On the Attributes of Berkeley’s God · It is clear among Berkeley’s scholars that God plays an essential role in his immaterialist proposal ; however, it is not so clear how we know Him and, in particular, what are His own attributes. In this paper I first review the characteristics of finite spirits and through them I analyze the Infinite Spirit or God with the aim of showing that His main attributes are four, namely, i) being volitional, ii) (...) being creator-upholder, iii) being perceptive, and iv) being a permanent interlocutor. These attributes, which are coherent and consistent with immaterialism, allow us to better understand the epistemic and ontological role that God plays in Berkeley’s philosophy. (shrink)

On Berkeley’s immaterialist ontology, there are only two kinds of created entities: finite spirits and ideas. Ideas are passive, and so there is no genuine idea-idea causation. Finite spirits, by contrast, are truly causally active on Berkeley’s view, in that they can produce ideas through their volitional activity. Some commentators have argued that this account of causation is inconsistent. On their view, the unequal treatment of spirits and ideas is unfounded, for all that can be observed in either (...) case are mere patterns of regularity; Berkeley should therefore adopt a full-blown occasionalism and follow Malebranche in holding that God is the only true cause. Other commentators have argued that Berkeley denies the tenet that causes necessitate their effects – that is, the idea that causation involves necessary connection – and that in this way he can avoid inconsistency. This paper argues that Berkeley can subscribe to the thesis that finite spirits are truly causally active without falling into inconsistency, even if it is granted that Berkeleyan causes necessitate their effects. His differing treatment of spirits and of ideas is well founded, since ideas are transparent in a way our notions of spirits are not. (shrink)

In this paper I examine two arguments, one by R. A. Oakes and the other by P. A. Byrne, that Berkeley's immaterialism is the only metaphysic consistent with classical theism. I show that not only do Oakes and Byrne fail to demonstrate the incompatibility of physical realism with classical theism, but also that their line of argument reveals a grave inconsistency between the latter and immaterialism. For as they expound Berkeley's metaphysic, it seems incapable of explicating the metaphysical dependency of (...) finite spirit (mind) on God. (shrink)

This paper propounds a new reading of Berkeley's account of the activity of finite spirits. Against existing interpretations, the paper argues that Berkeley does not hold that we causally contribute to the movement of our bodies. In contrast, our volitions to move our bodies are but occasions for God to cause their movement. In answer to the question of wherein then consists our activity, the paper proposes that our activity consists in the dual powers to produce (1) our volitions (...) ? the acts of willing ? and (2) our ideas of imagination. (shrink)

Berkeley was a philosopher who wrote about such diverse topics as natural philosophy, political philosophy, mathematics, economy, and theology. Within this broad range of interests, his concern about the infinite spirit stands out; thus, the aim of this paper is to trace the origins of Berkeley´s conception of God, an issue which is already prefigured in the Philosophical Commentaries. The importance of knowing and analyze the notes that make up the Commentaries lies in that they make it possible to (...) understand not only how the incipient immaterialist philosophy was established, but above all –being purpose of this paper– what features and role God acquired within it. (shrink)

Berkeley occasionally says that we use analogy in thinking and speaking of God. However, the scholarly consensus is that Berkeley rejects the traditional doctrine of divine analogy and holds instead that words like ‘wise’ apply to God in precisely the same way as they apply to Socrates. The difference is only a matter of degree. Univocal theories of the divine attributes have historically been charged with anthropomorphism—that is, with imagining God to be too similar to human beings. Can Berkeley fairly (...) be charged with anthropomorphizing God? In one sense, the answer is clearly yes: for Berkeley, God is one spirit among many. God is, uniquely, an infinite spirit, but this is an infinity in God’s degree of knowledge, power, etc. God is a spirit in precisely the same way as you, me, and Socrates. On the other hand, Berkeley’s view differs dramatically from the kinds of anthropomorphism that were criticized by classical philosophical theologians. In the first place, the classical tradition was concerned to deny that God is a body with proper parts. Berkeley, of course, also denies this. Second, the classical tradition was concerned to deny that God was composed of form and matter. Insofar as Berkeley takes the Aristotelian concepts of form and matter to be incoherent, Berkeley clearly does not hold that God is composed of form and matter. Third, the classical tradition denied that God had a real plurality of attributes. Fourth and relatedly, the tradition denied that the distinction of substance and attribute applied to God at all. There was no consensus, in the tradition, on precisely how to analyse statements like ‘God is wise’ without admitting that there was such a thing as God’s wisdom distinct from God and God’s power. However, Aquinas held that, in this context, ‘wise’, ‘powerful’, etc. express different partial conceptions of God. Similarly, Berkeley holds that ‘will’ and ‘understanding’ are two names for “one simple, undivided, active being,” the spirit itself. Finally, the tradition held that God was ‘pure act’, denying any distinction of act and potency in God. In the notebooks, Berkeley twice affirms that spirit is ‘actus 1 Does Berkeley Anthropomorphize God? 2 purus’ before resolving not to use this ‘Scholastique’ term in print. Although there is considerable difficulty in understanding precisely what Berkeley meant by this claim and how it relates to his published views about created spirits, Berkeley is consistent in insisting that there is no passivity in God. Berkeley’s God, like the classical God, is not a body, is not composed of form and matter, does not possess a real plurality of attributes, and is purely active. However, in all of these ways, God is exactly like us. I conclude that, as compared with the classical tradition of philosophical theology, Berkeley does not anthropomorphize God—he deifies the human being. Recognizing the roots of Berkeley’s account of spirit in classical conceptions of God can help to illuminate Berkeley’s remarks about how we can, and cannot, speak and know about spirits. (shrink)

Berkeley's doctrine of archetypes explains how God perceives and can have the same ideas as finite minds. His appeal of Christian neo-Platonism opens up a way to understand how the relation of mind, ideas, and their union is modeled on the Cappadocian church fathers' account of the persons of the trinity. This way of understanding Berkeley indicates why he, in contrast to Descartes or Locke, thinks that mind (spiritual substance) and ideas (the object of mind) cannot exist or be (...) thought of apart from one another. It also hints at why Gregory of Nyssa's immaterialism sounds so much like Berkeley's. (shrink)

Berkeley's immaterialism has more in common with views developed by Henry More, the mathematician Joseph Raphson, John Toland, and Jonathan Edwards than those of thinkers with whom he is commonly associated (e.g., Malebranche and Locke). The key for recognizing their similarities lies in appreciating how they understand St. Paul's remark that in God "we live and move and have our being" as an invitation to think to God as the space of discourse in which minds and ideas are identified. This (...) way of speaking about God, adapted by Karl Barth and Paul Tillich, opens up new ways to think about the relation between God and finite minds. (shrink)

Propongo tres vías para el conocimiento de Dios o espíritu infinito en Berkeley. Las tres vías se desprenden de su propio pensamiento, pero las dos primeras se basan en la parte filosófica del mismo, principalmente en los conceptos de « idea » y « mundo sensible », mientras la tercera en la parte teológico-religiosa y tiene que ver con la actividad evangélica de Berkeley, reflejada en su estancia en América y en sus labores pastorales como deán y como obispo. Las (...) tres vías, distintas entre sí pero a la vez complementarias, se fundamentan en la « analogía », concepto central para que los espíritus finitos puedan conocer a Dios. /// Je propose d’identifier trois voies pour la connaissance de Dieu ou de l’esprit infini chez Berkeley. Ces trois voies lui sont propres, mais les deux premières relèvent davantage de sa philosophie, reposant essentiellement sur des concepts tels que ceux d’« idée » ou de « monde sensible », tandis que la troisième trouve sa source dans la pensée théologico-religieuse et dans l’activité évangélisatrice de Berkeley, telle qu’elle s’est développée lors de son séjour en Amérique et dans son rôle de doyen et, plus tard, comme évêque. Ces trois voies, complémentaires quoique différentes, se fondent sur l’« analogie », un concept central permettant aux esprits finis de connaître Dieu. /// In this paper I propose three ways to know God or infinite spirit in Berkeley. The three ways stem from his own thought, but the first two are based on his more philosophical side, mainly in concepts such as ‘idea’ and ‘sensible world’, whereas the third way is based on his theological-religious side and is related to Berkeley’s evangelical activity, reflected on his time in America and on his labors as a dean and later as a bishop. The three ways, different between them but at the same time complementary, are based on ‘analogy’, a central concept for finite spirits to know God. (shrink)

In ‘Berkeley and God’, Jonathan Bennett diagnoses Berkeley's intermittent advocacy of the proposition that physical things ‘do sometimes exist when not perceived by any human spirit’ by pinning on him the invalid argument, vitiated by the ambiguity of ‘depend’, from all ideas depend on some spirit or other, via some sensible ideas do not depend on these spirits themselves, to some ideas depend on non-finite spirits.

