraction existed, then we could reasonably assume that what we saw in the world was representative of many different things with important commonalities, and not just a specific example.  It is this abstraction that leads us to assume that all the things we encounter in the world, whether through sight, smell, taste, feeling, or hearing are made up of the same thing - what we call matter.  If we no longer used the tool of abstraction, then it would be illegitimate to assume that every sensory perception we received came from a similar source, some kind of matter out there in the world. 

When we see an image of an astronaut on the moon, there is a shocking sight behind him.  A world that we have never experienced, a rock moon devoid of life.  And yet the vision is not as disturbing to us, because the "stuff" we see behind him is just another version of the matter we experience here on Earth.  By abstracting the idea of our "rocks on Earth" to "rocks", we are able to easily comprehend the matter that exists on the moon, for it is of the same kind as we are used to. 

- For Berkeley, after the misleading concept of abstraction is dismissed, the idea that the "stuff" we see behind our astronaut is the same as what we experience here is nullified.  Without the power of abstraction, we cannot assume that the "stuff" is anything like what we experience. 

"It is said extension is a mode or accident of Matter, and that Matter is the substratum that supports it.  Now I desire that you would explain to me what is meant by Matter's supporting extension...If we inquire into what the most accurate philosophers declare themselves to mean by material substance, we shall find them acknowledge they have no other meaning annexed to those sounds but the idea of Being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents.  The general idea of Being appeareth to me the most abstract and incomprehensible of all other; and as for its supporting accidents, this, as we have just now observed, cannot be understood in the common sense of those words"

So if you climb a mountain

Or feel the wind in your hair

  Or touch your first ever boob,

You aren't experiencing the feel/sight of a substratum that constitutes that thing.  In fact, we can't even see what it is that blows our hair, or experience the weight of the mountain, or know what truly constitutes those boobs.  But the answers to those mysteries are not to be found out there in the world, for they are individual sensory receptions. 

-Once we acknowledge that the substratum can't logically be acknowledged because the notion of abstraction is false, the whole normal idea of our world falls apart.  All we have left that we can talk intelligibly about is Sensory Perception.  That is all we know, that each of us receives certain stimuli.  Nothing more. 

Perception is Being

- Once abstraction and hence any logical underpinning for matter is dissolved from our discussion, all we have to consider is the sensory perception that we experience and how we experience it.

- If we can't trust the fact that what we experience in the world is out there, then the only thing we logically can trust is that we perceive something.  But if that stuff doesn't exist, then the only thing we can truly account for are those perceiving beings. 

"There was an odour, that is, it was smelt; there was a sound, that is, it was heard; a colour or figure, and it was perceived by sight or touch.  This is all that I can understand by these and the like expressions.  For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that seems perfectly unintelligible.  Their esse is percepi, nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them."

- The statement "esse is percepi" is key here and often attributed to Berkeley.  It is often translated as "To be is to be perceived".  An obvious derivation of Descartes' "I think therefore I am."  Whereas Descartes believed that you could not trust your senses for fear of the Ultimate Deceiver and therefore can only trust that you think, Berkeley counters that your senses are all that you have in the world and your thinking is dependent upon them (we will see later why there is no chance of the Great Deceiver cheating our senses).

Though I know that I've done many things with my own two hands, I can't pretend to know that they actually exist, that is, that there is some substratum of matter that makes them up or whatever they grab.  All of those things are merely sensory perceptions and they only exist as perceptions.  The only thing I know is that because I perceive, I exist. 

"Hence, as it is impossible for me to see or feel anything without an actual sensation of that thing, so is it impossible for me to conceive in my thoughts any sensible thing or object distinct from the sensation or perception of it...To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect, and try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived."

Spirits and Ideas

- If matter is gone and perception is everything, then the amount of substances in the world dwindles.  In fact, we can only assume that there are two substances: Spirits and Ideas. 

Spirit - "Only that which thinks, wills, and perceives"
Ideas - "Inert, fleeting, dependent beings, which subsist not by themselves, but are supported by, or exist in minds or spiritual substances."

