Berkeley: Sensory Perception

Berkeley’s criticism of Locke’s distinction between primary and secondary qualities is a challenge to epistemologists. Do we experience a mind-independent reality, even though we do it with the help of senses bound to give us subjective experiences? Berkeley – or a straw man by that name – played an important part as sparring partner for an influential development of Danish theoretical philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. The protagonists here are Peter Zinkernagel and David Favrholdt. Zinkernagel held (...) an extraordinary appointment as research fellow at the University of Copenhagen. Favrholdt was the founding father of the Philosophical Institute at Odense University. This essay focuses on the constructive moments in Zinkernagel’s alternative to immaterialism, being based on a distinction between perception and action, and on Favrholdt’s development of a reconstruction of the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to explore the reception of George Berkeley in a particular corner of 20th-century Danish psychology and philosophy. In contrast to philosophers, such as Peter Zinkernagel and David Favrholdt, Danish experimental psychologists, including Edgar Rubin and Edgar Tranekjær Rasmussen, made highly appreciative reference to the methodology and experimental observations of Berkeley and David Hume. This paper focuses on these psychologists’ interest in Berkeley’s ideas. I will first present Rubin’s path from a mosaic-like understanding of psychological (...) phenomena to a holistic view, detailing what he termed adspective psychology and its method. I then turn to Rubin’s embrace of certain experimental observations made by Berkeley and, in particular, by Hume concerning the minima visibilia. The second part of the paper deals with Tranekjær Rasmussen’s interpretation of Berkeley’s work, and in particular of his immaterialism, his notion of God, and his critique of abstract ideas. (shrink)

It is common for some readers to misunderstand Berkeley’s position by believing that he denies the existence of the external world, and his philosophy inevitably leads to solipsism. Faced with these readings, I discuss in this paper the relationship between ontology and the external world in Berkeley, with the aim of clarifying some interpretative errors in that matter and showing with that three things: 1) that is a mistake to believe Berkeley’s philosophy eliminate the external world and lead to solipsism, (...) 2) that in his ontology itself is the key to understand the constitution of the external world, and 3) that God gives the ultimate meaning of that world. / Es habitual que algunos lectores confundan la postura de Berkeley al creer que niega la existencia del mundo externo y que su filosofía lleva inevitablemente al solipsismo. Frente a estas lecturas, analizo en este artículo el tema de la relación entre ontología y mundo externo en Berkeley, con el propósito de aclarar algunos desaciertos interpretativos sobre el asunto y mostrar con ello tres cosas: 1) que se trata de un error creer que su filosofía elimina el mundo externo y lleva al solipsismo, 2) que en la propia ontología está la clave para entender la constitución del mundo externo, y 3) que Dios le da el sentido último a ese mundo. (shrink)

ABSTRACT On the traditional picture, accidents must inhere in substances in order to exist. Berkeley famously argues that a particular class of accidents—the sensible qualities—are mere ideas—entities that depend for their existence on minds. To defend this view, Berkeley provides us with an elegant alternative to the traditional framework: sensible qualities depend on a mind, not in virtue of inhering in it, but in virtue of being perceived by it. This metaphysical insight, once correctly understood, gives us the resources to (...) solve a central problem that still plagues the philosophy of perception—the problem of how, given the power of the mind to create phenomenally rich experiences, ordinary perception can nonetheless be said to acquaint us with the mind-independent world. (shrink)

I discuss a thesis that I call ‘The Appearance of Mind-Independence’, to the effect that, to the subject of an ordinary perceptual experience, it seems that the experience involves the awareness of a mind-independent world. Although this thesis appears to be very widely accepted, I argue that it is open to serious challenge. Whether such a challenge can be maintained is especially relevant to the assessment of any theory, such as Berkeley’s idealism, according to which the only objects of which (...) we are aware in perception are mind-dependent. But the issue is of significance for the philosophy of perception more generally. In the course of my sceptical discussion, I argue that recent work by Campbell and Cassam may be flawed by a failure to take sufficiently seriously the requirements for genuine mind-independence. (shrink)