In the first quarter of the eighteenth century, four philosophers independently proposed immaterialist theories. Ontologies of this kind had been absent from the philosophical stage for several centuries, and their sudden and widespread revival suggests that there was something about the intellectual milieu at the turn of the seventeenth to the eighteenth century that made a move to immaterialism a natural step to take. This dissertation examines some of the factors which contributed to its revival. ;In this dissertation, immaterialist theories (...) are placed against the backdrop of a philosophical division between early modern versions of Platonism and Epicureanism, the former accentuating the priority of the infinite over the finite and the latter stressing instead the priority of the finite over the infinite. The twin revivals of these two ancient philosophical systems were instrumental in giving rise to importantly different versions of immaterialism. Part One of the dissertation serves as an introduction to the two subsequent Parts, by laying out some relevant historical and philosophical details regarding Platonism, Epicureanism and immaterialism. In Part Two, it is shown how Berkeley's early theory can be viewed as an Epicurean form of immaterialism. It is suggested that, while coherent as far as it went, the early theory left some crucially important things out---above all, a sound conception of God---and that, for Berkeley to be in a position to incorporate such components into his philosophy, he was compelled to make certain adjustments to it. These adjustments led to his moving quite far, from the Epicureanism of his youth to the Platonism of his old age. ;Part Three culminates with a discussion of the philosophy of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards' own version of immaterialism, like Berkeley's later theory, had a strongly Platonist flavour. But, unlike Berkeley, Edwards drew on a sequence of seventeenth century theories concerning the relation between incorporeal extension and the divine substance. This enabled him to achieve a clearer conception of the divine ideas---the ones doing all the work in a Platonist immaterialist theory---than Berkeley ever managed. (shrink)

I begin with an examination of Berkeley’s various suggestions about how to account for the continued existence of physical objects which are unperceived by finite spirits. After dismissing some of these suggestions I attempt to combine others in a unified theory which involves an appeal to what finite perceivers would perceive if they were in the right conditions, to the operation of the will of God, and to the perception of God. I assess the merits, both philosophical and (...) textual, of the unified theory. In the final section I comment on the implications of this theory of continuity for our conception of a Berkeleian physical object. (shrink)

I begin with an examination of Berkeley’s various suggestions about how to account for the continued existence of physical objects which are unperceived by finite spirits. After dismissing some of these suggestions I attempt to combine others in a unified theory which involves an appeal to what finite perceivers would perceive if they were in the right conditions, to the operation of the will of God, and to the perception of God. I assess the merits, both philosophical and (...) textual, of the unified theory. In the final section I comment on the implications of this theory of continuity for our conception of a Berkeleian physical object. (shrink)

George Berkeley notoriously claimed that his immaterialist metaphysics was not only consistent with common sense but that it was also integral to its defense. Roberts argues that understanding the basic connection between Berkeley's philosophy and common sense requires that we develop a better understanding of the four principle components of Berkeley's positive metaphysics: The nature of being, the divine language thesis, the active/passive distinction, and the nature of spirits. Roberts begins by focusing on Berkeley's view of the nature of being. (...) He elucidates Berkeley's view on Locke and the Cartesians and by examining Berkeley's views about related concepts such as unity and simplicity. From there he moves on to Berkeley's philosophy of language arguing that scrutiny of the famous "Introduction" to the Principles of Human Knowledge reveals that Berkeley identified the ideational theory of meaning and understanding as the root cause of some of the worst of man's intellectual errors, not "abstract ideas." Abstract ideas are, rather, the most debilitating symptom of this underlying ailment. In place of the ideational theory, Berkeley defends a rudimentary "use theory" of meaning. This understanding of Berkeley's approach to semantics is then applied to the divine language thesis and is shown to have important consequences for Berkeley's pragmatic approach to the ontology of natural objects and for his approach to our knowledge of, and relation to other minds, including God's. Turning next to Berkeley's much aligned account of spirits, the author defends the coherence of Berkeley's view of spirits by way of providing an interpretation of the active/passive distinction as marking a normative distinction and by focusing on the role that divine language plays in letting Berkeley identify the soul with the will. With these four principles of Berkeley's philosophy in hand, he then returns to the topic of common sense and offers a defense of Berkeley's philosophy as built upon and expressive of the deepest metaphysical commitments of mainstream Christianity. Roberts' reappraisal of this important figure should appeal to all historians of philosophy as well as scholars in metaphysics and philosophy of language. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Berkeley au siècle des Lumières: Immatérialisme et scepticisme au XVIIIe siècleTodd RyanSébastien Charles. Berkeley au siècle des Lumières: Immatérialisme et scepticisme au XVIIIe siècle. Preface by Geneviève Brykman. Paris: Vrin, 2003. Pp. 368. Paper, € 28,00.The reception accorded to Berkeley's immaterialism by eighteenth-century philosophers constitutes one of the great puzzles of early modern philosophy. How is it possible that Berkeley, whose announced purpose in both the Principles and (...) Three Dialogues was to refute "Skeptics and Atheists," should quickly come to be seen as the foremost champion of Pyrrhonian skepticism, and indeed of atheistic solipsism? To be sure the caricature of philosophical opponents for polemical purposes is hardly limited to Berkeley. Yet from the [End Page 495] modern point of view Berkeley, the "good Bishop" who tirelessly insisted on the consonance of immaterialism with common sense, as well as the indispensable role of God as cause of our ideas of sense, seems a rather unlikely candidate for the near universal hostility—one might even say vilification—that was to be his lot.Forty years ago Harry M. Bracken attempted to unravel this paradox in his classic study The Early Reception of Berkeley's Immaterialism. Through a careful and philosophically informed examination of early accounts of Berkeley's immaterialism, Bracken argued that the distorted image of Berkeley that was to become the common currency of Enlightenment thinkers had its origin in the earliest accounts of Berkeley's work, most notably a pair of reviews in the Jesuit journal Mémoires de Trévoux, and a vituperative attack on "the atheism of the Immaterialists" by Father Tournemine. According to Bracken, the image of Berkeley as a radical disciple of Malebranche who pushed the Oratorian's philosophy to its logical conclusion by denying the existence of matter was promoted by the Jesuits as part of their theological and political struggle against Cartesianism. It was also in these early reviews that Berkeley's name was first associated with the legendary "egoist" philosopher who in addition to denying the existence of material substance, further claimed that his was the only created spirit in existence.Sébastien Charles's impressive new study extends Bracken's work by carefully documenting the dissemination of this distorted image of Berkeley throughout the intellectual world of eighteenth-century Europe. Charles's book is a comprehensive and impressively erudite survey of the use (and misuse) of Berkeley in the writings of the philosophes, as well as later thinkers, including the Idéologues and members of the Berlin Academy. Sadly, though perhaps not unexpectedly, the texts that Charles surveys afford little critical insight to interpreters of Berkeley. The misreadings of Berkeley are so egregious and so pervasive that the philosophy of the Principles and Three Dialogues is generally disfigured beyond recognition. Indeed, even to speak of a "misreading" of Berkeley is somewhat misleading, since many of those who took up the task of refuting immaterialism seem not to have read him at all.However, Charles's aim is much less to shed interpretive light on Berkeley's philosophy than to rectify the long-standing image of the eighteenth century as an era of unbridled epistemological optimism. Emphasizing the confrontations with radical skepticism to be found in the writings of thinkers as diverse as Rousseau and Diderot, La Mettrie and Destutt de Tracy, Charles argues that far from ignoring the threat of radical skepticism, materialists and dualists, deists and Christians made common cause in their struggle against what they took to be Berkeley's alleged "egoism." Indeed, for Charles, "the question of solipsism was the central problem for the metaphysics of the Enlightenment."The ubiquity of references to Berkeley among these thinkers certainly argues in favor of Charles's thesis. Yet the attempt to survey such a large number of authors frequently necessitates an abbreviated treatment that renders difficult the task of assessing the relative importance of the confrontation with radical skepticism in any individual thinker's system. Further, the very weakness and formulaic character of the attempted refutations might reasonably raise suspicions as to whether the threat of solipsism was taken as seriously as Charles maintains... (shrink)