- It is important to note that the ideas which we perceive do actually exist, but they only exist in our minds.  This may seem a trifling point to many, but Berkeley does not preach a skepticism; he posits that those things exist, but only in idea form not in matter form (the ramifications of this to be discussed in the next entry).

Like our deaf, dumb, blind , and bodiless Stevie Wonder here, we are receptacles for information from the world.  And yet we are not even born with the faculties to comprehend all the things that actually are in the world.  In fact, we can't even comprehend 1 of the 2 substances in the world - spirits. 

- Though this seems to be a blow to Berkeley's perfection of the senses stance, he dismisses it readily, "it is not more reasonable to think our faculties defective, in that they do not furnish us with an idea of spirit or active thinking substance, than it would be if we should blame them for not being able to comprehend a round square."   The reason for this is that in the world that Berkeley has enlightened us all to there are only 2 substances, ideas and spirits, and they are completely different substances.  These substances are so different, serve such different purposes, that it is absurd that we should consider that a spirit could act like an idea and be perceived. 

- The obvious questions to be answered are, how do we receive these ideas?/ how is it that a world void of matter could possibly supply us with stimuli?/ who or what is it that upholds this tenuous world?  The answer is rather simple.

Next Up - Berkeley and an Immediate God

Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction

This is the second entry on Berkeley's work, "The Principles of Human Knowledge", the first is George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge

Definitions

Matter - the substance of which a physical object is composed

Abstraction - a concept or idea not associated with a specific instance

- In the previous entry, Berkeley's position on the source of our sensory inputs was expressed; they come from an active and immediately intimate God who supplies all our senses with stimuli.  Thus, there is no such thing as matter.  The underlying mass that we attribute to the objects we come in contact with is a fallacy, for all those sensations are are our perceptions of God's input.  Berkeley doesn't just preach this, however, he uses rather sound philosophical arguments to make his point. 

Disproving Locke

- As any avid reader of MC Philosophy will know, John Locke was a 17th century philosopher who established a theory of how we perceive the world and how we think about it. 

Here is a representation of how he proposed it worked:

- Locke was widely influential at the time and his system makes good sense.  Berkeley takes great offense with just about every step of this theory.  The part he attacks specifically is the idea that once the mind receives sensory input, it reflects upon these inputs and generalizes them into broader abstract ideas.  Locke states, "The having of general ideas is that which puts a perfect distinction betwixt man and brutes, and is an excellency which the faculties of brutes do by no means attain unto."  What makes us human and intelligent is the capability of abstraction. 

My old dog used to eat his own shit.  He had the sensory perception of a substance that obviously didn't smell or look all that bad, and therefore there was no problem in eating that substance (his pallet was not terribly refined).  If he had the power of abstraction, he would understand that that thing which he was eating was the same as the thing that came out of his ass.  Knowing that he didn't eat it right after it came out, I know that he didn't specifically enjoy the thing that came out of him.  The change from fresh to old shit was confusing and he would have needed an abstract notion of the substance in order to group them together.  But his limited powers of recognition and abstraction disabled him from generalizing all shit into a common substance.  He could grasp fresh shit and old shit, but not the abstracted idea of shit. 

- Locke thinks we have the power to use abstraction; Berkeley thinks it is a worthless and misleading practice. 

- Berkeley at first attacks the notion that we can give specific traits to a general term.  He uses the idea of abstracting humans,

"it is said we come by the abstract idea of man, or if you please, humanity, or human nature; wherein it is true there  is included colour, because there is no man but has some colour, but then it can be neither white, nor black, nor any particular colour wherein all men partake.  So likewise there is included stature, but then it is neither tall stature, nor low stature, nor yet middle stature, but something abstracted from all these.  And so of the rest."

