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Bishop Berkeley (1685-1753) was one of the greatest British philosophers.
Roger Woolhouse Roger Woolhouse is a Professor in the Philosophy Department at York University. He has written extensively about philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries - mainly focusing on metaphysics and the philosophy of science. He is currently working on Leibniz and on Spinoza.
It is evident to anyone who takes a survey of the objects of human knowledge, that they are either ideas actually imprinted on the senses, or else such as are perceived by attending to the passions and operations of the mind, or lastly ideas formed by help of memory and imagination, either compounding, dividing, or barely representing those originally perceived in the aforesaid ways. Read the first page
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The Principles starts by opposing John Locke's account of 'abstract ideas' and directs our attention to the nature of mental activity when we represent situations to ourselves. It then argues that 'matter' is one such abstract idea and thus does not represent anything real as it lacks sensuous content. The reality we directly know is always our sensations of touch, sight, etc that God gives us and 'matter' is merely a convenient way of talking about them. There is an earnest, youthful mind at work here that does not shy away from taking a radical line. The Three Dialogues presents the same doctrine in more popular terms. This gave rise to humour, as in Dr Johnson's "I refute him thus" as he kicked a stone and the story of someone slamming a door in his face, saying "Be not offended Sir, if your theory be true you may walk through it!" Interestingly, both these refer to the sense of touch. The theory of sight as a divine language led on in Britain to the scepticism of Hume, contrary to Berkeley's pious but naive hopes. He then wrote the more mature Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, not included here.
As a critic said, the Principles is hard either to refute or to agree with. Nonetheless, it is widely used in courses on 'British empiricism' to stimulate argument. In addition, Woolhouse's new introduction discusses Berkeley in relation to earlier European and later British philosophers, including Descartes, Locke, Malebranche and John Stuart Mill.
Berkeley reasons that philosophy has gotten away from common sense, and that the way to make philosophy and natural science more accessible is to use the vocabulary and understanding of the 'vulgar' masses. Berkeley's philosophy is called Immaterialism. He holds that the only things that can properly be said to exist are 'ideas' and 'spirits.' Ideas are all objects perceived by our five senses or by logic and inference from those objects. Spirits are our minds or souls, those things that perceive, think, and exercise will. He says that all other philosophical terminology only tends to confuse us. We cannot doubt the real existence of anything in the world, because we see, feel, hear, touch, and taste these things every day. What we can doubt are philosophical quandaries like abstract ideas - for existence, while we can think of a particular person in motion, we can neither conceive of a person in abstract nor of motion in general. This, Berkeley contends, is all that common sense gives to the plainest of people. Ordinary people do not doubt the existence of trees or gloves, nor do they conjecture about matter or substrata underlying the things they interact with everyday.
The 'Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous' serve to support the philosophical arguments that Berkeley made in the 'Principles.' Hylas is a materialist, while Philonous represents Berkeley's immaterialist argument. Their three dialogues are extremely entertaining and informative. They compliment the technical philosophy by providing concrete examples, which are many times missing from Berkeley's treatise. While the treatise and the dialogues can be read and understood on their own, the fullest appreciation of Berkelely comes from reading both. One limitation of Berkeley is that his 'vulgar' notions are almost too simplistic. He takes Occom's razor almost to the point of absurdity, which causes him to dispute notions like gravity, which these days one may well frown upon. Other than matters of advanced mathematical or scientific complexity, however, Berkeley's immaterialism seems, on the surface, to make great sense.
Another interesting facet of these two works is their religious component. An Anglican bishop, Berkeley makes use of his belief in God both to support his arguments, and uses immaterialist arguments to simply (far more simply than Descartes) prove the existence of God. Not quite an enthralling read, but, who reads philosophy to be enthralled? The arguments are interesting, the arguments well-supported, and possible objections deftly handled.
Berkeley really was a radical thinker, following the premises of others, like Descartes and Locke, to their logical, and deeply troubling, implications. He was out to defeat skepticism, which he saw as corrosive of religion, yet ended up a primary representative of the skeptical view. As Woolhouse points out, modern phenomenalism can find roots in Berkeley, and perhaps even the logical empiricism of the Vienna Circle. If someone were just starting out reading Western philosophy and wondered where to begin, I would recommend Berkeley as the best place to start.
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