Berkeley holds that the essence of sensible objects is percipi. So, sensible objects cannot exist unperceived. Naturally, this has invited questions about the existence of sensible objects when unperceived by finite minds. This is sometimes called the Problem of Continuity. It is frequently said that Berkeley solves the problem by invoking God's ever-present perception to ensure that sensible objects maintain a continuous existence. Problems with this line of response have led some to a phenomenalist interpretation of Berkeley's claim. This (...) paper argues that neither of these are Berkeley's solution since he recognizes no such problem. The paper sketches a new interpretation of sensible objects that obviates the need for a "solution" by avoiding the "problem" in the first place. (shrink)

Note on the text of the principles -- Context -- Biography -- Berkeley's philosophical background -- Overview of themes -- Teading the text -- The principles : introduction -- The principles : part one -- The objects and subject of knowledge : ideas and spirit -- Unperceived existence : a nicer strain of abstraction -- Problems for materialism -- A Cartesian dream argument -- The master argument -- From the inertness of ideas to the existence of God -- Philosophical (...) objections to immaterialism and replies -- Religious objections to immaterialism and replies -- Further advantages of immaterialism -- Great provinces of speculative science -- The attack on absolute space -- Mathematics -- Other minds -- The divine language of nature -- Reception and influence -- Guide to further reading. (shrink)

Berkeley begins his discussion of the consequences of his principles negatively, by identifying a rival principle, one that has adverse consequences for human knowledge. About natural philosophers, Berkeley wants it to be known that they are the worst offenders when it comes to encouraging scepticism. This is because they have added what amounts to a new principle to a general mistrust of the senses engendered by the twofold existence principle. Berkeley attributes the error philosophers have fallen into a belief in (...) abstract ideas, linking the issue of external existence with that of abstraction. Berkeley's refutation of scepticism together with his positive account of the knowledge of nature constitutes his evidence for his proof that we have knowledge of God. Understanding the nature of knowledge that is actual allows us to identify the agent of that knowledge as a wise and good spirit, that is to say, as God. (shrink)

In my paper, I dispute Christian Hengstermann’s analysis of More’s philosophical system as a form of panentheistic panpsychism in which matter is alive by virtue of being the last emanation from God. I show that, in his mature period, More explicitly rejected such an emanationist doctrine and attributed the non-mechanical powers of matter to an outside immaterial principle, the Spirit of Nature. Ultimately, this leads to a system in which divine space, the Spirit of Nature and the (...) class='Hi'>spirit of God are representations of various aspects of the divine essence, as it is at work in the world. On the other hand, matter is not part of this triadic structure and can only be said to be alive at the cost of a rather counterintuitive redefinition of the notion of “life”. (shrink)

Berkeley’s appeal to a posteriori arguments for God’s existence supports belief only in a God who is finite. But by appealing to an a priori argument for God’s existence, Berkeley emphasizes God’s infinity. In this latter argument, God is not the efficient cause of particular finite things in the world, for such an explanation does not provide a justification or rationale for why the totality of finite things would exist in the first place. Instead, God is understood (...) as the creator of the total unity of all there is, the whole of creation. In this a priori argument, we should not focus on the specific objects that God creates, for that requires that we think that God knows each finite thing as distinct from every other. Rather, we should recognize how God creates all things in creating the complex, infinite totality of finite perceivings, each of which exists in virtue of the distinctions and relations it expresses. (shrink)

This paper argues that a debate between Toland and Clarke is the intellectual context to help understand the motive behind the critic and the significance of Berkeley's response to the critic in PHK 60-66. These, in turn, are responding to Boyle's adaptation of a neglected design argument by Cicero. The paper shows that there is an intimate connection between these claims of natural science and a once famous design argument. In particular, that in the early modern period the connection between (...) the scientific revolution and a certain commitment to final causes, and god's design, is more than merely contingent. The details of PHK 60-66 support the idea that the critic is responding to concerns that by echoing features of Toland's argument Berkeley undermines the Newtonian edifice Clarke has constructed. (shrink)

In a familiar limerick attributed to Ronald Knox, the narrator asks how a “tree/should continue to be/when there’s no one about in the Quad,” and is subsequently reassured that its continuous existence is guaranteed by God’s being “always about in the Quad” observing it. This is meant to capture Berkeley’s so‐called ‘continuity argument’ for the existence of God, on which the claim that objects exist continuously over time is supposed to entail the existence of a Divine Mind that continuously perceives (...) the ideas that constitute those objects. But the continuity argument is not an uncontroversial one. For one thing, we might ask what divine perception is supposed to be like – does God perceive all of the ideas that we do, and in the same way that we do? And if so, does this mean that God perceives pain – that God suffers? For another thing, we might ask whether Berkeley is entitled to the claim that objects exist continuously to begin with. In this paper, I look at some of the problems associated with the continuity argument, and then present a reading of divine perception that attempts to prevent these problems from arising at the outset. (shrink)

Malebranche affirmed the existence of the material world on the grounds of faith rather than reason. Religious dogma demanded the existence of the material world and Malebranche, the priest, acquiesced. Reason found the existence of the material world doubtful and, indeed, unnecessary. The existence of a material world different from and apart from minds conflicts with the proof of the economy of God's nature which Malebranche offered. Further, in inquiring into the probable nature of the material world Malebranche never successfully (...) avoided the conclusion that apart from a mind the material world is nothing. Malebranche thus came close to proving that the assumption of a material world is unnecessary even for theology, but the explicit statement of such a conclusion would have been too open a break with the church for a faithful member. Surely, however, the weight of Malebranche's reasoning and its implications for immaterialism would not be lost on one already interested in arguments against materialism. Berkeley's interest was such and Luce has shown that Berkeley read Malebranche carefully. Malebranche was the only thinker clearly inclining toward immaterialism whom Berkeley read. Is Malebranche, then, not the source of Berkeley's immaterialism? (shrink)

Berkeley's immaterialism aims to undermine Descartes's skeptical arguments by denying that the connection between sensory perception and reality is contingent. However, this seems to undermine Berkeley's (alleged) defense of commonsense by failing to recognize the existence of objects not presently perceived by humans. I argue that this problem can be solved by means of two neglected Berkeleian doctrines: the status of the world as "a most coherent, instructive, and entertaining Discourse" which is 'spoken' by God (Siris, sect. 254) and the (...) nature of language as a public social practice. Together these doctrines entail that ordinary physical objects, including those that are not presently perceived, are a joint product of divine discursive activity and human interpretive activity. (shrink)

Berkeley claims idealism provides a novel argument for the existence of God. But familiar interpretations of his argument fail to support the conclusion that there is a single omnipotent spirit. A satisfying reconstruction should explain the way Berkeley moves between first person singular and plural, as well as providing a powerful argument, once idealism is accepted. The new interpretation offered here represents the argument as an inference to the best explanation of a shared reality. Consequently, his use of the (...) first person must be taken as ‘exemplary’ rather than ‘Cartesian’. This explains the freedom of movement in the text between singular and plural. However, it also reveals Berkeley as side-stepping sceptical doubt. (shrink)