Both Reid and Berkeley reject ‘representationalism’, an epistemological position whereby we perceive things in the world indirectly via ideas in our mind, on the grounds of anti-scepticism and common sense. My aim in this paper is to draw out the similarities between Reid and Berkeley's ‘anti-representationalist’ arguments, whilst also identifying the root of their disagreements on certain fundamental metaphysical issues. Reid famously rejects Berkeley's idealism, in which all that exists are ideas and minds, because it undermines the dictates of common (...) sense. Reid also charges Berkeley with not only accepting but furthering the progress of ‘the Way of Ideas’, a longstanding tradition which has drawn philosophy away from true science and common sense. From Berkeley's perspective, Reid is a ‘materialist’; that is, he dogmatically accepts that mind-independent things exist. I argue that these important differences can be explained by both thinkers’ construal of certain ‘philosophical prejudices’. Finally, I conclude that despite these differences, both ought to be characterised as ‘anti-representationalists’ in light of their shared epistemological concerns. (shrink)

In Berkeley’s writings the topic of light is discussed in two different ways, within a theory of perception and within a metaphysics of nature of a Platonic stamp. In his first work, the original Essay for a New Theory of Vision, light and colours are regarded as condition and object of vision; they are examined as contents of visual perception distinct from tangible perception. Light will be dealt with in a completely different manner in Berkeley’s last work, Siris, in which (...) a spiritualistic reading of the natural world is superimposed on modern science in general and on Newtonian physics in particular. In Siris, light is the instrument by which the causal activity of divine Intellect orders and permeates the natural world. A detailed analysis of the topic of light in the two aforementioned contexts shows inconsistencies and strained interpretations which derive from the apologetic use of the theory of vision in Berkeley’s early immaterialism and from the multi-layered and confused speculations of his late Siris. On the whole, Berkeley conceives light within the idealistic frame inherited from Platonic metaphysics of light; however, the specific themes examined in the Essay for a New Theory of Vision and in Siris derive from acquisitions of modern science, and are recast within a spiritualistic interpretation which intended both to neutralize scientific ideas through their phenomenistic reading and to exploit them for apologetic ends. (shrink)

Although several passages in Berkeley are related to the question whether two or more finite substances can simultaneously perceive numerically identical sensible ideas, it is only in TDHP that he addresses the question explicitly and in some detail. Yet, Berkeley’s less than straightforward reply is notoriously difficult to pin down. Some commentators take Berkeley to be endorsing a clear‐cut positive reply, whereas others have him giving an emphatically negative one; others hold that for Berkeley there is no fact of the (...) matter that determines an answer one way or the other. I argue that all three readings find some justification at one point or another in the passage, and all hold a kernel of truth. Yet, none of them can be taken unrestrictedly because Philonous’s considered position is disjunctive: either there is no problem at all, or, if there is one, it makes equally against ‘materialism’ and immaterialism. I argue that the passage can be given an overall interpretation that explains why Berkeley is entitled to hold that there is some truth in each direction. I propose answers to the questions why Berkeley thinks there may nevertheless be a problem after all, and if so, why he can yet legitimately feel entitled to let it rest, that is, why he remains confident, within the philosophical context of his day, that his philosophy does not lead to solipsism. (shrink)

In both the Principles and the Three Dialogues, Berkeley claims that he wants to uncover those principles which lead to scepticism; to refute those principles; and to refute scepticism itself. This paper examines the principles Berkeley says have scepticial consequences, and contends that only one of them implies scepticism. It is also argued that Berkeley's attempted refutation of scepticism rests not on his acceptance of the esse est percipi principle, but rather on the thesis that physical objects and their sensible (...) qualities are immediately perceived. (shrink)

The philosophical texts of George Berkeley contain many references to the “relativity” of sensible qualities, that is, to their variation when perceived by different observers; and several of his arguments for immaterialism employ this concept. Many interpreters in this century have minimized the significance and impugned the validity of this argument. Warnock ridicules it as a sophism based on a “fantastic assumption,” and Johnston gives it short shrift. Jessop considers the relativity argument an ad hominem insufficient to demonstrate immaterialism. Indeed, (...) both Jessop and Luce so dilute the entire relativity element in Berkeley that, while he remains an idealist, he comes out assenting, in levelheaded fashion, to nearly absolute sensible objects which persist through time and are available to a plurality of perceivers. (shrink)

I argue that philonous gives two versions of the argument from perceptual relativity--One for the secondary qualities and another for the primary. Further, Both versions ultimately turn on the epistemological assumption that every case of perceiving, Regardless of the conditions of observation, Is a case of "knowing" the character of some "object". This assumption is made in order to avoid a vicious regress that arises when one tries to understand how perceptual knowledge is possible.