He may be right about this

- According to Berkeley, the use of abstract words and the ideas of abstract ideas are a fallacy.  Every time we think of something we are thinking of a specific something.  The abstract words we use, like "human", do not represent an abstract idea, as Locke would suggest, but rather, they represent a plethora of specific ideas, "But it seems that a word becomes general by being made the sign, not of an abstract general idea, but of several particular ideas, any one of which it indifferently suggest to the mind."  So we have the power to generalize ideas, like saying "human" for many a particular things, but we cannot abstract - we do not have the power to make an "abstract" form of the human that represents all humanity. 

Unfortunately for Berkeley, we now have specific reasons for saying "human".  It is not based on words or description, but on the genetic difference between the human species and all others, such that inter-breeding between the human and another species doesn't produce living hybrids.  Then again, the notion of "human" is no longer abstract, but concrete; it is a specific species.  The problem for Berkeley really lies in how we came to this discovery - through abstract theories that proved conclusive and irreproachable. 

Destroying Science

- The notion of having abstract ideas enables us to make claims that pertain to more than just specific instances.  If we cannot make an abstract claim, or effectively use an abstract word, then we are completely constrained from making laws about the world that pertain to natural phenomena.  Scientists don't just make experiments in order to show what will happen in that particular instance.  They try to set up experiments that will enable them to make abstract general ideas that can apply to all similar circumstances (since each particular circumstance is necessarily somewhat different). 

"When men consider the great pains, industry, and parts that have for so many ages been laid out on the cultivation and advancement of the sciences, and that notwithstanding all this the far greater part of them remains full of darkness and uncertainty, and disputes that are like never to have an end, and even those that are thought to be supported by the most clear and cogent demonstrations contain in them paradoxes which are perfectly irreconcilable to the understandings of men, and that, taking all together, a very small portion of them does supply any real benefit to mankind, otherwise than by being an innocent diversion and amusement...But this may perhaps cease upon a view of the false principles that have obtained in the world, amongst all which there is none, methinks, hath a more wide extended sway over the thoughts of speculative men than this as abstract general ideas."

  I wonder if Berkeley would've refused to use the microwave oven

The Problem of Words

- After discrediting the notion of abstract ideas because we do not have the capability to comprehend anything but specific sensations, Berekely turns to the root of this common mistake - words. 

- When we talk we use abstract words that supposedly represent an abstract idea - "Freedom" comes to mind.  But these words are facades that inhibit us from true understanding.  Berkeley uses the example of "triangle"

  Triangle - A plain surface comprehended by three right lines. 

- But this broad definition is rather unhelpful.  It does not tell us "whether the sides are long or short, equal or unequal, nor with what angles they are inclined to each other."  It describes an abstract triangle, one that in a way doesn't exist.  But when you think of a triangle, you do not think of a hazy glob with three sides, methinks, but you think of a specific triangle, maybe one like the one above, maybe a different type, but you think of something, not anything with 3 sides. 

"Consequently there is no one settled idea which limits the signification of the word triangle.  It is one thing for to keep a name constantly to the same definition, and another to make it stand everywhere for the same idea; the one is necessary, the other useless and impracticable." 

- Berkeley doesn't think that words should be abandoned, just the useless abstract terms.  People should focus on those words which correspond with their knowledge of the world, and not with "all that dress and incumbrance of words which so much contribute to blind judgment and divide the attention."

- Once we realize that the abstraction and thus science are useless endeavors, we can more effectively realize his conception of the world.

Next Up - Berkeley and Matter

-

George Berkeley: The Principles of Human Knowledge

George Berkeley  (1685 - 1753)

- Irish Bishop

- City and school in California named after him, though pronunciation changed from Barkley to Berkly

- Widely respected, though very rarely followed philosopher

Those Who are Wrong - Anybody with instincts, Just about all philosophers, Atheists, Scientists, Newtonians, John Locke, People who like metaphors, People who actually think they encounter something called "matter"

Position Defended - Subjective Idealism, God as the immediate cause, Non-existence of matter

Work Discussed - Principles of Human Knowledge

To start with Berkeley, it will be helpful to tell a tale.  In this case, it could be called an allegory: 