In both the Principles of Human Knowledge and the Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous, George Berkeley provides a description of God’s attributes immediately after his arguments for God’s existence. Neither description deems God omnipotent, yet shortly after each he freely uses “omnipotent” and its synonyms to describe God. Why is this? The author argues that his reluctance to ascribe omnipotence is God is the reluctance of a careful philosopher, his willingness is that of a religionist, and his account of (...) language explains why he can speak in two voices. Focusing on Principles §146, the author shows that the argument does not support the claim that God is omnipotent. The notion of omnipotence is ambiguous, so a careful philosopher should avoid it. Nonetheless, his discussion of noncognitive uses of language allows the religionist to use “omnipotent” to express divine veneration. Berkeley’s use of the word “omnipotence” is religious. (shrink)

Orthodox Christianity affirms a bodily resurrection of the dead. That is, Christians believe that at some point in the eschatological future, possibly after a period of (conscious or unconscious) disembodied existence, we will once again live and animate our own bodies. However, our bodies will also undergo radical qualitative transformation. This creates a serious problem: how can a body persist across both temporal discontinuity and qualitative transformation? After discussing this problem as it appears in contemporary philosophical literature on the resurrection, (...) I will argue that George Berkeley's immaterialist metaphysics is more successful than either physicalism or dualism in escaping objections to resurrection based on the problem of qualitative transformation. In order to accomplish this, I will first discuss Berkeley's views on the metaphysics of so-called 'ordinary' objects, including human bodies, and then apply this view to the resurrection of the dead, ultimately showing that, for Berkeley, the radical transformation of the body in the resurrection is no more problematic than the case of a straight oar appearing bent when one end is inserted in water. (shrink)

In the Preface to the Three Dialogues<, Berkeley says that one of his main aims is to refute the free-thinkers. Puzzlingly, however, we are then treated to a dialogue between two Christians in which the free-thinkers never reappear. This is related to a second, more general puzzle about Berkeley's religious polemics: although Berkeley says he is defending orthodox conclusions, he also reminds himself in his notebooks "To use the utmost Caution not to give the least Handle of offence to the (...) Church or Church-men." What is Berkeley worried about? Both of these puzzles are solved by the recognition that the argument against matter in the Three Dialogues is patterned after an argument for atheism that Berkeley attributed to Anthony Collins. Berkeley's aim is thus to use the free-thinkers' own premises and arguments against them. In doing this, however, he rejects doctrines many churchmen held dear -- most notably, the doctrine of divine analogy. (shrink)

In the concept of "gift," some contemporary thinkers perceive the possibility for a renewal of philosophical and theological reflection. The Parisian philosopher Claude Bruaire innovately proposes to understand "gift" ontologically rather than phenomenologically or sociologically. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore Bruaire's ontology of gift , while testing its ability to elaborate an adequate interpretation of the essence of finite and infinite spirit. ;Bruaire views gift and being as coextensive for two reasons. First, he interprets being (...) in terms of spirit and of freedom. Gift then is the name of the ternary freedom-spirit-being. Second, being-of-spirit is gift because God is not only absolute spirit, he is also Triune. ;The first part of the dissertation explains how, for Bruaire, the intimation of Christian revelation enhances philosophy and suggests the elaboration of an ontology of spirit. We then proceed to show in what way, prior to the development of his ontodology , Bruaire's systematic anthropology and his conception of absolute spirit were built around a notion of gift which was yet to be developed fully. In the course of this discussion the necessity for an ontological account of gift emerges clearly. ;The second part unfolds Bruaire's ontodology in three steps. We first of all recount how the retrieval of the concept of spirit enables Bruaire to restore the notion of being to philosophical reflection. We then explain in what way the human spirit is given to the self in order to become self. Finally, we show that, for Bruaire, the infinite, creator, and eternal spirit is gift because God is donation , reddition , and confirmation of the gift . Entering in conversation with the philosophy of Hegel and Schelling, Bruaire draws from German Idealism key themes and terms, and corrects them in the light of the principle of unfathomable positivity stemming from his comprehension of Christianity. This approach enables him to develop a cogent interpretation of being as love. (shrink)

David Hume wrote that Berkeley's arguments `admit of no answer but produce no conviction'. This book aims at the kind of understanding of Berkeley's philosophy that comes from seeing how we ourselves might be brought to embrace it. Berkeley held that matter does not exist, and that the sensations we take to be caused by an indifferent and independent world are instead caused directly by God. Nature becomes a text, with no existence apart from the spirits who transmit and receive (...) it. Kenneth P. Winkler presents these conclusions as natural consequences of Berkeley's reflections on such topics as representation, abstraction, necessary truth, and cause and effect. In the closing chapters Proefssor Winkler offers new interpretations of Berkeley's view on unperceived objects, corpuscularian science, and our knowledge of God and other minds. (shrink)

Berkeley argues that claims about divine predication (e.g., God is wise or exists) should be understood literally rather than analogically, because like all spirits (i.e., causes), God is intelligible only in terms of the extent of his effects. By focusing on the harmony and order of nature, Berkeley thus unites his view of God with his doctrines of mind, force, grace, and power, and avoids challenges to religious claims that are raised by appeals to analogy. The essay concludes by showing (...) how a letter, supposedly by Berkeley, to Peter Browne ("discovered" in 1969 by Berman and Pittion) is, in fact, by John Jackson (1686-1763), controversial theologian and friend of Samuel Clarke. (shrink)

Hegel believes that the immanent ascent of finite spirit and its immersion in its uncreated foundation-in absolute spirit-is a true transition and he cannot use the so-called proofs of the existence of God. Besides, he sees an advantage here in that this transition results in the ascent of the human spirit to the most concrete and true, to God in His absolute truth-to Absolute Spirit. In connection with this, Hegel emphasizes in the manuscript of his (...) lectures on the philosophy of religion that the speculative meaning of the religious idea of the immortality of the soul lies in attaining the absoluteness and infinity of self-consciousness, the fact that "the self-consciousness of the spiritual is itself an eternal, absolute factor.". (shrink)

The literature on Berkeley is almost unanimous in taking this claim to know the existence of other finite spirits to rest on an argument from analogy. I show that this is not so and that Berkeley uses a causal argument to prove that there are other minds. Questions of the degree to which it is legitimate for Berkeley to appeal to causes, particularly occasional causes, are addressed in the process.

Berkeley develops his theory of vision in the early work An Essay Towards a New Theory of Vision, which has generally been read only attending its scientific or perceptual aspects. In this paper I propose a different reading of the Essay. My reading wants to show that this work not only attend scientific aspects but, on the contrary, anticipates the immaterialism of later works. It does this because God plays an important role in it, which is due, among other things, (...) that theory of vision is developed according to God, since of Him depends both sight and visible objects and visual language argument. (shrink)

A plausible reading of Berkeley’s view of voluntary motion is occasionalism; this, however, leads to a specious conclusion against his argument of human action. Differing from an unqualified occasionalist reading, I consider the alternative reading that Berkeley is a conservationist regarding bodily motion by the human mind at will. That is, finite minds (spirits) immediately cause motions in their body parts, albeit under the divine conservation. My argument then comports with the conservationist reading from three perspectives: (i) theodicy that (...) the human mind is held liable for sinful actions; (ii) an account of the human mind influencing other minds; and (iii) an improper but necessary directing principle of the human mind. This article is a stepping stone to grasping why the conservationist reading is more coherent than the occasionalist one. (shrink)