Millar, A. 2017. Berkeley's Puzzle. Analysis 77: 232–242.

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;The aim of this thesis is to evaluate Descartes and Berkeley's theories of perception in the light of Merleau Ponty's objections to classical theories in La Phenomenologie de la Perception. According to Merleau Ponty--whose thesis is elucidated by reference to the Gestaltists and Husserl--classical theories of perception either rely on causal explanations or on logical analyses. But, Merleau Ponty argues, neither form of explanation can suitably account for the intentional character of (...) perception. Merleau Ponty claims that it is the adherence of classical theories to the concepts and assumptions of science which lies at the root of their failure to find an adequate third form of explanation. In an attempt to give Merleau Ponty's arguments some historical substance, I undertake a detailed examination of Descartes and Berkeley's theories of perception and I argue that they are indeed founded on the new physics and that they both fail to capture the intentional character of perception. (shrink)

Descartes' writing on optics were important to the victory of the new mechanistic natural philosophy over the Aristoteleans. His innovations, however, destroyed the bases of Aristotelean realism, and contained the seeds from which Berkeley's perceptual idealism developed. This essay examines the interweaving of philosophical and scientific considerations in Descartes' theory of vision against the background of Aristotle's theory of perception, and traces the way in which his theory of vision developed, through the work of Malebranche and Locke, in an increasingly (...) idealistic direction, culminating with Berkeley's New Theory of Vision. ;The first chapter presents the Aristotelean view and attempts to single out some aspects important to his perceptual realism. The second documents Descartes' break with that tradition, focussing especially on his account of perception in Rule XII. The mechanization of light and color and the significance of this are discussed in Chapter III. ;Chapter IV focusses upon the processes of perception with special attention his account of visual spatial perception and the way in which his physiological hypotheses entangled him in problems about the nature and role of the images involved in vision, and about the judgments by means of which the mind corrects for defects in these images. ;In the last chapter three strands of thought growing out of Descartes' theory of vision are traced through the work of Malebranche and Locke to their culmination in Berkeley's New Theory of Vision, and it is shown how they are woven together there to establish visual idealism. ;In conclusion it is noted that Berkeley's argument would not have been possible in the Aristotelean framework. Aristotle's metaphysical assumptions preclude the theory that ideas are the objects of perception, the distinction between proper and common sensibles does not permit the subjectivization of colors, and the function of the common sense makes impossible a sharp distinction between seeing and judging of the sort Berkeley relies on. (shrink)

Berkeley has never given a straight exposition of his theory of minima sensibilia. The aim of this paper is to reconstruct this theory. I am deeply convinced that the number of notes concerning minima included in Berkeley’s Philosophical Commentaries as well as particular sections of his New Theory of Vision provide us with material that is sufficient for mentioned reconstruction and further analysis of this forgotten part of Berkeley‘s philosophy. First of all I examine the origin of the conception of (...) minima, then give a detailed characteristic of minima themselves based on Berkeley’s works and finally propound several arguments against the theory. (shrink)

In this paper, I argue that there is a paradigm shift in George Berkeley's philosophy between his early, unpublished manuscripts (1707-1708) and the Theory of Vision (1709). If so, the traditional method of mixing published and unpublished material will lead to a confused picture of both his early, unpublished view and the doctrine that he published. Cet article montre qu'il y a eu un changement de paradigme dans la philosophie de Berkeley entre ses premiers manuscrits, non publiés, de 1707-1708 et (...) la Théorie de la vision de 1709. Dans ces conditions, la méthode d'analyse traditionnelle consistant à mêler textes publiés et non publiés ne peut conduire qu'à fausser la représentation tant de ses premières idées restées inédites que de la doctrine qu'il a publiée. (shrink)