There once was a young boy who enjoyed all types of play, that is, all play that didn't include his younger, annoying sister.  He would invite over friends and they would play all day long, but sometimes his pesty sister would want to play.  One day, specifically, his sister wanted to play so bad, that her exclusive older brother decided that he and his friend would run away from her.  She followed in hot pursuit, being that she was deceivingly fast.  She was so fast that the boy and his friend could not outrun the determined sister.  He could not believe his eyes at how fast she was, but his eyes couldn't lie.  They made a mad dash for the boy's bedroom, to exclude her from the room by locking it.  As they made it into the room and shut the door quickly, both let out a sigh of relief.  The boy's relief was tempered, however, due to the patter of feet running around his room.  Of course! she was going to enter through the door that connected his room with his brothers.  As the daring sister made her way to the other door, she saw it opened and seized her chance.  She stuck her hand into the gap of the doorway, when, suddenly, the door swung closed with all possible violence.  In looking at her hand, the little girl saw that her pinkie finger was disconnected from her hand, dangling by some feeble skin.  At once her wales began and alerted the rest of the house.  She ran downstairs, where the rest of the family came to her aid, shocked at the sight.  When asking what had happened, there was no reply, just sobs.  When her brother came to the top of the stair, the family alertly looked up and asked, "What happened!!"  The boy looked down at the family, put his hands in the air, and without mirth, stated "God Did It."  There was no response.

The Immediacy of God

- Berkeley's main objective in his work is to bring God back to the forefront of people's encounters with the world.  At the time of his writing, there were people like Newton who were forming a new role for God in the world; He was relegated to the Ultimate Designer and nothing more.  In Berkeley's famous work, The Principles of Human Knowledge, he used the extreme logic of empiricism to find a way for God to be once again an integral and immediate part of human's encounters with their world; he disproved Matter.  

According to Berkeley, the boy in our story is correct, and shouldn't be questioned.  It could not have been his actions that shut the door, for the force of the door slamming doesn't exist.  In fact, no matter exists.  The only way that a thing exists is in our perception of it.  This is where the adage eternally equated to Berkeley comes in:

"To be is to be perceived."  

- The underlying matter of the door doesn't exist.  The abstract notion of some sort of mass that makes up the constitution of things is a big lie perpetuated throughout humans.  In fact, what we assume to be a thing composed of matter, is nothing more than an idea implanted in our head by an all-powerful and immediately-perceptible God.  Not that we can perceive God, as in see Him through our senses, but in every sensory perception we receive, we are the receptacle of an idea given to us directly from God.  So there is no way that humans can manipulate matter or cause something to actually move, for all they are doing is playing their part in God's play of ideas.  All humans can do is receive the images, sounds, feelings, and tastes that God implants in them.  Our playful boy could never have physically shut a mass we call a door and crushed his sisters finger, for all there was in that interaction was different perceptions being given to the Spirits involved; unfortunately for the sister, in this case, the perception given to her was that of a bloody, disembodied finger.  

God did it

God did it

God did it

God did it

Ultimate Empiricism

- To many, this might seem like the ultimate form of skepticism, that nothing exists except ideas.  In fact, this is an ultimate form of Empiricism.  Berkeley goes about his effort by determining that we can't know anything at all except what we receive from our senses.  The fact that we think that our senses perceive things that are there independent of our perception of them is merely a classic mistake made by humans and perpetuated by science.  If we can only know the exact things that we perceive, then how can we abstract things we perceive into an unknown thing called "matter"?  We can't see this abstract "matter", and any attempt to is only relying on more sensation. 

- When the final ramifications of his ultimate empiricism come through, Berkeley explains how it is that we see, hear, taste, and feel things: they are inputs from God.  Since we have no sensory reason to believe in an underlying substratum that constitutes things, the inevitable conclusion is that it doesn't exist, right?  And if matter doesn't exist, then it must be a God that tinkers in every possible facet of human experience who gives us the gift of sensory experience.   

- We'll discover how this comes about in the following entries.  Coming Soon!!

Next Up: Berkeley and Disproving Abstraction