In 1747, Kant believed that the mind/body problem presupposed several false and interrelated assumptions that fell under the general view that the essential force of body is vis motrix, namely that bodies act only by causing changes of motion, that bodies can be acted upon only by being moved, and that souls and bodies do not share a common force. He argued in Thoughts on the True Estimation of Living Forces that the traditional vis motrix view, which was defended by (...) Wolff, appealed to an unexplanatory and metaphysically incoherent conception of force. ;Kant maintained that God acted to unify our world in such a way that all its finite substances possess a vis activa capable of producing motion in bodies and representations in souls. Unlike Leibniz's account of vis activa, Kant's account was compatible with the existence of transeunt or externally-directed forces. Indeed, Kant argued that every change in our world involves the exercise of a transeunt force. ;In Living Forces, Kant used these ideas to solve the mind/body problem. This study evaluates Kant's solution and traces his responses in later pre-critical texts to several acute difficulties. Chief among these difficulties was that his account of the "divine schema" of our world was incompatible with his metaphysical dualism: to exist in our world, Kant argued, all substances must possess attractive and repulsive forces, but attributing these forces to souls implied that they also possessed the same material nature as the physical monads out of which material bodies are composed. ;Kant did not recognize this problem until the early 1760s, and in the Dreams of a Spirit-Seer he maintained that it was insoluble. In the Meta-physik L1 lectures , Kant articulated a new understanding of the mind/body problem that centered on the idea that the body is an object of outer sense and the soul an object of inner sense. ;I conclude that, although his understanding of mind/body connectedness remained inadequate in the mid-1770s, Kant's struggles with this and related issues contributed to the development of systematic critical strictures on meta-physical reasoning and to the critical theory of inner sense. (shrink)

My paper concerns Berkeley’s notion of theology. After brief considerations on the general attitude toward religion by Berkeley, I try to assess the immaterialistic approach to three main topics of theology: the ground of any theological knowledge, natural theology, revealed theology. My argument takes in consideration particularly Berkeley’s criticism of Scholasticism. My claim is the following: Berkeley holds that all men have an immediate experience of God’s presence, but this experience is not direct conceptual knowledge. I shortly compare my views (...) with D.Berman’s in section two of the paper. The third section deals with the lines of direction of immaterialistic theology. I claim that Berkeley argues for a twofold source of the experience of the divine. The first is natural and regards all human kind. Platonism is the context of Berkeley’s treatment. The second is historical and concerns just Christians. Reference is to the Bible. I treat the problem of the consistency of these two different ways to make an experience of God, comparing my position with that by J.S.Spiegel. Finally I briefly consider Berkeley’s defence of historico-critical reading of the Bible, as a consequence of his attitude towars the second source of theology. (shrink)

The main conclusion of Herman Philipse’s God in the Age of Science? is that we should all be atheists. Remarkably, however, the book contains no argument whatsoever for atheism. Philipse defends the argument from evil and the argument from divine hiddenness, but those arguments count only against an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God, not against just any god. He also defends the claim that there cannot be any bodiless spirits, but, of course, not all religions take their gods to be bodiless. (...) However, because his main tar- get of criticism is monotheism and adherents of monotheism usually claim that God is a bodiless spirit, this paper discusses Philipse’s arguments against the existence of a bodiless spirit. I argue that his three main claims about religious belief in a bodiless spirit are false. First, contrary to what he says, there is good reason to think that the expression “bodiless spirit” is meaningful. Among other things, the Wittgensteinian semantic theory of psychological attribute ascription on which his argument relies turns out to be untenable. Second, Philipse’s thesis that the existence of a bodiless spirit is impossible is also problematic. We can properly use the word person for bodiless spirits. Also, an attribute such as presence or omnipresence can be understood metaphorically without the definition of “God “thereby losing too much meaning. And we do not need any criterion for diachronic personal identity of bodiless spirits; such identity may very well be a primitive fact. Third and finally, there is no reason to think that the existence of a bodiless spirit is improbable. The fact that science has discovered a dependence relation between mental states and brain states and the fact that science has never been able to detect bodiless spirits provide no reason to think otherwise. (shrink)

