The ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of the imagination; they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence, and are not excited at random, as those which are the effects of human wills often are, but in a regular train or series – the admirable connection whereof sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. Now the set rules or established methods, wherein the mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of sense, are called the Laws of Nature; and these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas are attended with such and such other ideas, in the ordinary course of things.
Specimen Questions
1 Examine Berkeley’s argument that ‘houses, mountains and rivers’ do not have an existence apart from being perceived.
2 Explain the role of God in Berkeley’s conception of reality.
3 Berkeley argues that it is contradictory to entertain the notion of a world of mind-independent objects (physical objects that exist unobserved). What is his argument and is it successful?
Suggestions for Further Reading (Including Internet Resources)
1 G. Berkeley, Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]. See also Three Dialogues [1713] in Philosophical Works, ed. M. Ayers (London: Dent, 1975).
2 Useful introductions to Berkeley’s thought are J. Dancy, Berkeley: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987); J. O. Urmson, Berkeley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982); G. Warnock, Berkeley (3rd edn, Oxford: Blackwell, 1982).
3 More detailed studies are: A. Grayling, Berkeley: The Central Arguments (London: Duckworth, 1986); I. C. Tipton, Berkeley: The Philosophy of Immaterialism (London: Methuen, 1974); K. P. Winkler, Berkeley: An Interpretation (Oxford: Clarendon, 1989); R. Fogelin, Berkeley and the Principles of Knowledge (London: Routledge, 2001).
4 For online resources, go to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy at https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/ (by L. Downing), and the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy at https://www.iep.utm.edu/berkeley/ (by D. E. Flage).
5 P. Millican discusses Malbranche and Berkeley in a podcast lecture 2.5 of his General Philosophy series (2010) at Oxford University, http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/25-nicolas-malebranche-and-george-berkeley, and Berkeley’s idealism as a response to Locke in lecture 6.3 at http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/63-abstraction-and-idealism.
6 Another useful online site for Berkeley is maintained by D. Wilkins (Trinity College, Dublin) at https://www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwilkins/Berkeley/.
Notes
* George Berkeley, Treatise Concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge [1710; 2nd edn 1734], Part I, paras 1–10, 14, 19, 23–6, 28–30; with omissions, and some changes of spelling and punctuation. There are many available editions of the Principles, including one with a full introduction for students, ed. J. Dancy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). See also the handy collection, Berkeley: Philosophical Works, ed. M. Ayers (London: Dent, 1975).
1 1 Various.
2 2 ‘Without’, as often in eighteenth-century English, here means ‘outside’.
3 3 Repugnancy: contradiction.
7 The Limits of Metaphysical Speculation: David Hume, Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding*
A bewildering array of metaphysical theories of reality was on offer by the mid-eighteenth century. We have already looked at three: Locke’s world of objects characterized by real primary qualities inhering in an unknown material substrate; Leibniz’s theory of individual substances as active centres of energy; Berkeley’s total denial of material substance, or indeed anything outside the perceptions of a mind or Spirit. In his Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), the Scottish philosopher David Hume asserted that the notion which Locke had referred to, of an unknown ‘something’ supposed to ‘support’ qualities was an ‘unintelligible chimera’.1 Our knowledge cannot go beyond our experience (see Part I, extract 7, above), and ‘our ideas of bodies are nothing but collections formed by the mind of the ideas of the several distinct sensible qualities of which objects are composed’.2
In the following extracts from An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding (1748), Hume divides all the objects of legitimate human inquiry into two classes, which he terms Relations of Ideas and Matters of Fact. The former, typified by the truths of mathematics, are established a priori (independently of experience), ‘by the mere operation of thought’. But they form a closed system, arising merely from how our ideas or concepts are defined: they do not give us any information about what really exists in the world. Matters of fact, by contrast, concern what really exists, but no propositions of this kind can be conclusively demonstrated: there is no contradiction in denying them (that the sun will not rise tomorrow ‘is no less intelligible and implies no more contradiction than that it will rise’). Instead, such truths are based entirely on experience; but all that experience reveals is what has actually been observed to happen up till now.3 Hume goes on to underline our inability to predict, in advance of experience, how even the most familiar objects will behave: for all we know a priori, when one billiard ball hits another, both balls ‘may remain absolutely at rest’. Moreover, though the scientist may aim to reduce all observed phenomena to a set of simple laws or principles, any attempt to speculate further about the ultimate reality responsible for these general truths is in vain: the most perfect natural science only ‘staves off our ignorance’, since ‘the ultimate springs and principles’ of reality are ‘totally shut up from human curiosity and enquiry’.4 Finally, in our concluding passage (from the last part of the Enquiry) Hume summarizes his position on the two classes of truths we can know, and issues a firm warning about the futility of metaphysical inquiry going beyond these limits. Relations between ideas may be investigated by the ‘abstract reasoning’ of mathematics; this aside, all claims to further our knowledge about what exists must be based on experience – yet this can tell us only about actually observed phenomena, and is ‘entirely silent’ about any supposed ultimate reality underlying them. The closed, a priori reasonings of mathematics, on the one hand, and the limited results of actual observation on the other, exhaust the proper sphere of human inquiry. Any metaphysical speculation which tries to go beyond these boundaries should be committed ‘to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion’.
All the objects of human reason or enquiry may naturally be divided into two kinds, to wit, Relations of Ideas, and Matters of Fact. Of the first kind are the sciences of Geometry, Algebra, and Arithmetic; and in short, every affirmation which is either intuitively or demonstratively certain. That the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other sides is a proposition which expresses a relation between these figures. That three times five is equal to the half of thirty expresses a relation between these numbers. Propositions of this kind are discoverable by the mere operation of thought, without dependence on what is anywhere existent in the universe. Though there never were a circle or triangle in nature, the truths demonstrated by Euclid would for ever retain their certainty and evidence.
Matters of fact, which are the second objects of human reason, are not ascertained in the same manner; nor is our evidence of their truth, however great, of a like nature with the foregoing. The contrary of every matter of fact is still possible; because it can never imply a contradiction, and is