continent. 2.1 (2012): 6–21. The French philosopher and novelist Tristan Garcia was born in Toulouse in 1981. This makes him rather young to have written such an imaginative work of systematic philosophy as Forme et objet , 1 the latest entry in the MétaphysiqueS series at Presses universitaires de France. But this reference to Garcia’s youthfulness is not a form of condescension: by publishing a complete system of philosophy in the grand style, he has already done what none of us (...) in the older generation of speculative realists has done so far. His book is sophisticated, erudite, rigorous, imaginatively rich, and abundant in worldly wisdom– despite the author’s conclusion that wisdom does not exist. The quality and scope of Forme et objet took few observers by surprise, since Garcia has been treated as an emerging philosopher to watch across half a decade of Parisian oral tradition. But Garcia was not just the subject of rumor, being already well known to the French public as a writer of fiction. His debut novel, La meilleure part des hommes , 2 was awarded the 2008 Prix de Flore 3 and has already appeared in English as Hate: A Romance . 4 His follow-up novel, Mémoires de la jungle , 5 made clever use of a chimpanzee narrator. Nor was Garcia only published as a novelist before last November: his philosophical study L’Image 6 had already appeared when the author was just twenty-six, a year before he was crowned by the muses at the historic Café de Flore. And then in 2011, just months before the appearance of Forme et objet , Garcia published a widely distributed work entitled Nous, animaux et humains , 7 with its focus on Jeremy Bentham’s ideas about animals. Given this prolific and versatile track record, an optimistic scenario might envisage the young Garcia as one of those combined literary/philosophical talents who appear intermittently in France across the centuries: Jean-Paul Sartre is merely the most famous recent case. While more time is needed to see how Garcia will channel his impressive mental energies, Forme et objet displays such breadth of insight that its author has a good chance to emerge as one of the leading philosophers of his generation. If we accept Aristotle’s dictum that the peak mental age is fifty-one, then to read Garcia’s massive book is to gain some idea of what European philosophy might look like in the futuristic-sounding 2030’s. The present article is confined to Forme et objet . At 486 pages, the work is obviously daunting in size. Indeed, it is even longer than it sounds, given that many of its early sections are printed in a smaller typeface to designate them as supplemental commentary to the main flow of the argument. But while the length of the book reportedly led to delays in French publication, and will probably slow the inevitable appearance of an English translation, the length of the book should not deter interested readers– much of it results from Garcia’s teacherly writing style. Whereas Quentin Meillassoux’s prose displays an arctic economy of means, Garcia’s style is reminiscent of the repeated lessons of oral classroom proceedings. Rarely is the reader given fewer than three or four chances to master an idea before the author moves on to the next. In practice, the style feels welcoming rather than long-winded. Otherwise, the structure of Forme et objet is surprisingly simple. There is a useful Introduction of less than twenty pages. Then comes Book I: Formally , running to approximately 135 pages. Here Garcia outlines the most basic features of a thing “no matter what it is,” or n’importe quoi , an everyday phrase that Garcia shapes into a technical term. This part of the book feels at times like a more amiable version of Hegel’s Science of Logic , a parallel emphasized further by the threefold articulation of its theme: 1. Thing; 2. Thing and World; 3. Being and Understanding. This is followed by the much longer Book II: Objectively , totaling more than 300 pages. It contains sixteen essay-like meditations on specific kinds of objects—including time, animals, humans, history, gender, and death. Here each chapter rolls smoothly into the next, making this second part of the book feel more like a different work of Hegel: The Phenomenology of Spirit . But these are merely analogies. Garcia is no Hegelian, even if the book contains a few dialectical flourishes that seem to reflect his early enthusiasm for the Frankfurt School. Forme et objet ends with a six-page Coda, followed by the usual page of acknowledgments. In what follows, I will briefly summarize each of these four parts of the book before ending with some more general remarks. Before doing so, it will be useful to situate Garcia biographically (as much as I am able) and philosophically. Though Toulouse is his native city, his formative years were spent largely in Algeria, where his family has deep roots. During our sole private conversation, Garcia mentioned that his parents are professors of literature. 8 As a student of philosopher Garcia flourished so early that many of his current ideas date to his teenaged years: “There are sentences in Forme et objet that I wrote when I was seventeen,” he said in response to a question on that cold night on the Canal St.-Martin. I recalled that remark when reading his brilliant account, late in the book, of the central role of adolescence in contemporary culture. While many prodigies blow through their formal academic training without serious obstruction, Garcia’s student memories are rich in tales of isolation and struggle, though equally rich in gratitude for a half-dozen or so exceptional teachers who provided the intellectual space he needed: Meillassoux and Alain Badiou are simply two of the most prominent figures on that list. Though there are many points of agreement between Garcia’s philosophical position and my own, he not only reached his position years before reading my work, 9 he arrived along a rather different path: not through phenomenology, but via the Frankfurt School, which may be one of the reasons for his profound fascination with aesthetics. Garcia’s cultural background is as broad as one could wish: he is no less informed about punk rock and European football leagues than about the spiritualist roots of Bergson’s philosophy. Curious about everything and contemptuous towards nothing, Garcia can be expected to write insightfully on dozens of topics in the years to come. Given that his philosophy is so personally tantalizing in its agreements and disagreements with my own, and given the great internal richness of Forme et objet itself, the present review is no better than a first effort at coming to terms with the challenges posed by this minstrel from the rising generation. This is especially intriguing for older Generation X’ers like me, since confrontation with the younger generation is one of the many themes treated insightfully in Garcia’s book. 1. Introduction Garcia begins in defense of a so-called “flat ontology,” in which all things are equally things. While Roy Bhaskar 10 used this term pejoratively to refer to anti-realist philosophies that flatten everything onto an epistemic plane of human access, Manuel DeLanda 11 (an admirer of Bhaskar) reversed it into the positive principle that all realities are equally realities. Similar notions can be found in the “absistence” of Alexius Meinong, 12 the “irreduction” of Bruno Latour, 13 and my own critique 14 of the undermining/overmining pair. Also noteworthy is Levi Bryant’s use of the term “flat ontology” throughout The Democracy of Objects 15 and his earlier essay “The Ontic Principle.” 16 But for Garcia, flatness is only one face of the cosmos, and one that he ultimately declares to be rather impoverished. Even so, he always remains an advocate of a flat ontology. Insofar as everything is equally something, no matter what it is ( n’importe qui ), everything is equally a thing, equally solitary in its relation with world. This is why his book abounds in those long lists of random, ontologically equivalent entities that Ian Bogost has playfully termed “Latour Litanies.” 17 The first litany in Garcia’s book runs as follows: “We live in this world of things, where a cutting of acacia, a gene, a computer-generated image, a transplantable hand, a musical sample, a trademarked name, or a sexual service are comparable things.” (7) Yet Garcia is frankly dualistic; his flat ontology only lasts until page 159 and the end of Book I (entitled “Formally”), which deals entirely with things that are equally things. Thereafter Garcia turns his attention from things to objects, which are not flat in the least, but engage in hierarchical relations with one another. In agreement with both DeLanda and the speculative realists, Garcia proclaims that his book “proposes to put to the test a thought about things rather than a thought about our thought about things .” (8) Just as ducklings are “imprinted” (9) after hatching and treat the first creature they see as their mother, philosophers are imprinted by the idea with which they begin. Hence, philosophies that begin with human access will never truly find their way back to things. This makes Garcia rather suspicious of twentieth century philosophy, since “the twentieth century—to which in some way this work proposes to bid adieu—has been a period of theorizing modes of access to things rather than things...” (9) Among other possible benefits of the philosophy of things that Garcia proposes, it is fully able to account for thought as a special variant of things, while the reverse is not possible.(10) In Book I of Forme et objet , Garcia’s “things” are so flat, so de-determined, that he is forced to renounce some of the most basic features ascribed to things by most realists. As he tells us in his foreboding third footnote: “We will maintain that the solitude [of things] is less than unity, less than identity, and that it does not imply acceptance (any more than refusal) of the principle of non-contradiction.” (11) In a contemporary world cluttered with too many things, Garcia’s flat and formal plane provides us with some breathing room: “The formal plan of thought enables or re-enables us to cut short all accumulation—whether of knowing, experience, or action—by a simplicity, an impoverished surface...” (13) As Garcia says elsewhere in responding to a Deleuzian critic of the book, his starting point in flat ontology is designed to obstruct the claims of both analytic philosophy and Hegelianism: “Hence, this work seeks to protect each thing—real, imaginary, inconsistent, contradictory—both against Ockham’s Razor and against the Aufhebung or dialectical process.” 18 Yet contrary to the equalizing spirit of many flat ontologies, “we will add to our formal ontology of the equal, an objective ontology of the unequal.” (13) But initially, Garcia joins all flat ontologists in holding that everything is irreducible: “this irreducibility, which we will term the ‘chance’ of each thing... also marks the refusal of a positive thought that reduces things exclusively to natural things, or social things, or historical things, etc.” (15) This irreducible “chance” of a thing emerges as an important technical term in the book, always paired with its inverted brother, the “price to pay” ( prix à payer ). On pages 17-19, we find the only diagrams in the book. What they illustrate is that Garcia wishes to avoid two equally dangerous extremes. The first is the philosophy of substance, featuring the thing-in-itself as a mighty river fed by attributes as if by subordinate tributary streams. This model can be found in many of the classic thinkers of West and East alike. In it, “there is obviously a hierarchization between that which is dragged towards something other than itself, and this other which serves it as an ontological support while supporting its proper being.” (16) For Garcia, the second extreme worth avoiding is the philosophy of events: “One thus conceives trajectories of being, identified as events, facts, powers, intensities, or intentionality. These vectors of being come first, bearing and supporting being, displacing it, but without ever finding a stopping point, a buffer, an objective consistency.” (17) The first model gives us a thing too wrapped up in itself, too compact . This word “compact” (the French and the English are the same) is another technical term for Garcia. But if the “compact” model of things leads us to something more than things, the philosophy of events gives us less than things, by dissolving them into a play of vectors. Garcia’s alternative lies midway between these two extremes: Being enters the thing, being comes out of it. And a thing is nothing other than the difference between the enters and the being that comes out. Thus, the circuit of being is never halted. In the thing, there is never the thing-in-itself. And the thing is never in-itself, but outside of itself. Nonetheless, being is not eventally “pollinated” by vectors: it possesses an objecting halting-point... (19) This single idea is the key to Garcia’s book: the thing is neither a self-contained durable lump nor some sort of evental flux. Instead, the thing is the difference between its various components and its relations with its environment. Or stated differently: “the price to pay for this disposition is a circulation of being that systematically distinguishes two senses of things: that which is in the thing , and that in which the thing is , or that which encompasses it and that which it encompasses,” (19) translating comprendre here as “encompass.” 19 In a beautiful description of a piece of black slate, Garcia sums up the various minerals, qualities, and shapes that compose [ comprend ] it, and calls them “that which is in the thing,” (20) noting that this tells us nothing about “that in which [the slate] is”—namely, all the various situations in which the black slate can be found. Instead, the slate is the difference between these two: the most characteristic principle of Garcia’s philosophy. 2. Formally Book One of Forme et objet , “Formally,” is concerned with the formal equality of all things in a flat world. “Two questions mark the boundaries of reflection: of what is everything composed [ composé ], and: what do all things compose?” (27) Looking downward, we wish to know what everything is made of; looking upward, we want to know the ultimate result of the combination of all things. Here we must turn our attention to the thing n’importe quoi— no matter what it is. (30) Anything with finite qualities is obviously too specific to be relevant to global ontological questions. To an equal degree, something possessing all qualities (think of Whitehead’s God) 20 would not be n’importe quoi either, since it would still be too definite, even if incredibly vast. The same holds for contradictions, since these all differ from each other. The square circle, the non-white black white, and the non-city city are all too distinct to count as the thing no matter what it is. The n’importe quoi must be devoid of all specific qualities, including contradictory ones. In one of the more intriguing points in his book, so reminiscent of Meinong, Garcia proclaims that “the ‘no matter what it is’ is neither a reality nor an abstract construction, nor both of these at once; the ‘no matter what it is’ is simply the plane of equality of that which is real, that which is possible, that which is inexistent, that which is past, that which is impossible, that which is true, that which is false, that which is bad.”(39-40) Since everything has two faces, it would be a grievous mistake to focus on just one of them at the expense of the other, as physicalism or materialism do when reducing the world to minuscule physical underpinnings. For scientistic materialism, “it is either atoms, particles, or fields of force... which are the things.” (47-48) Moreover, “these more-than-things are accompanied by less-than-things: for example, ideas or facts of consciousness are determined by the state of matter and are not autonomous things, but manifestations reduced to secondary effects of material processes...” (48) On this point, Garcia’s position is in complete accord with my own critique of undermining and overmining. 21 Where we disagree is that Garcia is more deeply suspicious of the notion of substance, which I view as salvageable with a few needed changes, while Garcia sees this operation as hopeless: “A substance, in the history of philosophy, is the more-than-thing par excellence.” (51) Another agreement between our positions is visible when Garcia claims (correctly, in my opinion) “that it is vain to distinguish between things which are material and those which are not.” (52) Yet we also find an even more important disagreement, since for Garcia withdrawal cannot be the quality of a thing. Instead, the absence of a thing is simultaneous with it, embodied in all that is not it– the absence of the sculpture of a woman is to be found in the mold that appears at the same time as it, and thus withdrawal must be viewed as an “event” rather than as something pertaining to an object. For Garcia, nothing withdraws beyond access. Since we must distinguish between “that which is something” and “that which something is,” and since the former is identified with “no matter what it is is” and the latter with “ not no matter what it is,” we can say that “everything is thus a milieu, a fragile link between ‘no matter what it is’ and ‘ not no matter what it is.’” (62) And here we find Garcia’s critique of the thing-in-itself: “A thing is never defined en bloc . We can affirm that a thing is this or that, but that does not suffice. It is still necessary to state precisely that which is this thing .” (62) Stated differently, “something is not in itself : for that which is in the thing is not the thing, and that in which the thing is is not the thing.” (62) And here Garcia and I, facing the same evidence, draw opposite conclusions. For me, the fact that nothing can be identified with either its components or its concrete location means that the thing must be something in-itself distinct from both of these. Yet for Garcia, to be in-itself would mean to be identified with just one of these two extreme terms, and hence the thing can only be the difference between them. Garcia is equally suspicious of the classical tendency to view “unity” as a property of the thing, since in his eyes unity is too relational a property to belong to things. (65) While specific things are situated determinately with respect to other things, we are still speaking here about the thing no matter what it is, and this can be viewed only in terms of solitude, which all things share: a human being, a hand, or a chair or all equally things insofar as they are on their own , not insofar as they are one . (64) A thing is alone, and relates only to the one thing that is not another thing: world. In a striking parallel to my own argument for a partial revival of occasionalism, Garcia tells us that “the things communicate only by their solitude: it is because everything is equally on its own in the world that things can be together, enmeshed in one another.” (67) Alone in their solitude, things all relate to world, which serves as a mediator allowing them to become mixed up in one another. As we have seen, one reason that nothing can be in itself is because everything is in something else. For Garcia, “to be in something and to be something are equivalent.” (69) Stated more broadly, “being is thus the difference between the two aspects of each thing: that which is it, and that which it is.” (70) And even more vividly: “a thing is almost like a sack: there is that which one puts in the sack and that which remains outside the sack.” (70) But not quite like a sack, “since a thing is not a thin skin or film. Instead, a thing is comparable to a sack that is immaterial and without thickness: it is nothing other than the difference between that which is this thing and that which thing is, between content and container.” (71) Nothing can be in-itself because everything is two selves at once. For example, we cannot say that our self is defined by our consciousness: “Everything has a self because nothing is in itself. The self is not the quality of that which is related to itself (which is conscious, for example) or which thinks itself related to itself. Nonetheless, for an entity called ‘conscious’ to be related to itself, it is necessary that this very relation should be another thing than the self to which it is related.” (71) Consciousness cannot be the self, precisely because it is other than that of which it is conscious. Nothing is able to grasp itself. The self is “the function by which being and composition [ compréhension ] are mutually excluded...” (72) The self is “the point of shadow of everything that projects some light...” (72) The in-itself faces two opposite dangers: “For something to be in-itself is to be a self. Something which is a self flies out through one of its two sides... Stated differently, being in-itself is simply the possibility of a double failure.” (73) The in-itself can be termed compact : “There remains to us a means of thinking that which does not fully enter into the world, though without exiting from it. This means is what we call the compact.” (76) In a sense, the compact is the opposite of the world. For in the case of the world, everything enters it and it enters nothing; as for the compact, it enters the world (since it is something, after all) while nothing enters it. (77) The compact marks the presence of the impossible in the world. (78) It is not impossible, but possible only on the condition that it fails. (78) The time has come to speak of where a thing is located. “The sole condition of a thing is that of being in another thing than itself, and thus in another thing than something.” (78) A condition is “that which determines something, that which forms something, that in which something is.” (78) As for humans, “the condition of someone is his situation; my social condition is that which socially determines me, my place and my function...” (79) More generally, “to be conditioned is to find oneself reduced to that in which one is.” (79) Everything is conditioned, but nothing is reducible to this condition. To determine the condition of something is to determine in what it is. A thing is located in that which contradicts it, just as a statue exists in its mold, which is precisely that which it is not. Since the thing is finite and definite, its condition or form must be infinite and indefinite. That in which all things are is the world, which Garcia also terms “the whole.” (81) “To try to be in-itself is to attempt to remain outside the world. And indeed, to try to be in-itself is only a path of entry into the world.” (83) For Garcia, “the world is not the pre-existent container of the things it contains, a priori , nor the construction by the mind of a fictional ensemble of all things, a posteriori .” (85) Instead, the world is simultaneous with all things; the two always go together. The world cannot be a determinate world, such as the physical universe or mathematical space, since these are already too specific and limited. “Every determinate world, which is in fact a universe , is a ‘big thing’ [ grosse chose ]: it is a set, however vast, of composite things which itself embodies a thing.” (85) Every determinate world is really just a “big thing.” Stated differently, “it is nothing other than a balanced milieu between the things that compose it and the thing that it composes.” (85) We generally picture the world as a physical univer. (shrink)

I argue that Berkeley's distinctive idealism/immaterialism can't support his view that objects of sense, immediately or mediately perceived, are causally inert. (The Passivity of Ideas thesis or PI) Neither appeal to ordinary perception, nor traditional arguments, for example, that causal connections are necessary, and we can't perceive such connections, are helpful. More likely it is theological concerns,e.g., how to have second causes if God upholds by continuously creating the world, that's in the background. This puts Berkeley closer to Malebranche than (...) to Hume. -/- As far the what I call the "first strategy;" defending the passivity of ideas by ordinary introspection, I refer to the work of the French psychologist Albert Michotte,(1940) and those now extending his experiments, to show that (1) there is an immediate and quite robust visual impression of causality, (admitted in fact by Berkeley, Malebranche and Hume) and (2) of more importance, the impression isn't due to projecting into nature expectations gained from experienced regularities. (shrink)

This essay consists of two parts. Part I offers an explanation of Berkeley's understanding of the relationship between materialism and evil. Berkeley regards materialism as the chief instrumental cause of evil in the world. It is the belief in matter that encourages us to believe that God is not immediately, intimately present in every aspect of our life. Immaterialism, by contrast, makes God's immediate presence vivid and thereby serves to undermine the motivation to vice. Part II locates Berkeley's view on (...) matter and evil within the Christian Neoplatonic tradition. I compare Plotinus' minimalist approach to matter and his identification of matter with evil to Berkeley's eliminitivism about matter and his corresponding identification of materialism as the chief source of evil. (shrink)

Notoriously, Berkeley combines his denial of the existence of mind-independent matter with the insistence that most of what common sense claims about physical objects is perfectly true (1975a, 1975b).1 As I explain (§ 1), he suggests two broad strategies for this reconciliation, one of which importantly subdivides. Thus, I distinguish three Berkeleyian metaphysical views. The subsequent argument is as follows. Reflection, both upon Berkeley’s ingenious construal of science as approaching towards an essentially indirect identification of the causal-explanatory ground of the (...) order and nature of our ideas in God’s volitional strategy, and also upon the currently orthodox status of a Humean principle about the a posteriority of causation, points towards an isomorphism between the three Berkeleyian views and three more modern metaphysical views, explicitly advertised as realist, in at least some sense which is supposed to be in stark contrast with Berkeley’s anti-realist immaterialism (§ 2). The real distinctions between the three modern views, and, correspondingly, between the three Berkeleyian views, are semantic rather than genuinely metaphysical (§ 3). All six views share a fundamental assumption, that the causal explanatory grounds of the order and nature of our experiences are distinct from the direct objects of those experiences, in a techinical sense to be made precise, in virtue of which they fail ultimately to sustain our intuitive commitment to empirical realism, the thesis that physical objects are, both the very things which are presented.. (shrink)

This work traces the theory of Radical Dependence through its various forms in Berkeleys philosophical works. It shows that a desire to establish a theory of Radical Dependence underlies all of these works and that this theory unifies Berkeleys various phases of philosophical development. The work begins by establishing the meaning of Radical Dependence and examining the influence of Greek, Early Christian and Mediaeval philosophers and theologians on the development of the concept. Subsequently, the deism of the seventeenth-century philosophers is (...) examined; the influence of science and rationalism on the development of deism is traced, with particular attention being given to Berkeleys personal milieu. With a view to showing that Berkeley wishes to re-establish the waning Christian cosmology, his philosophical works are examined in chronological order, particular attention being paid to his final work Siris. It is shown that, although Berkeley moves from a philosophy based on the immaterialist hypothesis in his early works, to one based on the doctrine of participation in his last work, each phase is a variation of the doctrine of Radical Dependence. In the final chapter some of the shortcomings of Berkeleys various philosophical systems are discussed and alternatives are examined. The direction of his thought is found to be guided more by piety than by common-sense and reason: he suffers from a pious pragmatism which leads him to hold doctrines as true on the grounds that they corroborate Christian doctrines. His firm belief in the providence of God leads him to affirm an almost pantheistic worldview which he never fully manages to reconcile with traditional Christian theology, and the doctrine of creation ex nihilo in particular. (shrink)

The seventeenth century was an important period in the conceptual development of the notion of the infinite. In 1643, Evangelista Torricelli (1608-1647)—Galileo’s successor in the chair of mathematics in Florence—communicated his proof of a solid of infinite length but finite volume. Many of the leading metaphysicians of the time, notably Spinoza and Leibniz, came out in defense of actual infinity, rejecting the Aristotelian ban on it, which had been almost universally accepted for two millennia. Though it would be another (...) two centuries before the notion of the actually infinite was rehabilitated in mathematics by Dedekind and Cantor (Cauchy and Weierstrass still considered it mere paradox), their impenitent advocacy of the concept had significant reverberations in both philosophy and mathematics. In this essay, I will attempt to clarify one thread in the development of the notion of the infinite. In the first part, I study Spinoza’s discussion and endorsement, in the Letter on the Infinite (Ep. 12), of Hasdai Crescas’ (c. 1340-1410/11) crucial amendment to a traditional proof of the existence of God (“the cosmological proof” ), in which he insightfully points out that the proof does not require the Aristotelian ban on actual infinity. In the second and last part, I examine the claim, advanced by Crescas and Spinoza, that God has infinitely many attributes, and explore the reasoning that motivated both philosophers to make such a claim. Similarities between Spinoza and Crescas, which suggest the latter’s influence on the former, can be discerned in several other important issues, such as necessitarianism, the view that we are compelled to assert or reject a belief by its representational content, the enigmatic notion of amor Dei intellectualis, and the view of punishment as a natural consequent of sin. Here, I will restrict myself to the issue of the infinite, clearly a substantial topic in itself. (shrink)

In Passive Obedience Berkeley argues that we must always observe the prohibitions decreed by our sovereign rulers. He defends this thesis both by providing critiques against opposing views and, more interestingly, by presenting a moral theory that supports it. The theory contains elements of divine - command, natural - law, moral - sense, rule - based, and outcome - oriented ethics. Ultimately, however, it seems to rest on a notion of spiritual reason — a specific God - given faculty that (...) all rational human beings have. Berkeley’s work on immaterialism, for which he is better known, could thus perhaps best be seen as an attempt to find a scientific justification for his moral doctrine. (shrink)

: Establishing and defending the Christian faith serves as both a guide and a limit to Berkeley's intriguing metaphysics. I take Berkeley seriously when he says that his aim is to promote the consideration of God and the truth of Christianity. In this paper I discuss and engage Berkeley's superficially weak argument (which I call the natural analogy argument) in defense of the plausibility of the doctrine of bodily resurrection. When his immaterialist resources are properly applied, the argument has more (...) merit than one might initially believe. I conclude by speculating that Berkeley had reason to believe that immaterialism was a better fit with Christianity than materialism. (shrink)

There is a widespread assumption that Berkeley and Spinoza have little in common, even though early Jesuit critics in France often linked them. Later commentators have also recognized their similarities. My essay focuses on how Berkeley 's comments on the Arnauld-Malebranche debate regarding objective and formal reality and his treatment of god's creation of finite minds within the order of nature relate his theory of knowledge to his doctrine in a way similar to that of Spinoza. On estime souvent (...) que Berkeley et Spinoza ont peu en commun, même si les premières critiques jésuites en France les ont souvent liés. D'autres commentateurs ont également reconnu leurs similitudes. Mon essai se concentre sur la manière dont 1 / les remarques de Berkeley sur la discussion entre Arnauld et Malebranche concernant la réalité objective et formelle et 2 / son traitement de la création par Dieu des esprits finis dans l'ordre de la nature mettent en relation sa théorie de la connaissance et sa doctrine de la liberté dans une manière semblable à celle de Spinoza. (shrink)

Even though Hegel rejects Kant’s criticism of the classical proofs for God’s existence, he is far from joining the followers of St. Anselm.What is needed, he suggests, is the rational account of the transition from the final notion to the infinite Being. The Lectures in its central treatment of the Cosmological proof present us with an explanation in rational terms of the fact of religion, i.e., the elevation of the finite spirit to infinite God, rather than with a (...) proof in a narrow logical sense. Hegel is not so much asking the question ‘Does Godexist?’ but rather ‘How is the elevation of the finite spirit to God possible?’ The Hegelian ‘proof,’ I argue, consists in a demonstrationof the necessity of movement from finiteness to infinity, that is, the demonstration of the necessity of religion itself. Religious faith in this context is not juxtaposed to reason, but appears as a mode of imperfect knowledge, which is superseded by the further development of the rational concept. (shrink)

In his foreword, Brand Blanshard provides the suitable justification for publishing yet one more book on Berkeley: Berkeley is "curiously modern," and philosophically acute. Twelve competent essays, contributed by as many scholars, testify to the accuracy of Blanshard's judgment. These twelve scholars, all of whom rely on the Luce-Jessop definitive edition, touch upon the major issues of Berkeley's philosophy: perception, substance, spirit, and God. Differences in interpretation are everywhere evident, but Berkeley is nowhere given facile treatment or quick dismissal. (...) Of the many good essays, Ian T. Ramsey's on "Berkeley and the Possibility of an Empirical Metaphysics" deserves close attention. Ramsey argues that Berkeley's doctrine of will, soul, mind, etc., should be viewed as forms of personal activity and not on the analogy of Locke's ideas. T. E. Jessop contributes a useful bibliography as well as an essay on "Berkeley as Religious Apologist." The only, very minor, flaw in this distinguished volume is that the editor's own essay, the twelfth, "Berkeley and his Modern Critics" might have been better placed immediately following the foreward.--D. J. M. B. (shrink)